James Whittaker Masterclass

Lancaster University would like to invite you to join us for an inspirational talk from James Whittaker, Distinguished Technical Evangelist at Microsoft.

James will deliver a masterclass for staff, students and local businesses on the Internet of Things (IoT) and the role of data in our society. This is a subject that affects us all on a daily basis and is going to continue to grow in both size and importance.

James is a technology executive with a career that spans academia, start-ups and top tech companies. His story starts in 1986 with the distinction of being the first computer science graduate to be hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation where he worked to automate Agent’s caseloads. He then entered graduate school at the University of Tennessee where he received his PhD in computer science in 1992.

Following academia, James worked as a freelance developer specializing in test automation. He worked in 13 different countries over a five year period, most notably for IBM, Ericsson, SAP, Cisco and Microsoft. During this time he performed seminal research in software quality and developer productivity and published dozens of papers, patents and conference presentations. In 1996 he joined the faculty at the Florida Institute of Technology where he continued his prolific publication record and won over $12m in sponsored research. James’ work in Y2K testing and software security earned a number of best paper and presentation awards and in 2002 his security work was spun off by the university into a startup which was later acquired by Raytheon.

James’ first stint at Microsoft was in Trustworthy Computing and then Visual Studio. In 2009 he joined Google as an engineering director and led teams working on Chrome, Chrome OS, Maps and Google+. He was also the keynote speaker for Google Developer Days. In 2012 James rejoined Microsoft to build the Bing Information Platform and is now a Distinguished Engineer and technical evangelist charged with showing Microsoft’s vision of the future to the world.

James is known for being a creative and passionate leader and sought after speaker and author. He regularly speaks to technical, marketing and advertising audiences to challenge people to think differently about the future – past events include ANA Disrupt at CES, IAB Engage UK, Advertising Week Europe, Digital Life Design, Business Insider Ignite, Pitch @The Palace, and CIO Summit. Of his five books two have been Jolt Award finalists. Follow him on Twitter @docjamesw.

Registration starts at 10:30, with the masterclass starting at 11am, Lecture Theatre 1 in the Management School. We hope to see you there!