title: Leigh Bowery

text: She had been hidden for the first part of the performance by being strapped to Leigh's belly with her face in his crotch. Then she would slip out of her harness and appear to pop out of Bowery's belly along with a lot of stage blood and links of sausages, while Bowery wailed. Bowery would then bite off the umbilical cord and the two would take a bow. Boy George said he saw it a number of times, and that it "never ceased to impress or revolt".


title: Leigh Bowery

text: In London in 1988, Bowery met the noted painter Lucian Freud in his club Taboo. They were introduced by a friend they had in common, the artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Freud had seen Bowery perform at Anthony d'Offay Gallery, in London. In Bowery's first public appearance in the context of fine art, Bowery posed behind a one-way mirror in the gallery dressed in the flamboyant costumes he was known for.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Bowery used his body and manipulation of his flesh to create personas. This involved almost masochistically taping his torso and piercing his cheeks with pins in order to hold masks, as well as wearing outlandish makeup. Freud said, "the way he edits his body is amazingly aware and amazingly abandoned". In return, Bowery said of Freud: "I love the psychological aspect of his work – in fact, I sometimes felt as if I had been undergoing psychoanalysis with him ... His work is full of tension. Like me, he is interested in the underbelly of things".


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Bowery posed for a number of large full-length paintings that are considered among Freud's best work. The paintings tend to exaggerate Bowery's 6-foot 3inch, and 17 stone physique to monumental proportions. The paintings had a strong impact as part of Freud's exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1994. Freud said he found him "perfectly beautiful", and commented, "His wonderfully buoyant bulk was an instrument I felt I could use, especially those extraordinary dancer's legs". Freud noted that Leigh by nature was a shy and gentle man, and his flamboyant persona was in part a form of self-defence.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: In 1993, Bowery formed the Romo/ art-pop band Minty with friend knitwear designer Richard Torry, Nicola Bateman, and Matthew Glammore.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: In November 1994, Minty began a two-week-long show at London's Freedom Cafe, including audience member Alexander McQueen, but it was too much for Westminster City Council, who closed down the show after only one night. This was to be Bowery's last performance. The show was documented by photographer A.M. Hanson with imagery subsequently published in books about Bowery and McQueen.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Minty was a financial loss and represented a low point in Bowery's colourful career. After his death, the band continued under the leadership of Bateman and Glammore up until the release of album "Open Wide". This 1997 album was released on Candy Records and featured the singles "Useless Man", "Plastic Bag", "Nothing" and "That's Nice". A spin-off band called The Offset later formed including artist Donald Urquhart.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: In 2020, "Open Wide" was re-issued by Candy Records in association with The state51 Conspiracy, while "Useless Man" received a remix by Boy George and a new promo video directed by Torry and Glammore.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Although Bowery was known to be and always described himself as gay, he married his long-time female companion Nicola Bateman on 13 May 1994 in Tower Hamlets, London, in "a personal art performance". Although he had been HIV positive for six years, very few of those who knew him guessed that; he typically explained his public absence by saying he had gone to Papua New Guinea.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: His wife did not know that Bowery had the virus until he was admitted to hospital. He died seven months after his marriage, on New Year's Eve 1994 (the date has been disputed by his father, who says he actually died in the early hours of New Year's Day, 1995), from an AIDS-related illness at the Middlesex Hospital, Westminster, London, five weeks after his admission. Lucian Freud paid for Bowery's body to be repatriated to Australia.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Boy George was the creative force, the lyricist and performer in the musical "Taboo", which was loosely based on Bowery's club. The musical was produced in 2002 on the West End in London, and then opened on Broadway. As a performer, Boy George played Bowery.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: In an interview conducted by Mark Ronson for "Interview Magazine" Boy George said that Bowery would sometimes speak with a posh English accent, and one didn't always know if he was sincere or mocking: He seemed to be "in character" at all times. Bowery decorated his flat in a style that was similar to the way he dressed, with "Star Trek"-themed wallpaper, mirrors and a large piano. He was a ringleader of misbehaviour, and with his club, he created a place where there were no rules. In the clubs at the peak of his fame, he would distort his body in various ways so that he would appear deformed, or pregnant or with breasts. Bowery once said, "Flesh is my most favourite fabric".


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Bowery influenced other artists and designers including Meadham Kirchhoff, Alexander McQueen, Lucian Freud, Vivienne Westwood, Boy George, Antony and the Johnsons, Lady Gaga, John Galliano, Scissor Sisters, David LaChapelle, Lady Bunny, Acid Betty, Shea Couleé, and Charles Jeffrey plus numerous Nu-Rave bands and nightclubs in London and New York City.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Bowery was the main inspiration for the Tranimal drag movement, which emphasised an animalistic and post-modern take on drag.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Performance artist Vulva in the third episode of British TV comedy series "Spaced" was inspired by Leigh Bowery.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: In "Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy" series 2 episode 2, Noel is advised to give his "fantasy block" a physical/visual form. He describes it as "...rotund but kind of stylish, like a Leigh Bowery creation." Bowery had been an influence on Fielding's outlandish costume characters.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Bowery was the subject of a contemporary dance, physical theatre and circus show in August 2018 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, put on by Australian choreographer Andy Howitt.


title: Leigh Bowery

text: Bowery was the focus of an exhibition in 2022 at the Fitzrovia Chapel, London, called Tell Them I've Gone to Papua New Guinea.


title: SRI International

text: SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region.


title: SRI International

text: The organization was founded as the Stanford Research Institute. SRI formally separated from Stanford University in 1970 and became known as SRI International in 1977. SRI performs client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, and private foundations. It also licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships, sells products, and creates spin-off companies. SRI's headquarters are located near the Stanford University campus.


title: SRI International

text: SRI's annual revenue in 2014 was approximately $540 million, which tripled from 1998 under the leadership of Curtis Carlson. In 1998, the organization was on the verge of bankruptcy when Carlson took over as CEO. Over the next sixteen years with Carlson as CEO, the organizational culture of SRI was transformed. SRI tripled in size, became very profitable, and created many world-changing innovations, using NABC Framework. Its best-known success—Siri, the personal assistant on the iPhone—came from a company SRI created and then sold to Apple. William A. Jeffrey has served as SRI's president and CEO since September 2014.


title: SRI International

text: SRI employs about 2,100 people. Sarnoff Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI since 1988, was fully integrated into SRI in January 2011.


title: SRI International

text: SRI's focus areas include biomedical sciences, chemistry and materials, computing, Earth and space systems, economic development, education and learning, energy and environmental technology, security and national defense, as well as sensing and devices. SRI has received more than 4,000 patents and patent applications worldwide.


title: SRI International

text: In the 1920s, Stanford University professor Robert E. Swain proposed creating a research institute in the Western United States. Herbert Hoover, then a trustee of Stanford University, was also an early proponent of an institute but became less involved with the project after he was elected president of the United States. The development of the institute was delayed by the Great Depression in the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s, with three separate attempts leading to its formation in 1946.


title: SRI International

text: In August 1945, Maurice Nelles, Morlan A. Visel, and Ernest L. Black of Lockheed made the first attempt to create the institute with the formation of the "Pacific Research Foundation" in Los Angeles. A second attempt was made by Henry T. Heald, then president of the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1945, Heald wrote a report recommending a research institute on the West Coast and a close association with Stanford University with an initial grant of $500,000 (equivalent to $ in ). A third attempt was made by Fred Terman, Stanford University's dean of engineering. Terman's proposal followed Heald's, but focused on faculty and student research more than contract research.


title: SRI International

text: The trustees of Stanford University voted to create the organization in 1946. It was structured so that its goals were aligned with the charter of the university—to advance scientific knowledge and to benefit the public at large, not just the students of Stanford University. The trustees were named as the corporation's general members, and elected SRI's directors (later known as presidents); if the organization were dissolved, its assets would return to Stanford University.


title: SRI International

text: Research chemist William F. Talbot became the first director of the institute. Stanford University president Donald Tresidder instructed Talbot to avoid work that would conflict with the interests of the university, particularly federal contracts that might attract political pressure. The drive to find work and the lack of support from Stanford faculty caused the new research institute to violate this directive six months later through the pursuit of a contract with the Office of Naval Research. This and other issues, including frustration with Tresidder's micromanagement of the new organization, caused Talbot to repeatedly offer his resignation, which Tresidder eventually accepted. Talbot was replaced by Jesse Hobson, who had previously led the Armour Research Foundation, but the pursuit of contract work remained.


title: SRI International

text: SRI's first research project investigated whether the guayule plant could be used as a source of natural rubber. During World War II, rubber was imported into the U.S. and was subject to shortages and strict rationing. From 1942 to 1946, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) supported a project to create a domestic source of natural rubber. Once the war ended, the United States Congress cut funding for the program; in response, the Office of Naval Research created a grant for the project to continue at SRI, and the USDA staff on the project worked through SRI until Congress reauthorized funding in 1947.


