Francis Irving | |
|---|---|
 Francis Irving | |
| Born | July 1974 (age 49–50) [1] |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford (BA) |
| Known for | |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Website | www |
Francis Irving (born 1974) [1] is a British software engineer, freedom of information activist and former CEO of ScraperWiki. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Irving studied A-levels in Biology, Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Physics and General Studies at high school and was subsequently educated at the University of Oxford. [2] He received a first class degree in mathematics in 1995 as a student at Lincoln College, Oxford. [2]
Irving developed TortoiseCVS. [7] He co-founded Public Whip with Julian Todd and became a developer of the affiliated TheyWorkForYou website, [8] a project which parses raw Hansard data to track how members vote in the UK Parliament. Initially risking prosecution for re-using the raw data which was under crown copyright, the developers of Public Whip were later successful in getting permission to use it. [9] In 2004, Public Whip was recognised in the New Media awards. [10] In 2008, The Daily Telegraph rated TheyWorkforYou 41st in a list of the 101 most useful websites. [11] Irving together with Matthew Somerville wrote the code for FixMyStreet. [12]
Irving was also a senior developer of PledgeBank. [13] He collaborated again with Julian Todd to create 'The Straight Choice', a website (later renamed Election Leaflets) that archives election leaflets. [14] [15]
Irving served as campaign director of the Save Parliament campaign which opposed the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. [16] [2]
Irving was one of two people to suggest the winning idea of a site through which Freedom of Information Act requests could be made in a mySociety competition for ideas for public interest websites to build. [17] He was later to become the main developer of the site which was called WhatDoTheyKnow. [18] Francis has won seven New Statesman awards for websites he has worked on. [3]
Iving has collaborated with Ben Goldacre at the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science on a European Union (EU) clinical trials tracker and software for tracking retraction in academic publishing. [19] [20] He has previously worked for NC Graphics and Memrise. [2]
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