Building the UK's IT Legacy

Hermann Hauser of the legendary Acorn computers is our distinguished guest this week. In part one of Hermann’s podcast, he talks to us about his long and successful history as an entrepreneur. He prompts memories and amuses with his truly amazing journey. Hermann entertains us with the story of how he secured a bank overdraft to finance Acorn computers and how the team managed to put together the BBC Micro in just a few days. He explains how the Micro revolutionised IT teaching in schools, how school children learnt to program using Basic at school and home. He goes on to discuss his role at Olivetti, ARM and the Active Book Company. To read the podcast transcription please CLICK HERE - Powered by Speechmatic

About Hermann Hauser

In 2015 Hermann was awarded an KBE for services to Engineering and Industry. Serial Entrepreneur and Co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, Dr Hermann Hauser KBE has wide experience in developing and financing companies in the information technology sector. He co-founded a number of high-tech companies including Acorn Computers which spun out ARM, E-trade UK, Virata and Cambridge Network. Subsequently Hermann became vice president of research at Olivetti. During his tenure at Olivetti, he established a global network of research laboratories. Since leaving Olivetti, Hermann has founded over 20 technology companies. In 1997, he co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners. At Amadeus he invested in CSR, Solexa, Icera, Xmos and Cambridge Broadband. Hermann is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and of the Royal Academy of Engineering, as well as an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. In 2001 he was awarded an Honorary CBE for ‘innovative service to the UK enterprise sector’. In 2004 he was made a member of the Government’s Council for Science and Technology and in 2013 he was made a Distinguished Fellow of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. Hermann has honorary doctorates from the Universities of Loughborough, Bath, Anglia Ruskin, Strathclyde, Glasgow and York. Produced by Mark Cotton, Twitter.

Podcast links: LinkedIn

Co-founder and venture partner at Amadeus Capital Partners

Wikipedia

The Royal Society

UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Honorary Fellow at Hughes Hall University of Cambridge

The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the stories of carefully selected guests - entrepreneurs and leaders - in the atmosphere of an informal conversation.

About the NBN
The New Books Network was founded in 2007 as a podcast interviewing the authors of academic books, and has grown to the largest author interview podcast in the world publishing 12 podcasts a day in more than 90 specialist areas, with over a million downloads a month. Read about the founder Marshall Poe and the NBN here. In recent years it has expanded beyond its “author interview origins”.

About Peter Cowley

Peter Cowley, a Cambridge university technology graduate, founded and ran over a dozen businesses in technology and property over the last 40 years. He has built up a portfolio of 75 angel investments with nine good exits (including one that is 107X his investment and returned all the cash he has invested) and thirteen failures. He is a board member of the Global Business Angel Network (GBAN), President Emeritus of the European Business Angel Network (EBAN), former chair of the Cambridge Business Angels and was UK Angel of the Year 2014. He has mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs and is on the board of nine startups.

In 2011, he founded and ran Martlet: a Corporate VC, investing (currently £10M) from the balance sheet of Marshall, a £2.5bn revenue Cambridge engineering company. He is a fellow in Entrepreneurship at the Cambridge Judge Business School and is on the investment committee of the UK Angel Co-fund. He has also had 16 years’ experience as chair, treasurer and trustee of the boards of seven charities.

With his son, Alan, Peter is sharing his and others’ experience and anecdotes in order to educate angels and entrepreneurs via The Invested Investor which publishes two books and 75+ podcasts. A selection of Invested Investor podcasts are republished here on the Entrepreneurship and Leadership channel on the NBN. This is one of them. Peter is a public speaker on entrepreneurship and angel investing throughout the world. Linkedin Peter’s webpage.