Hermann Hauser
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Hermann Maria Hauser, KBE, FRS,
FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and Scholarship, 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 a ...
,
FInstP Fellowship of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) is "the highest level of membership attainable" by physicists who are members of the Institute of Physics (IoP), "for those with a degree in physics or related subject (or equivalent knowledge gained ...
, CPhys (born 1948) is an Austrian-born entrepreneur, venture capitalist and inventor who is primarily associated with the Cambridge technology community in England.


Education and early life

When Hauser was 16 he went to the United Kingdom to learn English at a language school in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
. After a master's degree in Physics from Vienna University, he returned to
King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...
to do a PhD in Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory.


Career

Hauser is probably best known for his part in setting up
Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's ...
with Chris Curry in 1978. When
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been par ...
took control of Acorn in 1985 he became vice-president for research at Olivetti, in charge of laboratories in the US and Europe. In 1986, Hauser co-founded the
Olivetti Research Laboratory The Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) was a research institute in the field of computing and telecommunications founded in 1986 by Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper. History When Olivetti acquired Acorn Computers in 1985, Hauser, who was Acorn's co- ...
(ORL) in Cambridge with
Andy Hopper Sir Andrew Hopper (born 1953) is a British-Polish Computer Technologist and entrepreneur. He is treasurer and vice-president of the Royal Society, Professor of Computer Technology, former Head of the University of Cambridge Department of Compu ...
, who became the laboratory's director. Hauser's role in Acorn was portrayed by
Edward Baker-Duly Edward Baker-Duly is a British actor who lives in New York City, New York. Biography He was born in Stockholm, Sweden of British and Swedish parents and has lived in the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, and South Africa. His UK television work incl ...
in the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
drama ''
Micro Men ''Micro Men'' is a 2009 one-off BBC drama television programme set in the late 1970s and the early-mid 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market. It focuses on the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair (played by Alexander Armstr ...
''. In 1988, Hauser left Olivetti to start the Active Book Company, investing £1 million of his own money. The company sought to develop a portable ARM-based microcomputer "the size of a paperback book", featuring a screen and stylus for interaction and employing a "book" metaphor known as Hyperpage. The company planned to launch its first product after Christmas 1990, featuring an approximately A5-sized reflective display, automatic recognition of printed, as opposed to cursive, characters, and employing a multipurpose chip called Hercules featuring a static, low-power ARM core. A licensing agreement had been signed with Acorn for access to that company's hardware and software technology, and the company was seeking application developers for the platform. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes made by Acorn, which had kept its technology to itself, he demonstrated the Active Book to as many large companies as he could.
AT&T Corporation AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
acquired Active Book in July 1991 and incorporated it into their
EO Personal Communicator The EO is an early commercial tablet computer that was created by Eo, Inc. (later acquired by AT&T Corporation), and released in April 1993. Eo (Latin for "I go") is the hardware spin-out of GO. Officially named the AT&T EO Personal Communicat ...
, which was released in April 1993. Hauser became chief technical officer and chairman of EO Europe. Sales did not meet expectations, and AT&T's EO subsidiary folded on 29 July 1994. In 1990, Hauser was involved in spinning out Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) from Acorn. In 1993, Hauser set up Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd with Andy Hopper. The company was acquired by Conexant Systems on 1 March 2004. He founded NetChannel Ltd in June 1996 as a holding company to begin work on marketing the NetStation. NetChannel was sold to AOL in 1996. He claimed in the 1990s that the networking technology used for AppleTalk was based on the (unpatented) Cambridge Ring. In 1997 he co-founded
Amadeus Capital Partners Amadeus Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in European high-technology companies, founded by Anne Glover and Hermann Hauser in 1997. It is a member of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and is approve ...
Ltd, a
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...
company, and in 1998 he co-founded
Cambridge Network The Cambridge Network is a commercial business networking organisation for business people and academics working in technology fields in the Cambridge area of the UK. The businesses and organisations that make up its membership are typical of thos ...
with
David Cleevely David Douglas Cleevely, CBE, FREng, FIET (born September 1953) is a British entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK. Telecommunications In 1985 Cleevely founded t ...
and
Alec Broers Alec Nigel Broers, Baron Broers, (born 17 September 1938) is a British electrical engineering, electrical engineer. In 1994 Broers was elected an international member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to electronic beam ...
. In 2000,
Plastic Logic Plastic Logic Germany develops and manufactures electrophoretic displays (EPD), based on organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) technology, in Dresden, Germany. Originally a spin-off company from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cam ...
was founded, with Hauser as chairman. On 14 June 2001, the Hauser-Raspe Foundation was registered as a charity by Hauser and Pamela Raspe, to advance education. In August 2004, Amadeus Capital Partners led the Series B
venture capital financing Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ...
of Solexa, and Hauser joined its board of directors. Solexa developed a next-generation DNA sequencing technology which became the market leader; the company was sold to Illumina, Inc of San Diego in January 2007 for over $US600 million. In 2009, Hauser was announced as the first customer of the Illumina Personal Genome Sequencing service. As of 2009, Hauser is the head of the East Anglia Stem Cell research network. Hauser is a
non-executive director A non-executive director (abbreviated to non-exec, NED or NXD), independent director or external director is a member of the board of directors of a corporation, such as a company, cooperative or non-government organization, but not a member of th ...
of Cambridge Display Technology, a non-executive director of
XMOS XMOS is a fabless semiconductor company that develops audio products and multicore microcontrollers. Company history XMOS was founded in July 2005 by Ali Dixon, James Foster, Noel Hurley, David May, and Hitesh Mehta. It received seed funding ...
Ltd and a member of the board of Red-M (Communications) Ltd. He holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Bath and
Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second large ...
and from
Anglia Ruskin University Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after John Ruskin in ...
. He is a member of the advisory board on the Higher Education Innovation Fund, and of the UK's
Council for Science and Technology The Council for Science and Technology (CST) is an advisory non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government. Its role is to give advice on issues that cut across government departments to the Prime Minister, the First Minister of ...
. Hauser was commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to write a report on technology and innovation in the UK. Publication of the report in 2010 led to the establishment of
Catapult centres Catapult centres are organisations set up from 2011 onwards by Innovate UK in the United Kingdom to promote research and development through business-led collaboration between scientists and engineers to exploit market opportunities. They receiv ...
with £200 million of government funding. He was co-founder of Arm Holdings, the Cambridge based microchip manufacturer that was bought in 2016 by Japan's SoftBank. Since 2015, he is actively supporting Austrian start-ups and technology companies. In particular, he has invested in 2017 in the MEMS-speaker start-up "USound" and in eyeson, a cloud based
Unified Communications Unified communications (UC) is a business and marketing concept describing the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including ...
solution nominated by
Gartner Inc. Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its clients ...
as ''Cool Vendor in Unified Communications, 2017''.


