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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Dr Andrew Rogoyski

Dr Andrew Rogoyski is Innovation and Partnership Director of the AI Institute at the University of Surrey. He has experienced several winters where interest in AI has nearly evaporated but is excited to now be in a summer of interest as big tech pours fortunes into development, some fruitful and some futile. 

In March 2023 he tried to co-sign the letter from 1,000 people calling for the suspension of development in the AI tool ChatGPT but couldn’t as the server crashed. Among those who did manage the sign the letter were Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak.

Catherine Ross

Dr Catherine Ross has been a decade working on the extensive archives of the Met Office and is a mine of information on its history, role and contributions to many aspects of our nation and individuals . Amongst that is the use of and impact of technology. Catherine traces the use of pre-digital IT back to the employment of the Victorian telegraph to transmit readings and broadcast predictions and storm warnings. Between then and the invention of the stored program digital computer, Dr Ross charts the use of other technologies, including “computors” and the early vision of how armies of people with mechanical calculators might have presaged the use of super computing.

The Met Office was one of the first users of digital computers as we know them in 1951, running its programs on the Leo at Cadby Hall. Its first own computer was a Ferranti Mercury. The Met Office’s ever more sophisticated numerical modelling of the atmosphere has created a continually expanding demand for computing power. That has made it one of the most demanding users of processing power, leading it to use larger and larger supercomputers from Control Data, Cray and IBM. 

Sir Alan Rudge

Sir Alan Rudge has been called one of the top technical minds in the country. He took an unconventional path to the top doing a City and Guilds telecoms technicians course and then a diploma in electrical engineering at a polytechnic. He worked in the USA, taught at a UK university and then ran the Electrical Research Association. He was headhunted to run R&D at BT: his first act was to hand the R&D budget back to the operating units and make his laboratories bid for projects from the rest of BT. So successful was this approach that he doubled the number in BT R&D.

Norman Sanders

Norman Sanders was very much involved in the early days of the computer industry, being rightly called a computer pioneer working alongside other great pioneers like Sir Maurice Wilkes and David Wheeler. Norman says that his working life consisted of helping to get the computer revolution going and he has published five books, numerous papers and articles alongside his work for employers such as Boeing, Metier and Sperry. He was also a technology adviser to Harold Wilson in the 1960s.