Charlie Muirhead

Last updated

Charlie Muirhead (born 29 May 1975) is a Scottish Australian [1] serial tech entrepreneur, investor and public speaker who has co-founded 8 companies spanning music, telecoms software, outsourcing, video streaming and social media, angel investment, artificial intelligence and business events.

Contents

In 1996 at the age of 21 Charlie founded his first company, internet software firm Orchestream, [2] which he took public 4 years later with UBS on the LSE and Nasdaq and which reached a valuation of over £1bn before being caught up in the telecoms crash. Charlie stepped down as CEO the same year and stayed on as a Non Executive Director.

Charlie has been selected twice as a World Economic Forum “Technology Pioneer” and was named the European Technology Forum's "Technology Entrepreneur of the Year".

Early life and education

Muirhead was born in London, England and educated at Bedales School in Hampshire. At the age of 18, Muirhead handled his first management buyout of a musical-equipment rental business. [3] [4] At 19 he enrolled at the Imperial College London to study computer science. [5]

Current Venture

CogX

His most recent venture, CogX, is a community that brings together global leaders, the tech industry and the public to address the question, “How do we get the next 10 years right?”. [6] The CogX Festival was co-founded with Tabitha Goldstaub later innaugural Chair of the UK AI Council, and its first event in June 2017 focused on “The Impact of AI on Industry, Government, and Society”. [7] The conference's second installment took place during London Tech Week in June 2018, at Tobacco Dock in Wapping, East London with SoftBank Investment Advisers as its headline sponsor. [8] In 2022 CogX was set up as a standalone company.

For 2023 the Festival moved to the O2 Arena and expanded to over 20,000 visitors, 500 speakers, and 10 programmes ranging from global leadership and democracy to artificial intelligence, industry transformation, the future of energy, education, life sciences, defence and ethics. [6] [9]

In May 2024 CogX ran a series of Salons and its first USA Festival at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel with 180 speakers and 2,000 delegates.

Founded companies

Orchestream

In 1996, while at university, Muirhead founded the company Orchestream, which allowed web users to prioritise their data on the Internet. In the two decades since, Muirhead has set up a total eight of startups, including NexAgent, iGabriel, InterProvider, t5m, and Brave Bison (formerly known as Rightster). [4] He left Imperial early to work on the company full-time, though he received a note from the university stating that he could return if his business idea fell through. [5] By 1999 Orchestream was worth £1 billion and was listed on the NASDAQ. Job cuts, management changes, accounting errors, and other mishaps [10] caused the company to lose more than 99% of its value by the mid 2000s. [11] Muirhead stepped down from his position as CEO in 2000, though maintained a position as non-executive director with the company.

iGabriel

Muirhead also founded iGabriel.net—an Internet incubator fund that invested in start-up web companies. [12] According to The Daily Telegraph , "Unlike other incubators, iGabriel only accepts funds from individuals, and mainly from people in the technology or media industries who can help develop the companies in which the fund invests." [13] iGabriel.net would eventually merge with Pi-Capital. In 2001 Muirhead founded the company InterProvider. [13] InterProvider supplied proprietary software and serviced interconnections to telecom operators, and Time magazine featured Muirhead as an up-and-coming entrepreneur in its coverage of the company's founding. [3]

Nexagent

In July 2000 Muirhead founded the multi-carrier MPLS service activation company Nexagent, which secured £10.3m in its first round of funding. [14] Muirhead served as President and CEO of the company until 2003, when he relinquished his role as CEO, but retained his role as President of the company. [15]

t5m

In 2007 Muirhead founded the company t5m, standing for "the 5th medium". The website is an online television network that features interviews with prominent individuals talking about socially conscious issues. Early offerings included an exclusive channel run by Nelson Mandela's charity 46664, which partnered with t5m for World AIDS Day. [16] The company relaunched in 2008 to syndicate original content clips between 3 and 5 minutes long, and distribute its own proprietary video-player. t5m combines the traditional television format of network-owned syndication alongside programs with production company-owned rights. [17] The company also produced the television show Trinny and Susannah – What They Did Next. [18]

