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The stories of the pioneering people behind IT

This expanding database contains more than 200 oral histories recorded by the Archives of IT team. They tell the extraordinary story of how the Tech industry has transformed our lives, in the words of the people who made and are making it happen.

You can filter interviews by subject area below or use the Search button at the top of the page. If you know who you are looking for, use our A-Z list here.

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Stephanie Liston

Stephanie Liston was born in the mid-west of the USA to a mother who was a first grade teacher and a father who was a finance director in the retail sector.  Stephanie studied history and political science at The Colorado College.  She studied law in San Diego, London and Cambridge.  Her first legal job was with Fulbright and Jaworski, which had offices in Houston, Washington and London.

Stephanie joined MCI Communications Corp in January 1990.  She was involved in forging joint venture agreements across the globe for MCI.  She returned to the UK, where she completed her LL.M. at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, to join Freshfields in 1992.  There she continued to advise MCI with its Concert joint venture with BT.

She was recruited by a number of firms throughout her legal career.  From Freshfields Stephanie joined Baker and McKenzie, working on international communications and technology matters and being asked to join the international partnership.  She built a very successful telecoms practice from scratch – but without the international focus.

Chris Little

Chris Little is in his 50th year of applying IT to numerical weather prediction at the Met Office.  He has been involved in many of the most important developments in weather and climate modelling over that time and is still there working on international collaboration projects.   Chris has programmed some of the most powerful supercomputers of their days and instigated the use of a wide range of graphic devices for forecasters and researchers. He spent three years at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (based in Reading) that extended weather forecasting beyond a few days with the application of the first Cray supercomputer. 

Richard Little

Richard Little is a serial angel investor who learned to be an entrepreneur by watching his father and trained for a life in technology by studying languages.  Richard built and successfully exited his own business in the 1980’s and 90’s, applying cheaper new technology in financial services.  His first big idea failed but the second one worked, and he says that is not a bad formula for building a business.

In the 21st century he has turned his hand to helping others’ companies grow by leveraging investment with his acquired expertise.  Richard believes that helping small companies grow is good for the economy and society, as well as being a rewarding occupation.  His current portfolio includes Cloud, AI and EdTech.

Pete Lomas

Pete Lomas and a colleague designed the Raspberry Pi educational computer to help turn young people from consumers into creators. The original plan in 2008 called for 3,000 units: there are now close to 30 million of these small and inexpensive used to educate young people into how to design digital systems of all types. Pete went further and turned Raspberry Pi into a charity with other industrialists and academics. Raspberry Pi came out of a long career in electronic engineering which included teaching and research at Manchester University and commercial work developing digital systems for clients.

Linda Macaulay

Linda Ann Macaulay is Professor Emerita of Information System Design, University of Manchester. Professor Macaulay’s research interests are concerned with how technical system design can be informed by the needs of users and groups of users and fall into the four main areas: Human Computer Interaction; Requirements Engineering; e-Commerce and e-Business; and Facilitated Collaboration.

In 1999 she was the first female Professor to be appointed to the Department of Computation at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. She is twice holder of the prestigious IBM Faculty Award. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. Her memoir ‘Hello Computer’ is a personal history of computers from 1967 to 2017.

Alastair Macdonald CB

Alastair Macdonald CB spent 32 years as a civil servant working on advice to ministers and executing policy for the IT industry. He was the civil servant in charge of the IT82 awareness campaign initiated by Lord Ken Baker. Macdonald was in charge of the privatisation of BT, a world first which started the liberalisation of the telecommunications industry. He was in charge of the Y2K efforts to avoid a catastrophe with the change of date at the start of this century. He took part in the decisions to widen the offering of mobile phone networks in the UK from two to four vendors.