Mark Shuttleworth
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Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African entrepreneur. Shuttleworth was born in Welkom, Free State, South Africa. As an early space tourist, he was the first African national [#endnote_african] in space. He currently lives in London and due to being Anglo-African holds dual citizenship of South Africa and Britain.
After going to school at Diocesan College, Shuttleworth obtained a Business Science degree in Finance and Information Systems at the University of Cape Town.
Shuttleworth gained worldwide fame on 25 April 2002 as a civilian cosmonaut aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission, paying approximately US$ 20 million. Two days later, the Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, where he spent eight days participating in experiments related to AIDS and genome research. On 5 May, he returned to Earth. In order to participate on the flight, Shuttleworth had to undergo one year of training and preparation, including seven months spent in Star City, Moscow.
Work
Shuttleworth founded Thawte in 1995, which specialised in digital certificates and Internet security and then sold it to VeriSign in December 1999, earning 3,5-billion R (about 560 million €/US$ at the time).In September 2000, Shuttleworth formed HBD Venture Capital, a business incubator and venture capital provider.
In 2001 he formed the Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to social innovation which also funds educational and open source projects in South Africa, such as The Freedom Toaster.
Shuttleworth participated as a Debian developer in the 1990s, and in 2004 he returned to the Linux world by funding the development of Ubuntu, a user-friendly distribution of Linux, through his company Canonical Ltd. In 2005 he founded the Ubuntu Foundation and made an initial investment of 10 million dollars. In the Ubuntu project, Shuttleworth is often referred to with the tongue-in-cheek title Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life. In September 2005, he purchased a 65% stake of ImpiLinux. [link]
Footnote
- ↑ Shuttleworth is the first citizen of an African country to be in space, but another astronaut was also born in Africa. Patrick Baudry was in space before Shuttleworth, but because his native Cameroon was still a French colony at his birth, he is considered a French citizen.
See also
- List of astronauts by name
- List of South Africans - Voted 18th in the Top 100 Great South Africans
External links
- [Biography] at [Mark Shuttleworth's Homepage]
- [Spacefacts biography of Mark Shuttleworth]
- [Mark Shuttleworth answers the community's questions about Ubuntu]
- [The Shuttleworth Foundation]
- [HBD Venture Capital]
- [Linux Format interview - October 2005]
- [Interview, Linuxtag 2006, Wiesbaden, Germany]
- [Interview, Financial Times, January 2006]
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