biztech

Oxford entrepreneurs make it onto Tech 100 most-influential list

 2 mins | By Gill Oliver
 |  | Oct 15th 2019

International publication Business Insider has included several Oxfordshire names in its UK Tech 100 list of the most influential people shaping British technology in 2019.

Onfido founders Husayn Kassai, Eamon Jubbawy, and Ruhul Amin are ranked number 18 for their AI-powered identity-verification startup favoured by Deliveroo, Zipcar, and Square. The three met at Oxford University and launched Onfido in 2012.

go deeper

DeepMind founders Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg, and Mustafa Suleyman, whose company was bought by Google for £400m in 2014, are ranked 22nd.

At number 35 in the line-up is Professor Sandra Wachter of the Oxford Internet Institute. She specialises in the ethics of Big Data and AI, robotics and internet regulation.

Entrepreneur Joy Foster is ranked 67th in the list and described as ‘the woman helping women upskill women’. Ms Foster is founder and managing director of TechPixies, which helps women learn new digital skills Since it launched in 2015, the company has helped 250 women back into the workplace or to start their own business.

Also making it onto Business Insider’s ranking in 76thplace is Swedish-born Nick Bostrom, professor of philosophy at Oxford University and an AI expert who leads the Future of Humanity Institute. Bill Gates and Elon Musk have both recommended Bostrom’s book, Superintelligence.

Ranked 88th is Oxford University academic, leading computer scientist and cofounder of the Open Data Institute, Sir Professor Nigel Shadbolt who will head the new institute specialising in the ethics of AI, as part of Oxford University’s new £150m humanities centre.

Finally, former Culture Secretary and MP for Wantage and Didcot, Ed Vaizey, weighs in at number 91 on the list.

To read the full Business Insider UK Tech 100: The 100 most influential people shaping British technology in 2019, see: https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-tech-100-2019-most-important-interesting-and-impactful-people-uk-tech-2019-9?r=US&IR=T

About the Author

Gill Oliver

Gill Oliver is a professionally trained journalist who’s written for The New Statesman, The Bureau for Investigative Journalism, The Daily Mail’s business section This is Money, The Press Association, The Huffington Post plus a host of national magazines, news agencies and trade and industry journals. She’s also spent nine years reporting on the Oxfordshire business and tech scene for The Oxford Times and The Oxford Mail.

Subscribe to our newsletter