title: SRI International

text: SRI's first economic study was for the United States Air Force. In 1947, the Air Force wanted to determine the expansion potential of the U.S. aircraft industry; SRI found that it would take too long to escalate production in an emergency. In 1948, SRI began research and consultation with Chevron Corporation to develop an artificial substitute for tallow and coconut oil in soap production; SRI's investigation confirmed the potential of dodecylbenzene as a suitable replacement. Later, Procter & Gamble used the substance as the basis for Tide laundry detergent.


title: SRI International

text: The institute performed much of the early research on air pollution and the formation of ozone in the lower atmosphere. SRI sponsored the First National Air Pollution Symposium in Pasadena, California, in November 1949. Experts gave presentations on pollution research, exchanged ideas and techniques, and stimulated interest in the field. The event was attended by 400 scientists, business executives, and civic leaders from the U.S. SRI co-sponsored subsequent events on the subject.


title: SRI International

text: In April 1953, Walt and Roy Disney hired SRI (and in particular, Harrison Price) to consult on their proposal for establishing an amusement park in Burbank, California. SRI provided information on location, attendance patterns, and economic feasibility. SRI selected a larger site in Anaheim, prepared reports about operation, and provided on-site administrative support for Disneyland and acted in an advisory role as the park expanded. In 1955, SRI was commissioned to select a site and provide design suggestions for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.


title: SRI International

text: In 1952, the Technicolor Corporation contracted with SRI to develop a near-instantaneous, electro-optical alternative to the manual process of timing during film copying. In 1959, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the Scientific and Engineering Award jointly to SRI and Technicolor for their work on the design and development of the Technicolor electronic printing timer which greatly benefited the motion picture industry. In 1954, Southern Pacific asked SRI to investigate ways of reducing damage during rail freight shipments by mitigating shock to railroad box cars. This investigation led to William K. MacCurdy's development of the Hydra-Cushion technology, which remains standard today.


title: SRI International

text: In the 1950s, SRI worked under the direction of the Bank of America to develop ERMA (Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting) and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR). The ERMA project was led by computer scientist Jerre Noe, who was at the time SRI's assistant director of engineering. As of 2011, MICR remains the industry standard in automated check processing.


title: SRI International

text: Douglas Engelbart, the founder of SRI's Augmentation Research Center (ARC), was the primary force behind the design and development of the multi-user oN-Line System (or NLS), featuring original versions of modern computer-human interface elements including bit-mapped displays, collaboration software, hypertext, and precursors to the graphical user interface such as the computer mouse. As a pioneer of human-computer interaction, Engelbart is arguably SRI's most notable alumnus. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2000.


title: SRI International

text: Bill English, then chief engineer at ARC, built the first prototype of a computer mouse from Engelbart's design in 1964. SRI also developed inkjet printing (1961) and optical disc recording (1963). Liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology was developed at RCA Laboratories in the 1960s, which later became Sarnoff Corporation in 1988, a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI. Sarnoff was fully integrated into SRI in 2011.


title: SRI International

text: In the early 1960s, Hewitt Crane and his colleagues developed the world's first all-magnetic digital computer, based upon extensions to magnetic core memories. The technology was licensed to AMP Inc., who then used it to build specialized computers for controlling tracks in the New York City Subway and on railroad switching yards.


title: SRI International

text: In 1966, SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center began working on "Shakey the robot", the first mobile robot to reason about its actions. Equipped with a television camera, a triangulating rangefinder, and bump sensors, Shakey used software for perception, world-modeling, and acting. The project ended in 1972. SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center marked its 45th anniversary in 2011.


title: SRI International

text: On October 29, 1969, the first connection on a wide area network to use packet switching, ARPANET, was established between nodes at Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Douglas Engelbart's laboratory at SRI using Interface Message Processors at both sites. The following year, Engelbart's laboratory installed the first TENEX system outside of BBN where it was developed. In addition to SRI and UCLA, University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Utah were part of the original four network nodes. By December 5, 1969, the entire four-node network was connected. In the 1970s, SRI developed packet-switched radio (a precursor to wireless networking), over-the-horizon radar, Deafnet, vacuum microelectronics, and software-implemented fault tolerance.


title: SRI International

text: The first true Internet transmission occurred on November 22, 1977, when SRI originated the first connection between three disparate networks. Data flowed seamlessly through the mobile Packet Radio Van between SRI in Menlo Park, California and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles via University College London, England, across three types of networks: packet radio, satellite, and the ARPANET. In 2007, the Computer History Museum presented a 30th anniversary celebration of this demonstration, which included several participants from the 1977 event. SRI would go on to run the Network Information Center under the leadership of Jake Feinler.


title: SRI International

text: The Vietnam War (1955–1975) was an important issue on college campuses across the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. As a belated response to Vietnam War protesters who believed that funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made the university part of the military–industrial complex, the Stanford Research Institute split from Stanford University in 1970. The organization subsequently changed its name from the Stanford Research Institute to SRI International in 1977.


title: SRI International

text: In 1972, physicists Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ undertook a series of investigations of psychic phenomena sponsored by the CIA, for which they coined the term remote viewing. Among other activities, the project encompassed the work of consulting "consciousness researchers" including artist/writer Ingo Swann, military intelligence officer Joseph McMoneagle, and psychic/illusionist Uri Geller. This ESP work continued with funding from the US intelligence community until Puthoff and Targ left SRI in the mid-1980s. For more information, see Parapsychology research at SRI.


title: SRI International

text: Social scientist and consumer futurist Arnold Mitchell created the Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles (VALS) psychographic methodology in the late 1970s to explain changing U.S. values and lifestyles. VALS was formally inaugurated as an SRI product in 1978 and was called "one of the ten top market research breakthroughs of the 1980s" by "Advertising Age" magazine.


title: SRI International

text: Throughout the 1980s, SRI developed Zylon, stealth technologies, improvements to ultrasound imaging, two-dimensional laser fluorescence imaging, and many-sorted logic. In computing and software, SRI developed a multimedia electronic mail system, a theory of non-interference in computer security, a multilevel secure (MLS) relational database system called Seaview, LaTeX, Open Agent Architecture (OAA), a network intrusion detection system, the Maude system, a declarative software language, and PacketHop, a peer-to-peer wireless technology to create scalable ad hoc networks. SRI's research in network intrusion detection led to the patent infringement case "SRI International, Inc. v. Internet Security Systems, Inc." The AI center's robotics research led to Shakey's successor, Flakey the robot, which focused on fuzzy logic.


title: SRI International

text: In 1986, SRI.com became the 8th registered ".com" domain. The Artificial Intelligence Center developed the Procedural Reasoning System (PRS) in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s. PRS launched the field of BDI-based intelligent agents. In the 1990s, SRI developed a letter sorting system for the United States Postal Service and several education and economic studies.


title: SRI International

text: Military-related technologies developed by SRI in the 1990s and 2000s include ground- and foliage-penetrating radar, the INCON and REDDE command and control system for the U.S. military, and IGRS (integrated GPS radio system)—an advanced military personnel and vehicle tracking system. To train armored combat units during battle exercises, SRI developed the Deployable Force-on-Force Instrumented Range System (DFIRST), which uses GPS satellites, high-speed wireless communications, and digital terrain map displays.


title: SRI International

text: SRI created the Centibots in 2003, one of the first and largest teams of coordinated, autonomous mobile robots that explore, map, and survey unknown environments. It also created BotHunter, a free utility for Unix, which detects botnet activity within a network.


title: SRI International

text: With DARPA-funded research, SRI contributed to the development of speech recognition and translation products and was an active participant in DARPA's Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE) program. SRI developed DynaSpeak speech recognition technology which was used in the handheld VoxTec Phraselator, allowing U.S. soldiers overseas to communicate with local citizens in near real time. SRI also created translation software for use in the IraqComm, a device which allows two-way, speech-to-speech machine translation between English and colloquial Iraqi Arabic.


title: SRI International

text: In medicine and chemistry, SRI developed dry-powder drugs, laser photocoagulation (a treatment for some eye maladies), remote surgery (also known as telerobotic surgery), bio-agent detection using upconverting phosphor technology, the experimental anticancer drugs Tirapazamine and TAS-108, ammonium dinitramide (an environmentally benign oxidizer for safe and cost-effective disposal of hazardous materials), the electroactive polymer ("artificial muscle"), new uses for diamagnetic levitation, and the antimalarial drug Halofantrine.


title: SRI International

text: SRI performed a study in the 1990s for Whirlpool Corporation that led to modern self-cleaning ovens. In the 2000s, SRI worked on Pathway Tools software for use in bioinformatics and systems biology to accelerate drug discovery using artificial intelligence and symbolic computing techniques. The software system generates the BioCyc database collection, SRI's growing collection of genomic databases used by biologists to visualize genes within a chromosome, complete biochemical pathways, and full metabolic maps of organisms.


