What are your favourite memories of Swansea ? I had a great time. The University
was able to do stuff industrially that took advantage of that freedom, not in any linear way, but it was connected with the University for the broader reason of the background, recruitment, prototypes of something new or demonstrations which would spark off ideas or whatever. So, all the companies started independently and the ideas for them came not out of the University but out of the background of other work. An important development that relates directly to this is the company, ARM. I was Research Director at Acorn and I was at the University at the same time, it was the early 1980s and we had done quite well with the BBC Micro, which had chips in it that came out of my background in the University, but it’s not the chips, it’s the knowledge. So, ARM is Acorn RISC Machines and RISC was written instructions for the computer. We didn’t come up with that, that was developed in the University of California, Berkeley. It’s a technology transfer from the US and that was spotted through the academic line, it didn’t come through the industrial line. You were at the forefront of computing in the UK. Acorn was described as the British Apple. What was it like to be in that place at that time ? Well at the time it still felt very competitive. There was a little company called Apple, there was a little company called Intel so when starting the microprocessor project in a company called Acorn and the ARM project we were aware that Intel (who made those microprocessors I used in Swansea in 1971/72) was a giant. That was who we had to compete with. You must be extremely busy. Do you get any free time and what do you do with it ? I’m not extremely busy because you have to delegate and trust and forgive and all that. My main passion though is flying. Flying combines several interesting things for me. I’m an engineer fundamentally, a technology engineer. I like electronics and I like to fiddle. I have a smallish aeroplane and I like to fiddle with it; electrical systems, d.c., a.c., vacuum systems, pressure systems, fuel system, oil system, avionics system, de-icing system, variable pitch propeller system, undercarriage and hydraulics systems, all that kind of stuff. Though when I say fiddle, I might look at stuff, test some
parameters but I have professional people looking after it and making sure it’s safe to fly! I also quite like cycling on the Gower so I throw my bicycle in the back of the aeroplane, fly down, spend the day cycling and then fly back in the evening. I occasionally pop into Fulton (College) House to have a cup of tea but I don’t announce my visit, so people probably think I’m just someone who’s walked in off the street. So, sitting where you are at the forefront of technology. What in your view, is the next big thing we are going to see in that area ? I think the whole framework of computing and sustainability is really exciting. Imagine If we observe the world using sensors, mostly aerial, heat and technical sensors. Optimise that data in cyberspace and feed that back in to affect the world in a better sustainability sense. In other words, computing could become the pacemaker of the planet. The technology will continue to make leaps and bounds. An example might be, we have the global positioning system, which is great and it’s a free service and it’s worldwide. So, imagine a global temperature system that can give you the temperature of each square metre of the planet in real-time for everybody, free of charge. It has all sorts of headaches, ethics, politics, etc. I know, but you have asked me the question and I suspect people’s attitudes will change. For instance, tracking the coronavirus on mobile phones is becoming acceptable whereas a month ago it would have been the end of the world. But similarly, as the ice caps melt, and cities start to flood people will come to accept that maybe this is an important thing to have. I think computing supporting the sustainability of the planet, is a marvellous glittering prize that I would like to see happen.
supported me well in the technical subject and also the social life. The geography was also wonderful, I had the good fortune that I had a crappy old car. I did some window cleaning and saved a bit of money to buy a clapped-out old Triumph Herald so I was mobile, which was unusual for a student at the time. I took advantage of it with trips to the Gower and all that sort of stuff. The social life was very good and I was able to do a bit of surfing. Through the University sports clubs, we had some surfboards. The Triumph Herald was a convertible, so I was able to strap the surfboard across the top and off I went. I was also a reasonable skier and I managed to go on some inter-university ski trips to Scotland and so on. As a serial entrepreneur where have the ideas for your businesses come from ? I don’t believe that academia and academic research leads to business in any substantive way. You’ve got to be in the right environment and Cambridge had a culture and environment of building things that are practical as well as other stuff. It was just part of the DNA. My PhD was very practical. I was part of a bigger project related to a high-speed network (this was before ethernet). Several companies started commercialising that, and I did a little bit with it, so I’m wrong in saying nothing came from University work, but it was open to everyone. The culture of the department (and I’m proud to say I was Head of that Department for 14 years) is a strong culture of supporting collaboration with industry. In those days, and to some extent we’ve continued it, the industrial side was encouraged and not bean-counted or restricted in any way. What, in practice, happens is that being able to have an industrial existence – and being encouraged to do so – you are part of a portfolio. You’re delivering in a broader sense rather than the number of papers you have published. My kids went to university and I was delighted that people taught them well. That’s good, it’s important! It’s not all about research excellence and I’m top of the pile at my department and my REF score is blah, blah. So, in those days freedom to move between industry and academia sat much more comfortably than today. I
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