Rightster / Brave Bison plc

In 2011 Muirhead co-founded Rightster with Tabitha Goldstaub, a software company that automates the end-to-end lifecycle for content owners, publishers, and marketers of digital video content including distribution, marketing, and monetisation of the content. Content partners for the company came from a broad range of industries, from London Fashion Week to ITN Productions and The Guardian newspaper. The company provided rights management through a cloud-based platform in addition to live streaming, audience development and YouTube/Facebook management services. Events that have streamed on Rightster have included the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton and the Leveson Inquiry. [19] By March 2012, monthly video views of Rightster's clients grew from approximately one million views per month to 100 million views per month. Its staff also quadrupled during that time, and has offices in London, New York City, and Delhi. [20] On 10 May 2016, it was announced that the company was relaunching under the name Brave Bison. [21]

CognitionX

Charlie Muirhead and Tabitha Goldstaub founded CognitionX in 2015, after identifying the need for greater clarity in the "fast-paced" and "increasingly fragmented" area of artificial intelligence. [7] The company launched with the stated goal of creating a "well-organised knowledge base ... about everything going on in AI, in one place". [7] CognitionX is building a proprietary software platform, the Knowledge Network, powered by augmented intelligence. In March 2018 CognitionX was commissioned by the Mayor of London to carry out a census of AI innovation in the capital. [22]

The free, public version of the Knowledge Network empowers users to immediately access a global network of AI experts, on-demand, while the Enterprise edition also enables large firms to capitalise on internal expertise. [23]

In addition, the company issues a daily AI newsletter, authored by Tabitha Goldstaub, which has over 11,000 subscribers. CognitionX also produces bespoke research projects and has held over 60 meetups since June 2015 on topics ranging from HRTech to the future of chatbots

In 2018, CognitionX was commissioned by the Mayor of London's Office to write a report analysing the AI ecosystem in London. [24] The final report, which looks at London's unique strengths as a global hub of AI, found that London was the AI capital of Europe; highlights include the fact that London hosts over 750 AI suppliers.

In June 2017, CognitionX hosted the inaugural CogX, a two-day ‘Innovation Exchange’ for 1,500 delegates discussing how AI will shape the future of society. [25] CogX 2018 saw 6,500 attendees and over 370 speakers at Tobacco Dock. [26] CogX 2019, held in the King's Cross area of London, was home to over 10,000 attendees and over 600 speakers.

Following loss of event revenue during the Covid pandemic, in 2022 CognitionX was placed in into Voluntary Arrangement [27]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niklas Zennström</span> Swedish entrepreneur (born 1966)

Niklas Zennström is a Swedish entrepreneur and technology investor. He is co-founder of the charity organization Zennström Philanthropies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reid Hoffman</span> American internet entrepreneur (born 1967)

Reid Garrett Hoffman is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman is the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is also chairman of venture capital firm Village Global and a co-founder of Inflection AI.

Vimeo, Inc. is an American video hosting, sharing, and services provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as a service (SaaS). They derive revenue by providing subscription plans for businesses and content creators. Vimeo provides its subscribers with tools for video creation, editing, and broadcasting, enterprise software solutions, as well as the means for video professionals to connect with clients and other professionals. As of December 2021, the site has 260 million users, with around 1.6 million subscribers to its services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Capps (executive)</span> American video game designer

Michael V. Capps or Mike Capps is an American video game designer who was the president of Epic Games, based in Cary, North Carolina from 2002 to 2012. In 2018, he co-founded a new artificial intelligence company called Howso. He has been described as "a legendary figure in the video game industry."

Damian Collier is a British entrepreneur, businessman, lawyer, and producer. He is the founder and former owner and CEO of Spiral Viral, a company designed to help the creators of unexpectedly viral videos with the legal side of things, and the founder, owner, and CEO of Blend Media, a VR licensing firm and marketplace. He produced the musical, filming, and tour of Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds - Alive on Stage! and manages the Jeff Wayne Music Group. Other film productions include War of the Worlds. In 2014, he appeared on Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business 1000.

Ashwin Ram is an Indian-American computer scientist. He was chief innovation officer at PARC from 2011 to 2016, and published books and scientific articles and helped start at least two companies.