title: SRI International

text: SRI researchers made the first observation of visible light emitted by oxygen atoms in the night-side airglow of Venus, offering new insight into the planet's atmosphere. SRI education researchers conducted the first national evaluation of the growing U.S. charter schools movement. For the World Golf Foundation, SRI compiled the first-ever estimate of the overall scope of the U.S. golf industry's goods and services ($62 billion in 2000), providing a framework for monitoring the long-term growth of the industry. In April 2000, SRI formed Atomic Tangerine, an independent consulting firm designed to bring new technologies and services to market.


title: SRI International

text: In 2006, SRI was awarded a $56.9 million contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to provide preclinical services for the development of drugs and antibodies for anti-infective treatments for avian influenza, SARS, West Nile virus and hepatitis. Also in 2006, SRI selected St. Petersburg, Florida, as the site for a new marine technology research facility targeted at ocean science, the maritime industry and port security; the facility is a collaboration with the University of South Florida College of Marine Science and its Center for Ocean Technology. That facility created a new method for underwater mass spectrometry, which has been used to conduct "advanced underwater chemical surveys in oil and gas exploration and production, ocean resource monitoring and protection, and water treatment and management" and was licensed to Spyglass Technologies in March 2014.


title: SRI International

text: In December 2007, SRI launched a spin-off company, Siri Inc., which Apple acquired in April 2010. In October 2011, Apple announced the Siri personal assistant as an integrated feature of the Apple iPhone 4S. Siri's technology was born from SRI's work on the DARPA-funded CALO project, described by SRI as the largest artificial intelligence project ever launched. Siri was co-founded in December 2007 by Dag Kittlaus (CEO), Adam Cheyer (vice president, engineering), and Tom Gruber (CTO/vice president, design), together with Norman Winarsky (vice president of SRI Ventures). Investors included Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures.


title: SRI International

text: For the National Science Foundation (NSF), SRI operates the advanced modular incoherent scatter radar (AMISR), a novel relocatable atmospheric research facility. Other SRI-operated research facilities for the NSF include the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility in Greenland. In May 2011, SRI was awarded a $42 million contract to operate the Arecibo Observatory from October 1, 2011, to September 30, 2016. The institute also manages the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Northern California, home of the Allen Telescope Array.


title: SRI International

text: In February 2014, SRI announced a "photonics-based testing technology called FASTcell" for the detection and characterization of rare circulating tumor cells from blood samples. The test is aimed at cancer-specific biomarkers for breast, lung, prostate, colorectal and leukemia cancers that circulate in the blood stream in minute quantities, potentially diagnosing those conditions earlier.


title: SRI International

text: In September 2018, the NSF announced that SRI International will be rewarded $4.4 million to establish the backbone organization of a national network.


title: SRI International

text: As of February 2015, SRI employs approximately 2,100 people. In 2014, SRI had about $540 million in revenue. In 2013, the United States Department of Defense consisted of 63% of awards by value; the remainder was composed of the National Institutes of Health (11%); businesses and industry (8%); other United States agencies (6%); the National Science Foundation (6%); the United States Department of Education (4%); and foundations (2%).


title: SRI International

text: As of February 2015, approximately 4,000 patents have been granted to SRI International and its employees.


title: SRI International

text: SRI is primarily based on a campus located in Menlo Park, California, which is considered part of Silicon Valley. This campus encompasses of office and lab space. In addition, SRI has a campus in Princeton, New Jersey, with of research space. There are also offices in Washington, D.C., and Tokyo, Japan. In total, SRI has of office and laboratory space.


title: SRI International

text: SRI International is organized into seven units (generally referred to as divisions) that focus on specific subject areas.


title: SRI International

text: SRI has had a chief executive of some form since its establishment. Prior to the split with Stanford University, the position was known as the director; after the split, it is known as the company's president and CEO. SRI has had nine so far, including William F. Talbot (1946–1947), Jesse E. Hobson (1947–1955), E. Finley Carter (1956–1963), Charles Anderson (1968–1979), William F. Miller (1979–1990), James J. Tietjen (1990–1993), William P. Sommers (1993–1998) Curtis Carlson (1998–2014). More recently, the role was split into two. The current CEO is William A. Jeffrey (2014–present) and the president is Manish Kothari (formerly president of SRI Ventures).


title: SRI International

text: SRI also has had a board of directors since its inception, which has served to both guide and provide opportunities for the organization. The current board of directors includes Samuel Armacost (Chairman of the Board Emeritus), Mariann Byerwalter (chairman), William A. Jeffrey, Charles A. Holloway (vice chairman), Vern Clark, Robert L. Joss, Leslie F. Kenne, Henry Kressel, David Liddle, Philip J. Quigley, Wendell Wierenga and John J. Young Jr.


title: SRI International

text: Its notable researchers include Elmer Robinson (meteorologist), co-author of the 1968 SRI report to the American Petroleum Institute (API) on the risks of fossil fuel burning to the global climate. Many notable researchers were involved with the Augmentation Research Center. These include Douglas Engelbart, the developer of the modern GUI; William English, the inventor of the mouse; Jeff Rulifson, the primary developer of the NLS; Elizabeth J. Feinler, who ran the Network Information Center; and David Maynard, who would help found Electronic Arts.


title: SRI International

text: The Artificial Intelligence Center has also produced a large number of notable alumni, many of whom contributed to Shakey the robot; these include project manager Charles Rosen, as well as Nils Nilsson, Bertram Raphael, Richard O. Duda, Peter E. Hart, Richard Fikes, and Richard Waldinger. AI researcher Gary Hendrix went on to found Symantec. Former Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer performed a research internship in the Center in the 1990s. The CALO project (and its spin-off, Siri) also produced notable names including C. Raymond Perrault and Adam Cheyer.


title: SRI International

text: Several SRI projects produced notable researchers and engineers long before computing was mainstream. Early employee Paul M. Cook founded Raychem. William K. MacCurdy developed the Hydra-Cushion freight car for Southern Pacific in 1954; Hewitt Crane and Jerre Noe were instrumental in the development of Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting; Harrison Price helped The Walt Disney Company design Disneyland; James C. Bliss developed the Optacon; and Robert Weitbrecht invented the first telecommunications device for the deaf.


title: SRI International

text: Working with investment and venture capital firms, SRI and its former employees have launched more than 60 spin-off ventures in a wide range of fields, including Siri (acquired by Apple), Tempo AI (acquired by Salesforce.com), Redwood Robotics (acquired by Google), Desti (acquired by HERE), Grabit, Kasisto, Artificial Muscle, Inc. (acquired by Bayer MaterialScience), Nuance Communications, Intuitive Surgical, Ravenswood Solutions, and Orchid Cellmark.


title: SRI International

text: Former SRI staff members have also established new companies. In engineering and analysis, for example, notable companies formed by SRI alumni include Weitbrecht Communications, Exponent and Raychem. Companies in the area of legal, policy and business analysis include Fair Isaac Corporation, Global Business Network and Institute for the Future.


title: SRI International

text: Research in computing and computer science-related areas led to the development of many companies, including Symantec, the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute, E-Trade, and Verbatim Corporation. Wireless technologies spawned Firetide and venture capital firm enVia Partners. Health systems research inspired Telesensory Systems.


title: Sundarapandian

text: Sundarapandian is a 2012 Indian Tamil-language comedy drama film directed by debutant S. R. Prabhakaran. Sasikumar played the title character, besides producing the film, while Vijay Sethupathi, Lakshmi Menon, Soori, Appukutty, Inigo Prabhakaran, and Soundararaja appeared in supporting roles. Music was composed by N. R. Raghunanthan, while cinematography was handled by Premkumar. The film released on 14 September 2012 to overall positive reviews. Following its commercial success, the film was remade in Telugu as "Speedunnodu" and in Kannada as "Raja Huli".


title: Sundarapandian

text: Sundarapandian is the only son of Raghupathi, a rich landlord and the village head. He lives in Kandamanoor, near Theni. Murugesan and Arivazhagan are Sundarapandian's close friends from the same town. Arivu had failed his board exams twice and is now in his final year of college, while Sundarapandian completed college two years ago and is now living freely. Arivu falls in love with Archana, who lives in a small village near Usilampatti and sees daily on the bus from Madurai to Theni. Arivu is scared to propose his love and decides to get the help of Sundarapandian in expressing love.


