Eben Christopher Upton (born 5 April 1978) is the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

CEO of Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd., which runs the engineering and trading activities of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. He is responsible for the overall

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and

hardware architecture In engineering, hardware architecture refers to the identification of a system's physical components and their interrelationships. This description, often called a hardware design model, allows hardware designers to understand how their compon ...

of the

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

device. He is a former technical director and

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

for

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...

Life

Eben Upton was born in

Griffithstown Griffithstown is a large suburb of Pontypool in the borough of Torfaen, Wales, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire. It is an ecclesiastical parish, formed in May 1898, from Llanfrechfa Upper and Panteg, and includes Sebastopol, but, ...

near

Pontypool Pontypool ( cy, Pont-y-pŵl ) is a town and the administrative centre of the county borough of Torfaen, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in South Wales. It has a population of 28,970. Location It is situated on the Afon Lwyd ri ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, where his mother is from; his father is language Prof

Clive Upton Clive Upton (born 30 September 1946) is an English linguist specializing in dialectology and sociolinguistics. He is also an authority on the pronunciation of English. He has been Emeritus Professor of Modern English Language at the University o ...

. He lived in

Lae Lae () is the capital of Morobe Province and is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located near the delta of the Markham River and at the start of the Highlands Highway, which is the main land transport corridor between the Highl ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

between the ages of eight weeks and two and a half years. He then returned to the UK to grow up in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

and

Ilkley Ilkley is a spa town and civil parish in the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, in Northern England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Ilkley civil parish includes the adjacent village of Ben Rhydding and is a ward within the ...

. Upton completed a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and Engineering in 1999 at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

where he was an undergraduate student at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

. He went on to do the

Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science Diploma in Computer Science, originally known as the Diploma in Numerical Analysis and Automatic Computing, was a conversion course in computer science offered by the University of Cambridge. It is equivalent to a master's degree in present-day nom ...

graduating in 2001. After his diploma, Upton was a research student in the

Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. it employed 35 academic staff, 25 support staff, 35 affiliated research staff, and about 15 ...

. After finishing his PhD degree, he earned an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

at the

Cambridge Judge Business School Cambridge Judge Business School is the business school of the University of Cambridge. The School is a provider of management education. It is named after Sir Paul Judge, a founding benefactor of the school. The School is considered to be par ...

while working in industry. Eben Upton moved production of

computers from China to the Sony UK Technology Centre (Sony UK TEC) at

Pencoed Pencoed ( cy, Pen-coed) is a urbanised community and town in the county borough of Bridgend, Wales. It straddles the M4 motorway north east of Bridgend and is situated on the Ewenny River. At the 2011 census it had a population of around 9,166. ...

in 2012, 15–20 miles from where he was born.

Career

Before working at Broadcom, Upton was Director of Studies in Computer Science at St John's College, Cambridge, with responsibility for undergraduate admissions. During his academic career, he co-authored papers on mobile services,

Human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design tec ...

(HCI),Haggle: Seamless Networking for Mobile Applications
in

bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

, data

dependency graph In mathematics, computer science and digital electronics, a dependency graph is a directed graph representing dependencies of several objects towards each other. It is possible to derive an evaluation order or the absence of an evaluation order th ...

s. and Fuel Panics: Insights From Spatial Agent-Based Simulation. . He has been a visiting Researcher at

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Corporation, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Ideaworks3D and a software engineer at IBM.

Works

Upton has published books including the ''Oxford Rhyming Dictionary'' with his father

. With Gareth Halfacree he co-authored the ''Raspberry Pi User Guide''. Upton has also co-authored Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi . with Jeffrey Duntemann, Ralph Roberts, Tim Mamtora and Ben Everard and Code the Classics - Volume 1. .

Awards and honours

Upton has won a number of awards including the

Innovators Under 35 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

(TR35) from ''

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

'' in 2012 and the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

Silver Medal. Upton was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to business and education. He was made a

Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK and from aroun ...

(FREng) in 2017, and a

Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (DFBCS or DistFBCS) is an award and fellowship granted by the British Computer Society for members of the computing profession who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of c ...

(DFBCS) in 2019. In 2020, Upton was made an Honorary Fellow St John's College, Cambridge. In the same year, he was awarded the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award and made an Honorary Fellow of the

IET __NOTOC__ IET can refer to: Organizations * Institute of Educational Technology, part of the Open University * Institution of Engineering and Technology, a UK-based professional engineering institution ** Institute of Engineers and Technicians, wh ...

(HonFIET).

Personal life

Eben Upton is married to Raspberry Pi co-founder, Liz, whom he met at university. They have two children, a daughter, Aphra, and a son, Christopher (Kit).

References

External links

2020 IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award
{{DEFAULTSORT:Upton, Eben 1978 births Living people People from Pontypool Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Members of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Intel people IBM employees Welsh computer scientists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Raspberry Pi