And that’s because The Hub will be home to six meeting rooms.
In the end we opted to name them after six tech titans, digital pioneers who’ve blazed a trail and shaped all our lives thanks to their genius.
And here they are:
Professor Dame Wendy Hall –Dame Wendy is a pioneer of multimedia and hypermedia. She is a computer scientist whose work has been critical to the creation of digital libraries, the Semantic Web and the discipline of web science. Professor Dame Wendy Hall is a leading figure in the UK on the development of AI technologies, including on the discussions around AI and ethics. As Professor of Computer Science at Southampton University, Hall – alongside former IBM Watson VP Jerome Pesenti – wrote the government’s inaugural report on AI – ‘Growing the Artificial Intelligence Industry in the UK’.
Bill Gates – he’s arguably best known as the founder of Microsoft, a company which changed the face of computing, which became the world’s largest personal computing software company. After founding and developing one of the most powerful and profitable technology companies in history, since 2008 he has dedicated his life to charity work via The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, so far giving away $31.1bn.
Hedy Lamarr– much more than “the most beautiful woman in the world” as an Austrian-American actress during Hollywood’s Golden Age, mathematically-minded Lamarr invented a secret communications system to outwit the Nazis in the Second World War. Her invention was instrumental in the development of many of the methods of communication we enjoy today, including Bluetooth.
Tim Berners-Lee– the man who invented the World Wide Web. He’s an engineer and computer scientist who came up with the concept of an information management system, that we now all rely on, back in 1989. He also created the first web browser and editor. The world’s first website, http://info.cern.ch, was launched on 6 August 1991. It explained the World Wide Web concept and gave users an introduction to getting started with their own websites.
Margaret Hamilton– a software engineer who headed up the lab which developed the on-board software for NASA’s Apollo missions. Mrs Hamilton’s pioneering software helped land the lunar module and its crew on the Moon in 1969.
In 2016 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in recognition of that work.
Alan Turing– the mathematician and scientist who cracked coded messages by the Germans during the Second World War. In the late 1930’s Turing published a design for the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine). His Turing Machine invention is a mathematical model considered the forerunner to computers as we know them now.
So next time you’re looking to book a room in The Hub, as well as enjoying our fresh and newly expanded facilities, you’ll be able to hold that meeting, make that presentation, or work on that collaborative project in a room named after one of our industry’s heroes.
Come join us in September.
