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What they didn't teach me: building a technology company and taking it to market

24 Jan 2013

The University of Manchester, in partnership with the BCS, IET and Oxford University Press, is delighted to announce Suranga Chandratillake FREng as the speaker for the 9th annual Turing Lecture on 19 February 2013.

Suranga realised just how little his (otherwise excellent) education had prepared him for the challenges of starting a company, building and marketing a product and growing an organisation. So given the economic and social impact that such endeavour can have, what could be done to better equip those starting down this path today?

Amongst other things, he will talk about the background to this decision and his experience of going into industry vs academia, beginning with Autonomy PLC and later the founding and path to growth of his company, Blinkx Plc. He will cover the technology developed at both companies including efforts to reduce complexity, increase customer-centricity and the unique challenges of building for consumers.

For further details, please visit:

Suranga Chandratillake is the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Blinkx PLC., the Internet Video Search Engine company that he started in 2004, took public in 2007 and led as CEO until 2012. Prior to Blinkx, Suranga was Autonomy PLC's US Chief Technology Officer and led the effort to enable Autonomy's software to work in highly distributed environments.

The lecture begins at 6pm on Tuesday 19 February in Theatre B, University Place (No 37 on campus map), followed by post lecture drinks and nibbles in the foyer from 7pm onwards.

The event is free, but you must register to attend.

Register for the event online at: