Eben Upton
Eben Upton | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 5, 1978 Griffithstown, Wales |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, CEO |
| Known for | CEO of Raspberry Pi Holdings |
Eben Christopher Upton (born 5 April 1978) is a Welsh entrepreneur serving as the CEO of Raspberry Pi Holdings. He is responsible for guiding the comprehensive software and hardware design of the Raspberry Pi product. Prior to this role, Upton held positions as technical director and ASIC architect at Broadcom.
Education and early life
Born in Griffithstown, near Pontypool, Wales, where his mother originates, Eben Upton is the son of linguist Clive Upton. His early childhood included a period living in Lae, Papua New Guinea, from approximately eight weeks old until two and a half years, after which he returned to the United Kingdom. He was raised and educated in various locations including Leeds, Birmingham, and Ilkley.
Upton graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Physics and Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 1999, attending St John's College, Cambridge as an undergraduate. He further completed the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science in 2001 and engaged in research at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. Following his doctoral studies, he earned an MBA from the Cambridge Judge Business School.
Career
Prior to his tenure at Broadcom, Upton served as director of studies for Computer Science at St John's College, Cambridge, where he managed undergraduate admissions. His academic contributions include co-authoring research on topics such as mobile services, human–computer interaction (HCI), Bluetooth technology, data dependency graphs, and spatial agent-based simulation. His professional experience also encompasses roles as a visiting researcher at Intel, Founder and CTO of Ideaworks3D, and software engineer at IBM.
In 2012, Upton orchestrated the move of Raspberry Pi manufacturing from China to the Sony UK Technology Centre (Sony UK TEC) located in Pencoed, Wales, situated roughly 15–20 miles from his birthplace. This transition strengthened local production connections.
Publications
Among Upton’s published works is the Oxford Rhyming Dictionary, co-authored with his father, Clive Upton. He also collaborated with Gareth Halfacree on the Raspberry Pi User Guide and contributed to Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi. Additionally, he authored Code the Classics - Volume 1.
Awards and honours
Upton has been recognized with numerous distinctions including the 2012 MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 (TR35) award and the Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2016, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his contributions to education and business.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2017 and became a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (DFBCS) in 2019. In 2020, Upton was named an Honorary Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge; received the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award; and was granted Honorary Fellowship by the IET (HonFIET).
Personal life
Eben Upton is married to Liz Upton, Raspberry Pi’s co-founder, whom he met during their university studies.