On the lighter side of things , we ask the industry experts what makes them tick . . . .

Dr Jim Webber , Chief Scientist , Neo4j , switched on to tech when a friend ’ s dad bought a Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the 1980s – here ’ s what that led to .

In early life it was obtaining a PhD in computer science . That was such an unlikely thing for someone like me who was born to a working-class British family . In later life at Neo4j , I ' m still very proud of the fault tolerant clustering architecture we built – definitely the hardest two years of work I ' ve ever put in , but the system itself benefits so many people on a daily basis .

What first made you think of a career in technology ?

A friend ' s dad bought a Sinclair ZX Spectrum ( 8-bit computer ) in the 1980s and I was amazed . From then on all I wanted to do was code on it ( and play games , of course ). At the time the BBC in the UK was tasked with educating children across the country about computing , and they installed lots of BBC Micro computers in schools throughout the nation . The first real program I ever interacted with was a database written in BBC Basic . From there it was obvious it would lead to a degree and then a career in computing , which ultimately led to me joining Neo4j .

What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position ?

My team are all very talented computer scientists . They know more about their research areas than I do , so I can ' t just boss them around . Instead , I can be curious about what they ' re doing , ask questions and sometimes unearth things that might be interesting to explore . But because we ' re a commercial organization , even research has to work towards a deadline and I help my team understand that perfect is the enemy of good .

What do you think is the current hot technology talking point ?

Generative AI . The IT world has been lit up by it . But I also think that the hype has covered up some interesting work outside of the web hyperscalers . It would not surprise me if Machine Learning techniques from the open-source world ultimately provide more value for more users than the humongous models from some of the leading players in the market . I think some of the larger players may worry about what this means in the longer term .

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