title: Sundarapandian

text: Sundarapandian, Murugesan, and Arivu board the route bus daily in which Archana travels to her college. Bhuvaneshwaran also loves Archana and travels in the same bus, also trying to propose to her. There arises a clash between Arivu and Bhuvanesh. They resolve it, as Bhuvanesh's native close friend is Sundarapandian's classmate Paranjothi. They give Bhuvanesh 31 days to woo Archana, without any of them intervening, failing which he should not disturb her anymore ever. Bhuvanesh fails and seemingly leaves the way for Arivu. There, it is revealed that three years ago, Sundarapandian had proposed to Archana and she had rejected him. Upon Arivu's urging, Sundarapandian goes to Archana to give his proposal. The next day, Archana suddenly proposes to Sundarapandian, which shocks everyone. Archana likes Sundarapandian and was waiting to meet him to convey her love towards him. Arivu accepts to leave his love, and Sundarapandian accepts Archana, but her parents wanted her to marry their close relative Jegan, although she is not interested.


title: Sundarapandian

text: Archana had asked Sundarapandian not to contact her as she has exams coming. Bhuvanesh uses this time and verbally harasses Archana in the bus. Sundarapandian catches him and warns him not to repeat it. Sundarapandian asks Bhuvanesh to stop following Archana. The next day, Bhuvanesh comes with two of his friends and insults Archana again. Sundarapandian and his friends board the bus halfway, and a clash erupts between Sundarapandian and Bhuvanesh. Suddenly, Bhuvanesh is pushed out of the moving bus, which leads to his death. Sundarapandian is arrested for the murder but gets bailed from the case as it was termed as an accident. Raghupathi agrees to take care of Bhuvanesh's ailing parents and give money for his sister's marriage, but some of Bhuvanesh's friends wait for the right time to take revenge on Sundarapandian. Paranjothi is also angry on Sundarapandian but does not express it.


title: Sundarapandian

text: Meanwhile, Archana's parents try to force her to marry Jegan. Raghupathi comes to Archana's home with a marriage proposal between Archana and Sundarapandian. Raghupathi requests Archana's father Pandi to set aside the ego and fulfill his daughter's wish by getting her married to Sundarapandian. Pandi is convinced by Raghupathi's speech and agrees for the wedding with Sundarapandian. Jegan gets furious knowing that Archana is about to marry someone else. He is even more shocked to know that Sundarapandian is none other than his close friend in college but has lost contact after college days. Jegan decides to kill Sundarapandian, and Paranjothi decides to help him.


title: Sundarapandian

text: Paranjothi meets Sundarapandian and informs about Jegan's love towards Archana. He also lies that Jegan is transforming into a drunkard, worrying about his love in the outskirts of the town. Sundarapandian decides to meet Jegan and try to bring back him to normal. In the meantime, Paranjothi and Jegan have planned to kill Sundarapandian while he comes to meet Jegan. Arivu accompanies Sundarapandian while on the way to meet Jegan.


title: Sundarapandian

text: In the outskirts forests of the town, Sundarapandian meets Jegan and requests him to behave normally. He apologizes, saying that he never knew about his love towards Archana before, but Jegan does not listen to Sundarapandian and tries attacking him along with Paranjothi. Sundarapandian pushes them away and tries to escape from the place. Unfortunately, to his shock, Arivu stabs Sundarapandian in his back because has vengeance regarding his love for Archana.


title: Sundarapandian

text: Sundarapandian feels bad that all his friends betrayed him. However, he retaliates and hits back Jegan, Arivu and Paranjothi. He tells to Jegan that as he thought that he want to marry someone by force is good, while Sundarapandian wanting to marry a girl who loves him is wrong. He tells Paranjothi that he knew that Paranjothi sent the thugs to kill him, as one of them was wearing a shirt which Paranjothi had earlier worn. He reveals to Paranjothi that he didn't kill Bhuvanesh but it was actually Arivu who killed him. He took the blame as he thought it was an accident and to save Arivu. He laments that he has lost his closest friends, he is vexed up and leaves.


title: Sundarapandian

text: Sundarapandian and Archana later get married. The movie ends by showing that Sundarapandian did not disclose the betrayal committed by his friends to anyone but instead ended his friendship with them.


title: Sundarapandian

text: The music was composed by N. R. Raghunanthan. The audio was released by Bala and received by Muthaiya and Socrates, two assistant directors of Sasikumar.


title: Sundarapandian

text: N. Venkateswaran from "The Times of India" gave it 3.5 out of 5 and called it a "clean family entertainer". The reviewer wrote that "the racy script, easy flowing dialogues and the twists he introduces in the screenplay to take it off the beaten path are commendable" and added that "one more student has passed out with flying colours from the Sasikumar school of cinema". in.com wrote ""Sundarapandiyan" is a well made commercial flick with right dose of comedy, sentiment and thrill". IBNLive claimed that the film was a "honest attempt. Prabhakar does his best and make it an interesting watch thanks to Sasikumar". A critic from Sify wrote that debutant director SR Prabhakaran made "a confident debut with a film that is both respectable and engaging" BollywoodLife praised the film, citing: "No masala elements, and still entertaining". Anupama Subramanian from Deccan Chronicle described it as an "honest attempt from Prabhakaran which is engaging family fare", while noting that "Sasi[kumar]'s touches [were] seen till [the] climax". Behindwoods gave 3 out of 5, calling it a "family entertainer with ample dose of comedy". Similarly, Zee News termed the film a "satisfying wholesome entertainer".


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: The German laws regulating alcohol use and sale are mostly focused on youth protection. In contrast to many other countries, legislation is relatively lenient and not designed to keep young people away from alcohol, but rather to teach them an appropriate approach to alcohol consumption.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: In 2006, approximately 1.7 million people in Germany were dependent on alcohol and needed treatment, and 2.7 million consumed alcohol in a harmful way. In 2016, Germany had the fifth highest per capita alcohol consumption worldwide.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Underage drinking in private is not regulated by a specific legal restriction. However, protection from physical and mental harm is part of parents' general obligation to care for a child. Regarding alcohol purchase and alcohol consumption in public places (such as pubs and restaurants), Germany has three drinking ages regulated by "§ 9 Jugendschutzgesetz" "(Protection of Young Persons Act)":


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: This results in three different drinking ages depending on the type of alcoholic beverage and circumstances:


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Because of moral panic involving excessive alcohol use among minors (a 16-year-old boy died after having consumed 45 shots of tequila in a bar in early 2007), some people demanded that the drinking age be raised. Most politicians, however, spoke against that notion, pointing out instead that such use was already forbidden according to current laws, which simply needed to be enforced. In Germany, alcohol consumption is traditional and very much publicy accepted compared to most other countries.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: A study by the RWI Essen found a correlation between reaching the age of 16 and then starting to consume more alcohol and committing more crimes.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: The (German Centre for Addiction Issues) recommends raising the drinking age for all alcoholic beverages in Germany to 18 years.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: The German Cancer Research Center calls for raising the drinking age in Germany to a uniform 18 years for all types of alcoholic beverages.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: In a representative survey conducted on YouGov in 2015, a majority of the 1252 participants were in favor of raising the minimum age for light alcoholic beverages in Germany to 18.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Burkhard Blienert, Federal Government Commissioner for Addiction and Drug Issues since 2022, spoke on the subject of the drinking age in Germany and is in favor of raising it to 18 for all types of alcoholic beverages and abolishing the regulation of "begleitetes Trinken" ("accompanied drinking") from 14 years of age.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: In 2008, the federal state of Lower Saxony started a series of trap purchases, conducted by specially trained police cadets, aged 16 or 17, who pose as customers. In 77% of all tests alcohol was sold illegally in shops, filling stations and kiosks. In 2009, about 3000 trap purchases were carried out in Lower Saxony, in 1327 cases (44%) alcohol was sold without age verification to underage persons. Hundreds of summary proceedings led to administrative fines ranging from 500 to 3000 euros. The standard rate for the illegal sale of one bottle of spirits is 1500 euros. Thus, alcohol trap purchases bring a return of around €2 million annually. Other German states, especially Schleswig-Holstein, are considering implementing the Lower Saxony model, but states like Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg object to it.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Violation of restraints will involve prosecution for vendors who sell alcohol to underage persons and also for bystanders who do not intervene in underage drinking. Although restrictions are nationwide and well-known, some salespersons violate the law at times. Minors themselves can never be prosecuted for alcohol consumption under age. Supermarkets and stores generally check minors for their identity card. The law is less thoroughly enforced in many bars and restaurants, but this can vary by location.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Under the "Protection of Young Persons Act" selling, furnishing and supplying alcoholic beverages in licensed premises, at points of sales or elsewhere in public by a person over the age of 18 years to a person under the required age limits is considered a misdemeanor. Violation can result in fines up to €50,000.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: The "Bußgeldkatalog" of each state sets the possible fines for each violation of the act and varies slightly by state. In the state of Baden-Württemberg the Bußgeldkatalog for violation against the "Protection of Young Persons Act" provides following fines:


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Public parties are prohibited nationally on Good Friday, and regionally on other holidays such as All Saints' Day. Buying alcohol remains possible at these times. The government maintains the right to restrict or ban the sale of alcohol for a certain time to maintain public order (§ 19 GastG).


