Simon Birrell (born 26 July 1966) is a British entrepreneur, technologist and film maker. He was part of the team that invented ambient intelligence and who, with Eli Zelkha, coined the term. ^{[1] [2]}

Biography

Early life, education and career

Born in 1966 in Bristol, UK. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1988 with a degree in Natural Sciences. ^{[3] [4]}

He has been a founder or co-founder of three companies. Euro-Profile/i-Profile – a business intelligence company based out of Silicon Valley which was acquired by Virgo Capital (2008), ^[5] Vemm Brazil, a publisher of consumer advice websites in Brazil which was acquired by QuinStreet (2015) ^{[6] [7]} and Silicon Artists, a Madrid-based entertainment technology company funded by Silicon Valley-based Tandem Computers. ^{[8] [9]}

Ambient intelligence

In 1998, Birrell was part of the team at Palo Alto Ventures that invented and developed the ambient intelligence concept and who, with Eli Zelkha, coined the term. ^{[10] [11]} It was presented by Roel Pieper of Philips at The Digital Living Room Conference on 22 June 1998. ^{[12] [13] [14] [2]}

Since its invention in 1998, Ambient Intelligence labs have been formed at leading universities ^{[15] [16]} and ambient intelligence has become part of the core strategies of many of the world's leading technology companies, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon and IBM. ^{[17] [18] [19]}

Robotics and deep learning

Birrell is researching deep learning and robotics at Cambridge University. ^[20] He is the author of the blog Artificial Human Companions. ^[21]

Video games, virtual reality and other activities

He developed some of the very first video games for Richard Branson's Virgin Interactive in 1983. ^[22] These included Bug Bomb – BBC Micro (1983), ^[23] Microbe – BBC Micro (1983), ^{[24] [22]} High-Rise Horror – Commodore 64 (1984), ^{[23] [24]} Strangeloop – Commodore 64 (1985), ^{[24] [25]} Shogun – Commodore 64 / Amstrad (co-design). ^{[26] [27] [28] [9]}

From 1993 to 1995, Birrell was the CTO of an early virtual reality company in Spain called Realidad Virtual S.L. ^[29] At Realidad Virtual, he developed Pandora – the first Spanish online virtual reality platform for the Internet. ^{[30] [31] [32]}

Mundo de Estrellas (1998) was a distributed virtual reality environment for hospitalised children in Andalucia created by his company Silicon Artists. ^{[33] [34]}

He is also a film maker and writer. As a film maker, he has directed two shorts ^{[35] [36] [37] [38]} and collaborated with cult filmmakers Jess Franco ^{[39] [40] [41]} and Jose Ramon Larraz. ^{[38] [42] [41]}

Birrell authored a chapter in an MIT book on Information Design ^[43] and co-authored a book on videogames. ^[44]

References

External links

• Birrell's blog