Meltwater is an online media monitoring company. It is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The company was founded in Oslo, Norway, by Jørn Lyseggen, in 2001 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with additional offices across Europe, North America, Asia/Pacific, Australia, and Africa. The company employs around 2,200 people and has approximately 27,000 clients internationally. In February 2023, Meltwater reported US$439 million in revenue for the full 2022 fiscal year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Surace</span> American businessman

Kevin Surace is an American technology innovator, producer and entrepreneur. He is the CTO of Appvance, creator of an Generative AI software QA platform. He was Inc. Magazine’s 2009 entrepreneur of the Year. He is the inventor of QuietRock Soundproof Drywall.

Cognician is a web-based, e-learning platform for personal development and organisational development produced by Cognician Software (Pty) Ltd. The company is located in Cape Town, South Africa, and San Jose, California, and was founded by brothers Barry Kayton and Patrick Kayton in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dean Drako</span> American businessman and entrepreneur

Dean Drako is an American businessman and entrepreneur who has founded more than six companies. Drako was founder, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks from 2003 to July 2012. He is currently founder and CEO of Eagle Eye Networks, and co-founder and CEO of IC Manage and Drako Motors. He is also owner and chairman of Brivo and Cobalt AI.

Brave Bison is a digital advertising and technology services company. The company provides a range of digital advertising and technology services to brand advertisers, and operates a digital media network of over 650 channels and 158 million followers. The company is headquartered in London with hubs in Manchester, New York, Singapore, Bulgaria, Egypt and South Africa.

Cognitive computing refers to technology platforms that, broadly speaking, are based on the scientific disciplines of artificial intelligence and signal processing. These platforms encompass machine learning, reasoning, natural language processing, speech recognition and vision, human–computer interaction, dialog and narrative generation, among other technologies.

Suhayya "Sue" Abu-Hakima is a Canadian technology entrepreneur and inventor of artificial intelligence (AI) applications for wireless communication and computer security. As of 2020, her company Amika Mobile has been known as Alstari Corporation as she exited her emergency and communications business to Genasys in October 2020. Since 2007, she had served as President and CEO of Amika Mobile Corporation; she similarly founded and served as President and CEO of AmikaNow! from 1998 to 2004. A frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, AI, security, messaging and wireless, she has published and presented more than 125 professional papers and holds 30 international patents in the fields of content analysis, messaging, and security. She has been an adjunct professor in the School of Information Technology and Engineering at the University of Ottawa and has mentored many high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in science and technology more commonly known as STEM now. She was named to the Order of Ontario, the province's highest honor, in 2011 for innovation and her work in public safety and computer security technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Tan White</span> British technology entrepreneur and technology investor

Wendy Tan White MBE is a British technology entrepreneur and technology investor. She is the CEO of Intrinsic, a robotics software company under Alphabet Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khoros, LLC</span> American software company founded in 2019

Khoros, formerly Spredfast + Lithium, is a global customer engagement software company that provides online community management, social media marketing, social media analytics, digital care, and content management software and services to enterprise brands and agencies. Khoros owns over a dozen patents for social media marketing, online community, and care technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tabitha Goldstaub</span> British tech entrepreneur

Tabitha Goldstaub is a British tech entrepreneur who specialises in communicating the impact of artificial intelligence. She was the co-founder of CogX, a festival and online platform. She was the Chair of the UK government's AI Council, a member of the DCMS Digitial Economy Council and served on the TechUK board. A serial entrepreneur, she was the co-founder of video distribution company Rightster. Tabitha is the author of How To Talk To Robots - A Girls' Guide to a World Dominated by AI. She's also an advisor to Tortoise Media, Raspberry Pi, CarbonRe, Monumo, Cambridge Innovation Capital and The Alan Turing Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betelhem Dessie</span> Ethiopian web and mobile technologies developer

Betelhem Dessie is an Ethiopian web and mobile technologies developer. She is currently a Founder and CEO of iCog- Anyone Can Code (ACC). She owns four patented projects individually and an additional three in collaboration. Betelhem has been named "the youngest pioneer in Ethiopia's fast emerging tech scene" by CNN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noor Shaker</span> Syrian-Danish computer scientist and entrepreneur

