Keynote Presentation - Ian Ritchie
| Location: | Western Infirmary Lecture Theatre (map: B9) |
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| Time: | 12:15-13:15, day 2 |
Where the Web came from
The story of the web as we know it and the underlying technologies, tracing its roots back as far as Vannevar Bush’s 1945 article describing his idea for a “Memex” device for storing and retrieving linked pieces of information, through to a rejected conference paper by Tim Berners-Lee proposing a “World Wide Web”.
Ian C Ritchie CBE, FREng, FRSE, FBCS
Ian Ritchie is the non-executive Chairman of Iomart plc, Computer Applications Service, the Interactive Design Institute, Cogbooks, and Red Fox Media. He founded OWL in 1984 which pioneered hypertext application development (a forerunner to the world wide web) and sold the company to Panasonic in 1989. Since then he has been involved in over 40 start-up high-tech businesses.
He is Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) and the Vice President, Business of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE). He serves on the board of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, the National Theatre of Scotland, and Chairs the Board of Our Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh’s Science Centre. He is a Trustee of the Saltire Foundation and The David Hume Institute.
He was a board member of Channel 4 TV (2000-2006) and deputy Chairman of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (2002-2011).
He was awarded a CBE in 2003 for services to Enterprise and Education.
He has a degree in Computer Science (1973) and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by Robert Gordon University, Abertay, Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Universities. He was widowed in 2001 and has two grown up children (Niall, 1980 and Claire 1989).