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Beyond this, Germany has very few restrictions on alcohol consumption in public. Exceptions are sometimes made in the context of football (soccer) matches involving rival teams, where police executives may ban the sale of alcoholic drinks inside stadiums and deny entrance to drunk people. In 2009, the private railway company Metronom, which operates in parts of Northern Germany, introduced a much-discussed complete ban on alcohol onboard their trains. Some cities have banned alcohol consumption in certain areas and at certain times, such as Göttingen in Nikolaistraße on Saturdays and Sundays between 00:00 and 08:00, or in Hannover Hauptbahnhof (outside the existing bars and restaurants) until 2011 when the ban was repealed.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Until 2009, it was acceptable for employees in many fields of work (especially builders, gardeners and manual labourers) to consume medium quantities of alcohol during work hours. However, occupational safety legislation has since tightened down and has induced a significant decrease of alcohol consumption during working hours.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Germany has strict laws regarding operation of motor vehicles under the influence of alcohol and other psychoactive substances. There are a series of different rules and penalties tied to various blood alcohol levels.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Penalties start at a €500 fine and one-month licence suspension. Above 0.11%, the penalty is a €500 fine and the withdrawal of the driving licence for at least six months, but usually about one year (penalty is set by the court); from 0.16%, reissue of the licence requires a successful medical-psychological assessment (MPU), often referred to as the "Idiotentest" ("idiot test"). For violators above 0.11% within ten years of a prior offence above 0.05%, there is a minimum € fine and a one-year licence withdrawal; the driver has to successfully pass an MPU and is required to prove to the court that they have been sober for the last twelve months, before they can get their licence back. For repeat offenses, the fine is multiplied by the ordinal of the offence (doubled, tripled, etc.), regardless of the amount by which the driver was over the limit. These minimum penalties are usually exceeded by the German courts. From 0.11%, the courts usually also require the DUI offender to do unpaid community service.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: In addition to fines, impaired drivers are generally given points in the "Fahreignungsregister" ("driving aptitude register", colloquially "Verkehrssünderkartei", "traffic sinner index"), which is managed by the "Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt" ("Federal Motor Transport Authority") in Flensburg.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: It is legal to consume alcohol while driving, provided the driver remains under the legal blood alcohol limits.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Germany does not require any licenses for the production, wholesale, or retail sale of alcoholic beverages.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: The permit is not required if alcohol-free beverages, free samples, prepared food is sold or administered or in connection with an accommodation establishment beverages and prepared food is delivered to residents. Every other establishment which does not apply to this scheme requires a "". A liquor license is generally required when alcoholic beverages are served or sold for consumption on premises.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: On-licence premises have to place a clearly legible notice with the restrictions of the Protection of Young Persons Act "(Jugendschutzgesetz)" and the bartender must ensure that alcoholic beverages may not be sold or served to underage or visibly intoxicated persons. Operator of a licensed premises are not allowed to force their customers to buy a meal with a drink or change prices if a customer does not order a meal. Changing prices if a customer does not buy an alcoholic drink is also against the law, and every licensee must ensure that there is at least one non alcoholic drink that is cheaper than the cheapest alcoholic drink.


title: Alcohol laws in Germany

text: Closing hours for bars and discotheques are appointed mostly by state legislation. Within the past ten years, many states have abolished the closing hours for licensed establishments. Most states have retained the so-called "Putzstunde" ("Cleaning hour"), which refers to the 1–2 hours (usually between 5 AM and 6 AM) during which licensed premises are not allowed to serve their customers.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Bishop Auckland () is a market town and civil parish at the confluence of the River Wear and the River Gaunless in County Durham, northern England. It is northwest of Darlington and southwest of Durham.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Much of the town's early history surrounds the Bishops of Durham and the establishment of Auckland Castle's predecessor, a hunting lodge, which became the main residence of Durham Bishops. This is reflected in the first part of the town's name. During the Industrial Revolution, the town grew rapidly as coal mining took hold as an important industry. Decline in the coal mining industry during the late twentieth century has changed the largest sector of employment to manufacturing.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Since 1 April 2009, the town's local authority has been Durham County Council. The unitary authority replaced the previous Wear Valley District and Durham County councils. The parliamentary constituency of Bishop Auckland is named after the town. The town is twinned with the French town of Ivry-sur-Seine.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: This is related to another Cumbric toponym, "Alclud", which has been interpreted as "rock on the Clyde river" or "cliff on the Clyde". 'Clyde' may represent a hydronym which was common throughout the Cumbric speaking areas. As such, it is a possible ancient name for the river Gaunless and "Alclit" (meaning 'rock above the clyde river'), the original name for the town itself.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Attempts to link "Alclit" with "Auckland" have been rejected and the present form of the name is accepted to be Old Norse in origin, with "Aukland" meaning 'additional land'. This could refer to the area being extra land granted to the Bishop of Durham by King Canute in around 1020. (Though another suggestion is that Auckland derives from ""Oakland"", referring to the presence of forests.)


