Eben Christopher Upton (born 5 April 1978) is the Welsh CEO of

Raspberry Pi Holdings Raspberry Pi Holdings plc is a British technology company that designs and manufactures single-board computers (SBCs), compute modules, semiconductors, and complementary accessories, marketed under the Raspberry Pi brand. Originally developed to ...

. He is responsible for the overall

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and

hardware architecture In engineering, hardware architecture refers to the identification of a system's physical components and their interrelationships. This description, often called a hardware design model, allows hardware designers to understand how their compon ...

of the

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi ( ) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., Broadcom. To commercialize the product and support its growing demand, the ...

device. He is a former technical director and

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

for

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational designer, developer, manufacturer, and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data cen ...

Education and early life

Eben Upton was born in

Griffithstown Griffithstown is a large suburb of Pontypool in the borough of Torfaen, Wales, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire. It is an ecclesiastical parish, formed in May 1898, from Llanfrechfa Upper and Panteg, and includes Sebastopol, but ...

near

Pontypool Pontypool ( ) is a town and the administrative centre of the county borough of Torfaen, within the Historic counties of Wales, historic boundaries of Monmouthshire (historic), Monmouthshire in South Wales. , it has a population of 29,062. Locat ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

, where his mother is from; his father is linguist

Clive Upton Clive Upton (born 30 September 1946) is an English linguist specializing in dialectology and sociolinguistics. He is also an authority on the pronunciation of English. He has been Emeritus Professor of Modern English Language at the University ...

. He lived in Lae in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

between the ages of eight weeks and two and a half years. He then returned to the UK where he grew up and was educated at schools in

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

and

Ilkley Ilkley is a spa town and civil parish in the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, in Northern England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Ilkley civil parish includes the adjacent village of Ben Rhydding and is a ward within ...

. Upton completed a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

and Engineering in 1999 at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

where he was an undergraduate student at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

. He went on to do the

Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science Diploma in Computer Science, originally known as the Diploma in Numerical Analysis and Automatic Computing, was a conversion course in computer science offered by the University of Cambridge. It is equivalent to a master's degree in present-day nom ...

graduating in 2001. After his diploma, Upton was a research student in the

Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. it employed 56 faculty members, 45 support staff, 105 research staff, and about 205 researc ...

. After finishing his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree, he earned a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

(MBA) at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Career

Before working at Broadcom, Upton served as director of studies in Computer Science at St John's College, Cambridge, with responsibility for undergraduate admissions. During his academic career, he co-authored papers on mobile services,

Human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the process through which people operate and engage with computer systems. Research in HCI covers the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and comp ...

(HCI),Haggle: Seamless Networking for Mobile Applications
in

bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

, data

dependency graph In mathematics, computer science and digital electronics, a dependency graph is a directed graph representing dependencies of several objects towards each other. It is possible to derive an evaluation order or the absence of an evaluation order th ...

s. and Fuel Panics: Insights From Spatial Agent-Based Simulation. He has been a visiting Researcher at

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Corporation, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Ideaworks3D and a software engineer at

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. Eben Upton moved production of

computers from China to the Sony UK Technology Centre (Sony UK TEC) at Pencoed,

in 2012, 15–20 miles from where he was born.

Publications

Upton has published books including the ''Oxford Rhyming Dictionary'' with his father

. With Gareth Halfacree he co-authored the ''Raspberry Pi User Guide''. Upton has also co-authored ''Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi'', and ''Code the Classics - Volume 1''.

Awards and honours

Upton has won a number of awards including the Innovators Under 35 (TR35) from ''

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

'' in 2012 and the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

Silver Medal. Upton was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to business and education. He was made a

Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and Scholarship, fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in United K ...

(FREng) in 2017, and a

Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (DFBCS or DistFBCS) is an award and fellowship granted by the British Computer Society for members of the computing profession who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of co ...

(DFBCS) in 2019. In 2020, Upton was made an Honorary Fellow St John's College, Cambridge. In the same year, he was awarded the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award and made an Honorary Fellow of the

IET __NOTOC__ IET can refer to: Organizations * Institute of Educational Technology, part of the Open University * Institution of Engineering and Technology, a UK-based professional engineering institution ** Institute of Engineers and Technicians, wh ...

(HonFIET).

Personal life

Eben Upton is married to Raspberry Pi co-founder, Liz, whom he met at university.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Upton, Eben 1978 births Living people People from Pontypool Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Members of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Intel people IBM employees Welsh computer scientists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Raspberry Pi