Noor Shaker is a Syrian British entrepreneur and computer scientist who co-founded the AI for drug discovery start-up Glamorous AI. Glamorous AI was acquired by the US-based company X-Chem in Nov 2021. Before Glamorous AI, Noor founded the drug discovery start-up GTN Ltd and was CEO for more than two years. She stepped down as CEO in August 2019. The company entered liquidation in March 2020. In 2018, she received a CogX UK Rising Star Award from Prime Minister Theresa May for "AI technology that will transform drug discovery to treat chronic diseases".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konux</span> Internet of things start up company (e. 2014)

Konux is a German AI/IoT company. The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and is registered in Palo Alto, California, as an American corporation (Inc.).

CogX Festival is a global festival focusing on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technology on industry, government, and society. It takes place annually, usually in September, in London, England. Founded by Charlie Muirhead and Tabitha Goldstaub in 2017, CogX aims to facilitate dialogue and understanding about AI and its implications across various sectors.

References

  1. ↑ "Charles Stacy MUIRHEAD personal appointments - Find and update company information - GOV.UK".
  2. ↑ "Rightster: Charlie Muirhead | Growing Business". Startups.co.uk: Starting a business advice and business ideas. Archived from the original on 5 May 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  3. 1 2 "Charles Muirhead". Time . 29 October 2001. ISSN   0040-781X . Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  4. 1 2 "Changing Media Summit 2013: speakers". the Guardian. 3 December 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  5. 1 2 "Me And My Partner: Charles Muirhead, Ashley Ward". The Independent. 10 November 1999. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  6. 1 2 Healey, Berenice (10 June 2020). "From roadie to CEO: CognitionX and CogX founder Charlie Muirhead on technology, networking and beyond". Verdict. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  7. 1 2 3 Haworth, Elliott (19 June 2017). "Meet the pair preparing London (and the world) for our AI future" . Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  8. ↑ "AI Festival CogX Returns in June – During London Tech Week – Irish Tech News". irishtechnews.ie. 6 February 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  9. ↑ "CogX Festival and Hopin Agree 3-year Partnership to Deliver the World's Largest Hybrid Event". www.businesswire.com. 25 May 2021. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  10. ↑ Reading 12/9/2002, News Analysis Light. "Orchestream Goes for Peanuts". Light Reading. Retrieved 20 October 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ↑ "Orchestream CEO resigns as losses soar". Information Age. 9 February 2006. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  12. ↑ Mills, Lauren (29 July 2000). "iGabriel backs Sourceree". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  13. 1 2 Bennett, Neil (11 March 2001). "Muirhead sets up new tech venture". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  14. ↑ Paris, Guy Paisner in. "Nexagent secures £10.3m funding" . Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  15. ↑ "Nexagent chief executive stands down". www.telecompaper.com. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  16. ↑ "Trailblazer: Geek guru" . Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  17. ↑ "t5m re-launches as a branded content studio, syndicator and video player – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. 19 December 2008. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  18. ↑ "Changing Advertising Summit Speakers". the Guardian. 6 August 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  19. ↑ "ITN unifies online ad sales with Rightster". Econsultancy. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  20. ↑ "Rightster Adds Key Executives to Support Fast Growing Turnkey Video Syndication Platform". 4 September 2014. Archived from the original on 4 September 2014. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  21. ↑ "Rightster becomes Brave Bison". Broadband TV News. 10 May 2016. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  22. ↑ Brinded, Lianna. "London's mayor is assembling plans to make the city the next big AI hub". Quartz. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  23. ↑ "CognitionX LinkedIn". LinkedIn.
  24. ↑ Brinded, Lianna. "London's mayor is assembling plans to make the city the next big AI hub". Quartz. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  25. ↑ Haworth, Elliott (19 June 2017). "Meet the pair preparing London (and the world) for our AI future" . Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  26. ↑ "CogX 2018 London - The Festival of All Things AI". CogX. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  27. ↑ "COGNITIONX LTD overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.