Simon Birrell

Simon Birrell (born 26 July 1966) is a British entrepreneur, technologist and film maker. He was part of the team that invented ambient intelligence and who, with Eli Zelkha, coined the term.

Biography Early life, education and career Born in 1966 in Bristol, UK. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1988 with a degree in Natural Sciences.

He has been a founder or co-founder of three companies. Euro-Profile/i-Profile – a business intelligence company based out of Silicon Valley which was acquired by Virgo Capital (2008), Vemm Brazil, a publisher of consumer advice websites in Brazil which was acquired by QuinStreet (2015) and Silicon Artists, a Madrid-based entertainment technology company funded by Silicon Valley–based Tandem Computers.

Ambient intelligence In 1998, Birrell was part of the team at Palo Alto Ventures that invented and developed the ambient intelligence concept and who, with Eli Zelkha, coined the term. It was presented by Roel Pieper of Philips at The Digital Living Room Conference on 22 June 1998. and ambient intelligence has become part of the core strategies of many of the world's leading technology companies, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon and IBM.

Robotics and deep learning Birrell is researching deep learning and robotics at Cambridge University. He is the author of the blog Artificial Human Companions.

Video games, virtual reality and other activities He developed some of the first video games for Richard Branson's Virgin Interactive in 1983. These included Bug Bomb – BBC Micro (1983), Microbe – BBC Micro (1983), Shogun – Commodore 64 / Amstrad (co-design). At Realidad Virtual, he developed Pandora – the first Spanish online virtual reality platform for the Internet.

Mundo de Estrellas (1998) was a distributed virtual reality environment for hospitalised children in Andalucia created by his company Silicon Artists.

He is also a film maker and writer. As a film maker, he has directed two shorts and collaborated with cult filmmakers Jess Franco and Jose Ramon Larraz. and co-authored a book on videogames.