Andy Hopper

Sir Andrew Hopper (born 9 May 1953) is a British-Polish computer technologist and entrepreneur.

He is treasurer and vice-president of the Royal Society, Professor of Computer Technology, former Head of the University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology, an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Hopper was educated at Quintin Kynaston School in London after which he went to study for a Bachelor of Science degree at Swansea University before going to the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1974 for postgraduate work.

Hopper's PhD, completed in 1977 was in the field of communications networks, and he worked with Maurice Wilkes on the creation of the Cambridge Ring and its successors.

Hopper's research interests include computer networks, multimedia systems, Virtual Network Computing and sentient computing.

His most cited paper describes the indoor location system called the Active Badge.

He has contributed to a discussion of the privacy challenges relating to surveillance.

Hopper was awarded his PhD in 1978 for research into local area computer communications networks supervised by David Wheeler.

In 1978, Hopper co-founded Orbis Ltd to develop networking technologies.

He worked with Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry, founders of Acorn Computers Ltd.

Orbis became a division of Acorn in 1979 and continued to work with the Cambridge Ring.

While at Acorn, Hopper contributed to design some of the chips for the BBC Micro and helped conceive the project which led to the design of the ARM microprocessor.

When Acorn was acquired by Olivetti in 1985, Hauser became vice-president for research at Olivetti, in which role he co-founded the Olivetti Research Laboratory in 1986 with Hopper; Hopper became its managing director.

In 1985, after leaving Acorn, Hopper co-founded Qudos, a company producing CAD software and doing chip prototyping.

He remained a director until 1989.

In 1993, Hopper set up Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd with Hermann Hauser.

In 1995, Hopper co-founded Telemedia Systems, now called IPV, and was its chairman until 2003.

Hopper was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1996 and awarded their silver medal in 2003.

After more than 20 years at Cambridge University Computer Laboratory, Hopper was elected Chair of Communications Engineering at Cambridge University Engineering Department in 1997.

In 1997, Hopper co-founded Adaptive Broadband Ltd (ABL) to further develop the 'Wireless ATM' project started at ORL in the early 90s.

ABL was bought by California Microwave, Inc in 1998.

This company went public on the NASDAQ as Virata in 1999.

In January 2000, Hopper co-founded Cambridge Broadband which was to develop broadband fixed wireless equipment; he was non-executive chairman from 2000 – 2005.

Hopper was an advisor to Hauser's venture capital firm Amadeus Capital Partners from 2001 until 2005.

He was also an advisor to the Cambridge Gateway Fund from 2001 until 2006.

In 2002 Hopper was involved in the founding of Ubisense Ltd to further develop the location technologies and sentient computing concepts that grew out of the ORL Active Badge system.

In 2002, Hopper co-founded RealVNC and has served as chairman since the company's inception.

In 2002, Hopper co-founded Level 5 Networks and was a director until 2008, just after it merged with Xilinx.

Hopper became a director in 2003 and was chairman between 2006 and 2015 during which the company made its initial public offering (IPO) in June 2011.

Hopper is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET) and was a Trustee from 2003 until 2006, and again between 2009 and 2013.

He returned to the Computer Laboratory as Professor of Computer Technology and Head of Department in 2004.

He is currently the head of the Computer Laboratory's Digital Technology Group

Hopper's research under the title Computing for the Future of the Planet examines the uses of computers for assuring the sustainability of the planet.

Hopper has supervised approximately fifty PhD students.

The company was acquired by Conexant Systems on 1 March 2004.

In 2004, Hopper was awarded the Mountbatten Medal of the IET (then IEE).

From 2005 until 2009, Hopper was chairman of Adventiq, a joint venture between Adder and RealVNC, developing a VNC-based system-on-a-chip.

He was a member of the Council of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2007 to 2010.

He served as president of the IET between 2012 and 2013.

In 2013 Hopper co-founded TxtEz, a company looking to commoditise B2C communication in Africa.