Mark Shuttleworth

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Image:Mark Shuttleworth NASA.jpg

Mark Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African entrepreneur. Shuttleworth was born in Welkom, Free State, South Africa. As an early space tourist, he was the first African national Template:Ref in space. He currently lives in London and due to being Anglo-African holds dual citizenship of South Africa and Britain.

After going to school at Diocesan College, Shuttleworth obtained a Business Science degree in Finance and Information Systems at the University of Cape Town.

Shuttleworth gained worldwide fame on 25 April 2002 as a civilian cosmonaut aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission, paying approximately US$ 20 million. Two days later, the Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, where he spent eight days, participating in experiments related to AIDS and genome research. On 5 May, he returned to Earth. In order to participate on the flight, Shuttleworth had to undergo one year of training and preparation, including seven months spent in Star City, Moscow.

Contents 1 Work 1.1 Thawte 1.2 HBD Venture Capital 1.3 The Shuttleworth Foundation 1.4 Canonical and Ubuntu 2 Footnote 3 See also 4 External links

Work

Thawte

In 1995, he founded Thawte, which specialised in digital certificates and Internet security. He sold Thawte in December 1999 to VeriSign earning R3,5-billion.

HBD Venture Capital

He formed HBD Venture Capital, a business incubator and venture capital provider.

The Shuttleworth Foundation

In 2001 he formed the Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to social innovation which also funds educational and open source projects in South Africa, such as The Freedom Toaster.

Canonical and Ubuntu

Shuttleworth participated as a Debian developer in the 1990s, and in 2004 he returned to the Linux world by funding the development of Ubuntu, a user-friendly version of Linux, through his company Canonical Ltd. In 2005 he founded the Ubuntu Foundation and made an initial investment of 10 million dollars. The foundation is used to pay Ubuntu contributors. In the Ubuntu project, Shuttleworth is often referred to with the tongue-in-cheek title Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life. In September 2005, he purchased a 65% stake of ImpiLinux. [1]

Footnote

1. Template:Note Shuttleworth is the first African citizen to be in space, but another astronaut was also born in Africa. Patrick Baudry was in space before Shuttleworth, but because his native Cameroon was still a French colony at his birth, he is considered a French citizen.

See also

• List of astronauts by name
• List of South Africans - Voted 18th in the Top 100 Great South Africans

External links

• Biography at Mark Shuttleworth's Homepage
• Mark Shuttleworth answers the community's questions about Ubuntu
• The Shuttleworth Foundation
• HBD Venture Capital
• Linux Format interview - October 2005de:Mark Shuttleworth

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