Simon Birrell

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]