title: Bishop Auckland

text: "Auckland" is also used in the settlements of St Helen Auckland, West Auckland and St Andrew Auckland, an old name for South Church, all of which are along the path of the Gaunless. The name Gaunless itself is of later Norse origin, meaning "useless". It is believed that this derives from the river's inability to power a mill, sustain fish or create fertile floodplains.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The "Bishop" element, refers to the land being owned by and the town being the residence of the Bishop of Durham. However, the derivation of "Auckland" is more complex.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The earliest known reference to Bishop Auckland itself is around 1000AD as land given to the Earl of Northumberland for defending the church against the Scots. It is also mentioned in 1020 as a gift given to the Bishop of Durham by King Canute. However, a village almost certainly existed on the town's present site long before this, with there being evidence of church on the site of St Andrew's Church in South Church as early as the seventh century. Furthermore, the Romans had a look-out post where Auckland Castle is sited today and a 10-acre (0.04 km) fort at nearby Binchester. There is also evidence of possible Iron Age settlements around the town, together with finds of Bronze Age, Neolithic and Mesolithic artefacts.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Much of the town's history surrounds its links with the Bishops of Durham. In 1083, Bishop William de St-Calais expelled a number of canons from Durham. Some of these settled in the area and established a collegiate church. Around 1183 Bishop Pudsey established a manor house in the town, with a great hall being completed in 1195 on the site occupied by St Peter's Chapel today. Bishop Bek, who preferred the town as his main residence over Durham Castle due to its proximity to hunting grounds, later converted the manor house into a castle. The grounds of the castle were noted as being large enough to contain 16,000 men ahead of the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Between 1283 and 1310, Bek was also responsible for ordering the replacement of the collegiate church established in 1183 with the Church of St Andrew that stands in South Church today, together with accommodation for the canons; the building known today as the East Deanery.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The collegiate church also appears to have supported a school. The collegiate church was re-organised under Bishop Langley in 1428 and at some point in the same century moved to the castle grounds. The college and its school were finally dissolved in the 16th century.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The school was not revived until the reign of King James I when in 1604 Anne Swifte petitioned the King to found a school and the Free Grammar School of King James, the direct antecedent of today's King James I school, was established. Although the school's early location is unknown, in 1638 Bishop Morton granted the school space in an old chapel in the Market Place.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Also in 1604, James's son, the future King Charles I made the first of three visits to the town. On this visit, his first to England, he was entertained by Bishop Matthew. In 1617 James himself stayed in Auckland Castle between 17 and 19 April. Later, on 8 May, at Durham Castle King James is reputed to have rebuked Bishop William James so badly that the Bishop returned to Auckland Castle and died three days later.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Charles's second visit to the town was on his way to Scotland on 31 May 1633, when he was entertained by Bishop Morton. His third visit on 4 February 1647 was in less lavish circumstances, as a prisoner. Morton had fled the town in 1640 and the castle was empty. Consequently, the king had to stay in a public house off the Market Place owned by Christopher Dobson.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: After the disestablishment of the Church of England, at the end of the first civil war, Auckland Castle was sold to Sir Arthur Hazelrig, who demolished much of the castle, including the chapel, and built a mansion. After the restoration of the monarchy, the new bishop of Durham, John Cosin, in turn demolished Hazelrig's mansion and rebuilt the castle converting the banqueting hall into the chapel that stands today.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The Bishop of Durham as of early November 2019, was the Rt Rev. Paul Roger Butler whose position allows him to hold a seat in the House of Lords.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: In 2012, Jonathan Ruffer purchased Auckland Castle and all of the contents, including the artwork, which included the works by Francisco de Zurbarán. The castle was scheduled to re-open to visitors in November 2019, after a multi-million pound restoration project. The site would also include three new restaurants for visitors, with one in operation by early November 2019. Nonetheless, the Scotland Wing houses the offices of the Bishop of Durham.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: By 1801, the town had a population of 1861. At the end of the eighteenth century the town had no notable roads other than the Roman road, and little trade beyond weaving. Although, coal mining had existed on a small-scale as early as 1183 when it is mentioned in the Boldon Book, it was limited by the lack of an easy way to transport coal away from the area. All this changed with the arrival of railways in the early nineteenth century, which allowed large scale coal mining. The railways allowed coal to be mined, and then transported to the coast before being put onto ships to London and even abroad.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Around the same time, the bishop, Shute Barrington was a keen proponent of the use of education to improve the social and moral circumstances of the lower social classes. He used £70,000 received from lead mining royalties in Weardale to fund the establishment of a number of schools in the area. One of these schools was the Bishop Barrington School (now Bishop Barrington Academy), one of the town's three comprehensive schools today. The Bishop Barrington School opened on 26 May 1810, the Bishop's own birthday. The school even allowed girls to attend until the age of 11 years. Barrington's support of education for the poor was not without controversy. Some suggested education of the poor would lead people to question their position in society, others even blamed it for the French Revolution.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Barrington's successor, William van Mildert was involved in the creation of Durham University. Durham Castle was donated to the new university and Auckland Castle, usually the preferred residence by successive Bishops, became the Bishop of Durham's official residence in 1832. However, the influence of the Prince Bishops of Durham was on the wane and there was pressure for reform. Van Mildert would be the last Prince Bishop. Shortly after his death, in 1836, the position was stripped of its ancient powers and wealth.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: By 1851 the population of the town had more than doubled to 5,112, with a great proportion of them working in ironworks and collieries. By 1891, the population had doubled again. In the second half of the nineteenth century there were typically around 60 collieries in the area open at any one time. By the turn of the twentieth century 16,000 people were employed in the mining industry in the area.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town also became an important centre for rail, with large amounts of minerals such as coal, limestone and ironstone mined in the surrounding area passing through the town on the way to the coast. In the neighbouring town of Shildon large numbers were employed in the railways, where a railway engine works was established.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: By the early years of the twentieth century coal mining started to go into decline as coal reserves started to become exhausted. By the end of the 1920s unemployment had hit 27% and the population too had started to decline, as colliery employment had halved compared with ten years previously. With the onset of the Great Depression unemployment rose to 60% in 1932 before easing back to 36% in 1937. The Second World War offered a temporary reprieve for the coal industry, however, after the war the decline continued. The last deep colliery in the area closed in 1968, although drift mines and the much more mechanised and less labour-intensive surface level opencast mining did continue.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Equally, the railways that had also supported the area were also scaled back, ultimately culminating in the closure of Shildon's Wagon works in 1984 with the loss of thousands of jobs.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: the rate of unemployment in Bishop Auckland is both higher than the average for and higher than the national average... The rate of claiming any benefit (which includes in work benefits) is more than 25% higher in Bishop Auckland than the national average, suggesting that many people maybe under employed or on a low salary.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: At the end of the eighteenth century the town is noted as having little trade beyond weaving. The first mention of coal mining in the area is in the Boldon Book of 1183, but early coal mining was limited by the lack of an easy way to transport coal away from the area. The arrival of the railways transformed the town as it allowed coal to be mined, and then transported to the coast before being put onto ships to London and even abroad. At the start of the twentieth century 16,000 people were employed in the mining industry in the area. However, by 1915 the coal industry in the town had started to decline as coal reserves started to become exhausted. The last deep colliery in the area closed in 1968.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Today, with the decline of the Durham coalfield, manufacturing has been left as the largest sector of employment in the town, accounting for 24.6% of the town's employment.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town also traditionally had a strong retail sector. As one of the county's main population centres with good bus and rail connections, and thriving markets on Thursdays and Saturdays, shoppers were attracted from smaller settlements on the Durham coalfield for miles around. However, the decline in the coal mining industry, along with increased car ownership and competition from local shopping malls such as the MetroCentre in Gateshead, have caused a downturn in the fortunes of retailers, with commentators lamenting the number of down market stores and charity shops in the town centre. In response, numerous initiatives to regenerate the town centre have been proposed, including the launch of the Bishop Auckland Town Centre Forum, and the 2006 regeneration master plan drawn up by Red Box Group, which was sponsored by Wear Valley District Council and the regional development agency One NorthEast. In 2015, Bishop Auckland was granted Heritage Action Zone status by Historic England, a 5-year programme that aimed to reinvigorate the town and its economy through tourism and its heritage.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Notable employers in the town include Ebac, which is headquartered in the town and employs 350 people.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: A September 2019 report stated that Bishop Auckland was one of the towns designated to receive up £25 million to in funding from a new Towns Fund that was intended "to improve industrial areas that have not benefitted from economic growth in the same way as more prosperous areas." A Durham County Councillor said that the funds would help the partners (including the Auckland Project) to regenerate the town center area for the benefit of all residents of the community.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: An October 2019 article in The Guardian referred to Bishop Auckland as a "rundown town ... since the closure of the mines" but predicted that the re-opening of Auckland Castle would transform the community into a "leading tourist destination". The castle re-opened on 2 November 2019 after renovations by the Auckland Project; the founding partner of the group is the owner of the castle, Jonathan Ruffer who purchased the property and all of the contents in 2012, including the artwork, which included the works by Francisco de Zurbarán.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: News reports in 2019 clarified the situation, stating that in 2012, Ruffer had purchased the castle and all of the contents, including the artwork, which included the works by Francisco de Zurbarán. The paintings which had been on tour, were returned to the site in time for the re-opening of the castle to visitors on 2 November 2019 as the Auckland Project, after a multi-million pound restoration project, funded partly by the National Lottery.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: By the time of the opening day, a new 35 meter high tower had been erected as a visitor centre; the structure has a lift and a staircase as well as balconies for views of the castle from above. The interior had been fully restored, including the


title: Bishop Auckland

text: bishops' "palatial" quarters. According to one news item, "each of the 14 restored rooms, recreated from contemporary accounts and personal recollections" features the career of one former bishop. The Faith Museum of world religion and a huge glass greenhouse were under construction on Castle property.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Other attractions already operating at or near the Castle include the Mining Art Gallery (in a nearby former bank building in the town centre) showing work mainly by self-taught or night school-educated miners; this attraction opened in 2017 (thanks to support provided to the Castle Trust by Bishop Auckland and Shildon AAP and Durham County Council); a 7.5 acre open-air theatre, Kynren, on the other side of the River Wear, with a cast of 1,000 depicting the history of England; and the Bishop Trevor Gallery at the Castle. The latter started displaying the National Gallery's Masterpiece touring exhibit in October 2019.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: In future, other attractions were expected to open in or near the town centre: a display of Spanish art (in another former bank building) the Faith Museum (already being built in 2019 as the Castle), a gallery that will feature medieval to later era artworks, a boutique hotel (in former pubs) and two restaurants in addition to the current bishop's Kitchen café.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: According to The Guardian, "The aim is to make the town – the heart of the abandoned Durham coalfields – a tourist destination that holds people for a day or two rather than just a couple of hours. The scheme will create hundreds of entry-level jobs in a county that suffers high unemployment and has some of the most deprived areas in northern Europe".


title: Bishop Auckland

text: A Financial Times report in early November 2019 stated that "Kynren [theatre] has attracted 250,000 people and the Auckland Project, even with the castle closed, welcomed 35,500 visitors in the past year" to this community.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: For a large part of the area's history, the autonomous powers held by the Bishop of Durham meant that the county operated as a principality under England's protectorate. The UNESCO site describes the role of the Prince-Bishops in the "buffer state between England and Scotland":From 1075, the Bishop of Durham became a Prince-Bishop, with the right to raise an army, mint his own coins, and levy taxes. As long as he remained loyal to the king of England, he could govern as a virtually autonomous ruler, reaping the revenue from his territory, but also remaining mindful of his role of protecting England's northern frontier.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: A steward of Bishop Antony Bek in the thirteenth century is quoted as saying England had two kings; the king and the Bishop of Durham. A 1788 report states that the Bishops had the authority to appoint judges and barons and to offer pardons. The Bishops of Durham were not stripped of the last of their secular powers until shortly after the death of Bishop William Van Mildert in 1836 by the Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: At the end of the nineteenth century the Local Government Act 1894 created Bishop Auckland Urban District council. From 1894 to 1974, the town was governed by the Urban District council within the administrative county of Durham. The district was enlarged to include a number of surrounding settlements in 1937 when Auckland Rural District and Willington Urban District were abolished. The Urban District was replaced, under the Local Government Act 1972, by a two tier district (Wear Valley) and county system.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The former urban district area was re-parished from the May 2007 local elections with a new town council was established. After the elections, the council elected Barbara Laurie as the town's first re-established mayor. On 25 July 2007, Durham County Council and Wear Valley District Council were replaced on 1 April 2009 by a single unitary authority serving the whole of County Durham.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town is a part of the Bishop Auckland parliamentary constituency, and is currently represented at Westminster by Dehenna Davison MP (Conservative).