Awards and honours

Hauser was voted the UK's "Computer Personality of the Year" of 1984. In 2010, ''Eureka'', in its "100 most important scientists", placed Hauser at 51. He became patron of
The Centre for Computing History The Centre for Computing History is a museum in Cambridge, England, established to create a permanent public exhibition telling the story of the Information Age. Overview The museum acts as a repository for vintage computers and related artefac ...
in December 2011, 30 years after the launch of the
BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...
. On 8 July 2002, Hauser was elected a Fellow of the
Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physic ...
(FInstP) and an International
Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...
of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). In May 2004 he presented the prestigious IEE
Pinkerton Lecture The Pinkerton lecture series is held by the Institution of Engineering and Technology in commemoration and honour of John Pinkerton, the pivotal engineer who was involved with designing the UK's first business computer in 1951. The first lecture was ...
. In 2005, Hauser received a
Lifetime Achievement Award Lifetime achievement awards are awarded by various organizations, to recognize contributions over the whole of a career, rather than or in addition to single contributions. Such awards, and organizations presenting them, include: A * A.C. ...
for his work as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur. The award was presented at the annual European Electronics Industry Awards in London. Hauser was awarded an Honorary
CBE 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 ...
for "innovative service to the UK enterprise sector" in 2001. In 1998, Hauser was elected into an honorary fellowship of
Hughes Hall, Cambridge Hughes Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. It is the oldest of the University of Cambridge's postgraduate colleges. The college also admits undergraduates, though undergraduates admitted by the college must b ...
, and he was also elected into an honorary fellowship of
King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...
with effect from 1 January 2000. In the same year he was awarded the
Mountbatten Medal The IET Mountbatten Medal is awarded annually for an outstanding contribution, or contributions over a period, to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application. The Medal was established by the National Electronics C ...
. Hauser was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(FRS) in 2012. His nomination reads: Hauser was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (DFBCS) in 2013 recognising his contribution to computing science in the UK.


References


External links


Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 3 September 2008 (video)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hauser, Hermann Living people Acorn Computers Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of Hughes Hall, Cambridge People from Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Institute of Physics Austrian emigrants to England Businesspeople from Vienna 1948 births British venture capitalists Fellows of the British Computer Society