IT leaders bag New Year's Honours

obe medal

Several UK tech industry figureheads have been recognised for their services in this year's Honours list.

Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Eidos Interactive, and government digital champion Martha Lane Fox have both received a CBE, while chief executive of Imagination Technologies, Hossein Yassaie, has been knighted.

Livingstone's CBE has been awarded for services to the computer gaming industry, which he became involved in during the 1980s.

In 1990 he helped start Eidos Interactive, which published the Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Hitman video game series until it was acquired by Japanese company Square Enix in 2009.

However, Livingstone remains life president of Eidos and has also been a vocal advocate for better IT education in schools.

Lane Fox has been recognised for voluntary services to the UK Digital Economy and to charity. She founded travel website Lastminute.com in 1998, which was one of the notable survivors of the dot-com bubble.

In 2009, she was appointed the UK's digital inclusion champion, heading a two-year campaign to increase computer literacy amongst the British public and in 2010 her Manifesto for a Networked Nation was published. She also helped launch government web portal gov.uk in October 2012, which replaced direct.gov.

Yassaie, who came to Britain from Iran in the 1970s, joined Imagination Technologies in 1992, and went on to become its CEO six years later.

His knighthood for services to technology and innovation reflects the fact that the company's PowerVR graphics processing unit is used by nearly all leading mobile device producers, including Apple, Samsung and LG.

Under his leadership, Imagination has also grown to become a FTSE 250 company.

Other recipients of New Years Honours from the world of technology include Digital UK chairman Barry Cox and Ofcom telecoms advisor David Cleevely, who both received a CBE, and networking engineer David Payne, who was knighted.

Jane McCallion
Deputy Editor

Jane McCallion is ITPro's deputy editor, specializing in cloud computing, cyber security, data centers and enterprise IT infrastructure. Before becoming Deputy Editor, she held the role of Features Editor, managing a pool of freelance and internal writers, while continuing to specialise in enterprise IT infrastructure, and business strategy.

Prior to joining ITPro, Jane was a freelance business journalist writing as both Jane McCallion and Jane Bordenave for titles such as European CEO, World Finance, and Business Excellence Magazine.