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Prior to Brexit, for the European Parliament its residents voted to elect MEP's for the North East England constituency.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town is located in the South Area of the Durham Constabulary, and served by the County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service and North East Ambulance Service.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Bishop Auckland is twinned with the French town of Ivry-sur-Seine, whilst the wider Wear Valley district was twinned with Bad Oeynhausen in Germany.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The Town Hall is a "Gothic style" Victorian Building overlooking the town's market place and is Grade II* listed. After being abandoned and then condemned for demolition in the 1980s, the town hall was fully restored in the early 1990s. It now houses the town's main public library, a theatre, an art gallery, tourist information centre and a café-bar.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The Town Hall has held three exhibitions for mining artist Tom Lamb. The first was held in 1999 for his 'Fading Memories' exhibition, then in 2004 for Lamb's 'The Footprints of My Years' exhibition and in 2008 the last exhibition called 'My Mining Days' was held.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Bishop Auckland is located at (British national grid reference system: ) on the Durham coalfield at the confluence of the River Wear with its tributary the River Gaunless. The town nestles in the rivers' valley about above sea level. Besides this the town is all but is surrounded on all sides by hills ranging in height from around above sea level to over above sea level.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Bishop Auckland is located about northwest of Darlington and southwest of Durham. The town is served by Bishop Auckland railway station, which marks the point where the Tees Valley Line becomes the Weardale Railway. The town is not served directly by any motorways.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Notable wards include Cockton Hill, Woodhouse Close, and Henknowle. Additionally, once neighbouring villages such as South Church, Tindale Crescent, St Helen Auckland, and West Auckland now more or less merge seamlessly into the town.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: According to the 2001 census, Bishop Auckland has a population of 24,392, living in 10,336 dwellings. Of these dwellings, around 44% are terraced houses, 33% semi-detached houses, and 17% detached houses. As shown in the graph, the distribution of ages in Bishop Auckland was broadly in-line with that of County Durham and England and Wales, although there is a slightly smaller proportion of people between 20 and 24 years old.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Compared with the national average, the town's population performs poorly with regard to qualifications. At 31.9%, the proportion of the town's population with no qualifications is significantly higher than the national average of 23.2% and 29.1%. Similarly, only 13.8% have a degree level qualification (or higher) compared with the national average of 21.1%.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: 84.8% of the town's population identify themselves as Christian, compared with a national average of 71.7%. There are below averages numbers identifying themselves as belonging to other religion. The people of the town are also more likely to be religious than the national average with only 7.3% stating they had no religion compared with the national average of 14.8%.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: At 1.5% of the population, the town has a below average population of foreign born individuals, compared with a national average of 8.9%.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town has a number of Grade I listed buildings. The grounds of Auckland Castle alone contain seven such structures. Additionally Escomb Saxon Church, St Andrew's parish church, St Helen's church, St Helen Hall, West Auckland Manor House, the East Deanery and the 14th century Bishop Skirlaw bridge are all Grade I listed. Other notable buildings include the town hall, a Victorian railway viaduct and Binchester Roman fort.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Auckland Castle (often known locally as "The Bishop's palace"), has been the official residence of the Bishop of Durham since 1832. However, its history goes back much earlier, being established as a hunting lodge for the Prince Bishops of Durham. The castle is surrounded by of parkland, which was originally used by the Bishops for hunting and is today open to the public. The castle and its grounds contain seven Grade I listed structures.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The castle's long dining room is home to 12 of the 13 17th century portraits of Jacob and his 12 sons painted by Francisco de Zurbarán, which were saved by Bishop Trevor in 1756. Trevor was unable to secure the 13th, Benjamin, so commissioned Arthur Pond to produce a copy, which hangs alongside the 12 other originals.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: As discussed in the Tourism section, the Castle re-opened in early November 2019, after a multi-million pound restoration. Additional work continued at and near the castle to make to town a significant tourist attraction. Reports suggests that the revival of the area, dubbed the Auckland Project, will eventually cost a total of about £150m.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The route of the Roman road Dere Street passes straight through the middle of the town on its way to the nearby Roman Fort at Binchester. Binchester Roman Fort, or "Vinovia" as it was known to the Romans, has one of the best preserved examples of a Roman military bath house hypocaust in the country. Bishop Auckland's main shopping street, Newgate Street, together with Cockton Hill Road and Watling Road faithfully follow the route of Dere Street. Note that Watling Road should not be confused with the Roman road Watling Street, which is in the South of England.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town has links with the birth of the railways, with the original 1825 route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway passing through West Auckland. Timothy Hackworth, a well-known locomotive builder, built steam locomotives in the neighbouring town of Shildon.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Today, Bishop Auckland railway station still provides passenger services, and is located at the end of the Tees Valley line. Since May 2010 it has been re-connected with the Weardale Railway, which provides passenger services up the valley to Stanhope. The town centre had a large railway goods yard until 1972. Freight traffic ceased to use the line completely in 1993 when Blue Circle cement stopped using the line to transport cement from its works in Eastgate.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The nearest airport to the town is Teesside Airport at around drive South-East of Bishop Auckland. The nearest motorway junction is Junction 60 of the A1(M), which is around away.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town has a bus station with a number of bus routes serving the town. Following the withdrawal of Go North East from the town on 8 April 2006, most of these services are provided by Arriva North East. However, a number of smaller firms such as Weardale Buses also serve the town.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town also has a Grade II listed Victorian railway viaduct crossing the River Wear. At high, the viaduct provides views of the surrounding countryside below as well as Auckland Castle, the Bishop's Park and the Town Hall on approaching the town from the Viaduct. It was originally built in 1857 to carry the Bishop Auckland to Durham City railway line across the River Wear and the Newton Cap Bank that leads down to the river. The railway closed in 1968 and the viaduct fell into a period of disuse and was at one point threatened with demolition. However, in 1995, the viaduct was converted for vehicle use to take traffic on the A689 between Bishop Auckland and Crook, relieving the Grade I listed fourteenth-century single-lane Bishop Skirlaw bridge which sits in the valley below it.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: On the north side of the bridge sits Eleven Arches Flatts Farm (named after the number of arches in the viaduct) which hosts Kynren, a local historical performance.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town itself has three secondary schools—St John's Catholic School, The Bishop Barrington Academy and King James I Academy. The town also has a college, Bishop Auckland College serving the Further Education and Higher Education fields. Both Bishop Barrington and King James schools have long histories, being founded in 1810 by Bishop Barrington and in 1604 on the orders of King James I respectively.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: In the government's Level 2 CVA (Contextual Value Added) statistic, which measures how much a school improves students between the end of National Curriculum Key Stage 2 and the end of Key Stage 4, compared with how much other schools in the country improve students with similar circumstances, King James scored 1039.9 points, Barrington 1019.3 points and St John's scored a below average 997.4 points (with 1000 points being the target baseline).


title: Bishop Auckland

text: At A-Level in 2009, none of the towns sixth form centres average points scores reached the national average of 739.1 A-Level points per student or the LEA average of 664.1 points. Amongst sixth form centres in the town, St John's performed best with an average score of 661.5 points per student. In comparison, King James had an average A-Level score of 557 points and Bishop Auckland College with 459.3 points taking last position in the LEA in terms of A-Level point score, a position occupied by King James in the previous year. The Bishop Barrington Academy no longer has its own sixth form, with the school being a feeder for Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington. The average A-Level points score at Queen Elizabeth is 871.8. The needs of those with special educational needs are served by Evergreen Primary.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town is served also by the following primary schools; Cockton Hill Infant, Cockton Hill Junior, Copeland Road Primary, Etherley Lane Primary, Oakley Cross Primary, St Andrew's Primary, St Anne's CofE Primary, St Helen Auckland Community Primary, St Wilfrid's RC Primary, Woodhouse Community Primary, Evergreen Primary School, Prince Bishops Community Primary School.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: As is the case with the rest of the United Kingdom, the population of the town is served by the National Health Service (NHS). The town has its own NHS hospital, Bishop Auckland General Hospital. The current Bishop Auckland General Hospital has 286 beds, and since opening in 2002 has become a centre specialising in routine surgery. Although Bishop Auckland General Hospital was built with an Accident and Emergency department, this was closed and replaced with an "Urgent Care Centre" in 2009, when the local NHS trust concentrated acute health care services at Durham and Darlington, and moved more routine surgery to Bishop Auckland General.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The new hospital was a PFI project and was announced by the Labour government in the summer of 1997. and temporary huts constructed during World War II.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Other local hospitals include Darlington Memorial Hospital and University Hospital of North Durham, which has replaced Durham Dryburn and was announced on the same day as the new Bishop Auckland General. All three of these hospitals are run by County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, which provides secondary health care services in the area. The local ambulance service is North East Ambulance Service.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Bishop Auckland's water and sewerage is managed by Northumbrian Water. Water supply comes from Burnhope Reservoir via the Wear Valley water treatment works at Wearhead. The present treatment works replaced old works on the site of the present one and another one closer to the town at Tunstall Reservoir. Contrary to popular belief the town does not receive water from Kielder Reservoir. Although water from Kielder can be pumped into the River Wear, via the Tyne–Tees tunnel, upstream at Frosterley, this water is not abstracted from the river until it reaches Chester-le-Street. Equally, although water can be pumped from the tunnel into Waskerley Reservoir, which in turn supplies Tunstall Reservoir, Tunstall water treatment works was closed in 2004, when the new Wear Valley works was brought into service.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The electricity distribution network operator for the area is the CE Electric-owned NEDL (Northern Electric Distribution Limited). There are no power stations in the town.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town is in the Auckland Deanery and Archdeaconry of the Anglican Diocese of Durham. The diocese has its administrative offices at Auckland Castle in the town. In the Roman Catholic faith, the town is located in the St William Deanery of the Cleveland and South Durham Episcopal Area, Hexham and Newcastle Diocese. Bishop Auckland Baptist Church is part of the family of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. and is part of the Northern Association of Baptist churches


