People
Andy Wilson, Managing Director
Andy's background is in Politics and Philosophy. He has
worked with computers since 1987, acting as a Senior Technical
Manager and Technical Director for a string companies from 1993 onwards. He was a founder and chairman of the UK Director Users Group (DUG) and has written regularly on Director development. As well as managing LShift Andy also acts as the Technical Director of Lateral
Matthias Radestock, Technical Director
Matthias has a Ph.D. and M.Eng. in Software Engineering from
Imperial College and is the author of several papers in
international journals on distributed system coordination and
programming languages. His commercial experience during the past
decade includes directorships and senior technical roles in
several Internet technology companies.
Stuart Mottram, Systems Director
Stuart has degrees in Mathematics and Applied Computing and
has worked as a developer since 1991 building custom web based
solutions. He has also built an ISP and Web hosting company. He
has experience in a wide variety of hardware, operating systems
and programming languages.
Mike Rowlands, Executive Director
Prior to joining LShift Mike consulted on digital
communications and Internet strategy for six years, working with
some of the best respected companies in the world. Over this time
he has built a number of web businesses and is now responsible at
LShift for helping clients build theirs.
Julian Burns, Programme Manager
Julian has been involved with technology companies for more than 25 years. Starting as a developer in the financial sector, he moved into project management during a 9 year spell with CMG. Since that time he has operated in a variety of senior and director level positions in medium and smaller software companies always maintaining a focus on effective project delivery. Away from work he plays football regularly (and badly), skis (increasing slowly) and cycles (mainly to enable the other two activities).
Elaine Lynch, Office Manager
Elaine turned down a university place to become a nanny in the
US. Back in Dublin she worked in retail and learned about customer
service and staff management. She then became a receptionist for a
corporate travel agency, and within three months had moved into
the accounts department. She then took on the roles of Office
Manager, PA and Accounts Administrator - 'Jill of all
trades'. Moved to London for love!! A book fiend, Elaine loves
rugby and organising things and people.
Michael Bridgen
Michael's favourite moment in software so far is producing a
graphical IFS editor for the Atari ST while at high
school. Michael has a B.Sc. in pure mathematics and computer
science, and (hence or otherwise) has been earning a living in
digital computing since 1998. His computing interests orbit the
ideal of making digital tools for better living, except when they
don't.
Sophie Clare, Senior Technical Producer
Sophie has an MSc in Multimedia Systems, having specialised in
system and project management. She has worked in commercial
Internet and new media development agencies since 1994. Her
experience ranges from information design and interface
development to product management and maintenance.
Paul Crowley
Paul's varied computing background ranges from papers on
cryptography and cryptanalysis at highly regarded conferences,
through innovative algorithms for fast voxel computer graphics, to
rendering for print media and precise satellite navigation. He
loves scripting languages, Unix, Internet technologies, and open
source software.
Ralf Damaschke
Ralf is currently studying for a MEng degree in Computing at Imperial College, where he has participated in teaching and research projects. He is experienced in the development of Java applications and dynamic websites. Most of his free time is spent making and listening to music.
Tony Garnock-Jones
Tony has a BSc in Computer Science with a minor in
Biological Science. His main professional experience has been in
telephony, despite a strong interest in cognitive science and
other bleeding-edge topics within computing. In his spare time he
has contributed to open-source projects in audio processing,
programming languages and web tools.
Ben Hood
Ben joined LShift after initially becoming a contributor to the RabbitMQ project. His most ambitious IT project was to install a sensor on the cat flap on his back door that could use pattern recognition to allow his own cherished Siamese through and block the big black cat from next door. Not unlike most of the SAP-style projects he has been involved in, by the time that the sensor was integrated and had passed UAT, winter was afoot and hence it was too cold for his prized Siamese to venture out into the garden.
David Ireland
On graduating in Mathematical and Computer Science, David
began programming Signal Processing software back in 93. His
enthusiasm for interactivity and cross-media publishing has taken
him through projects as diverse as Interactive Learning systems
and Electronic Program Guides for Cable TV.
Sam Jones
Sam Jones has been working with computers from the age of
eleven, specialising in artificial intelligence at university. He
has been developing Internet products in a commercial environment
since 1995. Projects have included multiplayer java games and
distributed webmail systems.
Emile Joubert
Emile studied Mathematics and Computer Science before cutting his teeth in the publishing and online media sectors. He particularly enjoys working on multi-disciplinary projects and programming challenges with a mathematical flavour. When he's not computing you might find him kite flying or playing Go.
Simon MacMullen
Simon graduated with an MSc in Advanced Computing in 1999 and walked straight into the height of the dot com bubble. Oddly the experience didn't put him off. He joined LShift after being Technical Lead at a design agency and is relishing working at a company where the conversations don't revolve around kerning.
Will Perry
Will has had a passionate interest in computer science since a young
age, and began programming at 11, since then he has worked in a variety
of environments and languages across a number of platforms. He is
currently undertaking a degree in Computer Science and has a broad, deep
knowledge of .Net. He enjoys Functional languages, object orientation
and has a particular interest in their fusion.
Adrien Pierard
Adrien has a double MSc in theoretical computer science, and attended
another university to learn Japanese at the same time. He thinks that
functional programming and category theory are the meaning of life. He
will start in May his PhD in Montreal, far from his French home, and he
plans to be fluent in Korean by 2009.
Hubert Plociniczak
Hubert's experience in computing is intimidatingly huge, including knowledge of everything from Python to Haskell via Flash. He studied Maths, Computer Science, Economics and English at the International Baccalaureate school in Poznan before taking an MEng at Imperial College. Be nice to him, or he may demonstrate his skills in Aikido for you.
Michael Porter
Mike has been programming computers since his parents bought
him a ZX81 too many years ago to remember. He obtained a BSc in
Computation and has since worked with a wide variety of different
technologies on projects including video conferencing, image
processing and a range of CD/DVD-ROM titles based on a 3D model of
the human anatomy.
Matthew Sackman
Matthew has been programming since he was eight and is
currently studying for a PhD Computing. He is involved in
many areas of computing from system administration to type-theory
in functional programming languages. He is most at home dealing
with shared resources between several hundred concurrent
threads. In his spare time he works on open-source projects
developing strange new file systems or programming
languages.
Karol Skocik
Karol is trying to resist the temptation to write his own ideal language - a mix of Lisp and Erlang. When he is not dreaming or in work, he is occupied with metaprogramming, and writing games and graph pattern matchers. Sometimes annoys neighbours with guitar play.
David Wragg
David has enjoyed programming since childhood. His main interests are
programming language design and distributed systems, but he is up for any challenge involving computers. Prior to joining LShift, David lived in Moscow for several years and wrote software for oil companies. He doesn't miss the oil industry, but he does miss Russian winters.