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The town has three Grade I listed churches: the Church of St Helen, the Church of St Andrew, and St Peter's chapel at Auckland Castle.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Three grade II listed churches are in the town: Bishop Auckland Methodist Church on Cockton Hill Road,


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The nearby village of Escomb is home to a complete Anglo-Saxon church. It is believed the church was built between the years 670 and 690. Much of the stone used to construct the church came from the nearby Roman fort at Binchester, with some stones having Roman markings on them. The church is a Grade I listed structure.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: St Andrew's church located in the adjoining village of South Church is the largest church in County Durham and a Grade I listed building. The church was built in the thirteenth century and acted as a collegiate church.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Bishop Auckland is famous for its amateur football team, Bishop Auckland F.C., which won the FA Amateur Cup a record 10 times in the Trophy's 80-year history, having appeared in the Final on 18 occasions.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Bishop Auckland Football Club also helped out Manchester United after the Munich Air Crash in 1958 by donating three of their players, Derek Lewin, Bob Hardisty and Warren Bradley. In return in 1996, Manchester United played a friendly against Bishop Auckland to help raise money when the club was threatened with bankruptcy after a member of a rival team sued over an injury. In 2007 Manchester United donated floodlights to Bishop Auckland Football Club, which the club has added to their new ground, Heritage Park. These floodlights have subsequently been upgraded to LED.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: In terms of sports facilities, Woodhouse Close Leisure Complex, a council run leisure centre, has a by swimming pool and a by "learner" pool, as well as a gym, sauna, steam room and spa pool. Additionally, football pitches, tennis courts and bowling greens are provided at the Town Recreation Ground and Cockton Hill Recreation Ground. Henknowle Recreation Ground has a 5 a side pitch and a basketball court.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: The nearest Met Office weather station to Bishop Auckland is located north-east of Bishop Auckland in Durham. The following local figures were gathered at this weather station between 1971 and 2000.


title: Bishop Auckland

text: Like the vast majority of the United Kingdom, Bishop Auckland has an oceanic climate ("Cfb" in the Köppen climate classification). At the average annual rainfall is lower than the national average of . Equally there are only around 121.3 days where more than of rain falls compared with a national average of 154.4 days. The area sees on average 1374.6 hours of sunshine per year, compared with a national average of 1354.9 hours. There is frost on 52 days compared with a national average of 55.6 days. Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures are and compared with a national averages of and respectively.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: Donald Vaughan Sinclair (22 April 1911 – 28 June 1995) was a British veterinary surgeon who graduated from the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in 1933. He was made famous as the inspiration for the eccentric character Siegfried Farnon in the semi-autobiographical books of James Herriot (Alf Wight), adapted for film and television as "All Creatures Great and Small".


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: In 1939, Sinclair bought a veterinary practice at 23 Kirkgate, Thirsk, Yorkshire. In July 1940, he hired Alf Wight to run it while Sinclair was undertaking his war service in the Royal Air Force.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: However, in order to join up, Sinclair had claimed to be younger than he actually was. It was quickly discovered that his reflexes were not fast enough for him to continue with pilot training. He could have been redeployed within the service, but the fact that he was a veterinary surgeon meant that he was considered more useful to the war effort by resuming his peacetime profession. The severe national food shortage meant that proper veterinary treatment of farm animals received a high priority, and so within four months of joining the RAF he received a compulsory discharge and he returned to Thirsk.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: Articles about Alf Wight shed more light on the start of the relationship between the two vets. When Sinclair was to leave for RAF training, he gave Wight all the practice's income in return for looking after it during his absence. His brother, Brian Sinclair (Tristan in the books), was not then qualified.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: After Sinclair was discharged from the RAF four months later, he asked Wight to stay permanently with the practice, offering a salaried partnership, which Wight accepted.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: The fictional character Siegfried Farnon is portrayed as outspoken, opinionated, bossy, quick to lose his temper, and also quick to blow over. He is nonetheless basically good-hearted and an animal lover, fond of riding, and infuriated by any suspicion of deliberate cruelty to animals. One recurrent theme in Herriot's stories was Siegfried's criticism of James's flaws, such as forgetting appointments or leaving instruments behind after calls, only for the reader to find that Siegfried is found guilty of the same things.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: When Wight's first book was published, Sinclair was offended by his portrayal and said, "Alfred, this book is a real test of our friendship." (He never called Wight "Alf", represented in the books by Siegfried always referring to Herriot as "James" rather than "Jim".) One of the things he was unhappy about was the name Siegfried, a German name with Wagnerian echoes which, in the 1930s, would have stirred thoughts of Nazis. "Sinclair was so peeved by Wight’s portrayal that at one point he threatened to sue him". Things calmed down, however, and the pair continued to work together until they retired.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: Robert Hardy, who played the role of Siegfried Farnon in the BBC television series, went to visit Sinclair before playing him, and developed the character based upon his observations. However, Hardy reminisced that Sinclair hated the way that Hardy played him, and that, as Hardy claimed, Sinclair was wholly unaware of his own eccentricities. They subsequently became friends, Sinclair forgiving Hardy, and Hardy has said that "I always wished I'd known him before ... It would have helped me to perfect a much more interesting character."


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: Alf Wight's son Jim wrote in his book "The Real James Herriot" that Sinclair's character in the novels was considerably toned down, and that Sinclair was even more eccentric than the Herriot books portrayed.


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: In an interview in 2017, Jim Wight said that "One of the misconceptions [about Alf Wight] was that Sinclair ... was a tyrant and my father was a wimp. Because my father worked harder than Sinclair did, that is absolutely true ... But ... he supported Donald in many ways but he also earned more than Donald. He said to Donald, 'Look, I’m doing all the work. Everything that I do goes into my pocket and everything you do goes into yours.' That’s fair enough, isn’t it?"


title: Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)

text: Sinclair took his own life by an overdose of barbiturate on 28 June 1995 at his home Southwoods Hall, near Thirsk, two weeks after the death of his wife Audrey (née Adamson), to whom he had been married for 53 years. His brother Brian (Tristan in the books) had died in 1988, and his friend and partner Alf Wight only four months previously in 1995.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Thomas M. Siebel (; born November 20, 1952) is an American billionaire businessman, technologist, and author. He was the founder of enterprise software company Siebel Systems and is the founder, chairman, and CEO of C3.ai, an artificial intelligence software platform and applications company.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: He is the chairman of First Virtual Group, a diversified holding company with interests in investment management, commercial real estate, agribusiness, and philanthropy.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Siebel was born in Chicago, one of seven children of Arthur Francis Siebel, a Harvard-educated lawyer, and Ruth A. (née Schmid) Siebel. His family was Lutheran. Siebel is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received a B.A. in history, an M.B.A., an M.S. in computer science, and an honorary doctorate of engineering.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Between 1984 and 1990, Siebel was an executive at Oracle Corporation, where he held a number of management positions. Siebel served as chief executive officer of Gain Technology, a multimedia software company that merged with Sybase in December 1992. Siebel was the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Siebel Systems, which was acquired by Oracle in January, 2006. Siebel is the chairman of First Virtual Group, a diversified holding company.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Siebel Systems was a software company primarily engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management (CRM) applications. As an executive at Oracle, Siebel proposed the idea of creating enterprise software applications tailored for marketing, sales, and customer service functions. Oracle management declined his proposal. Siebel left Oracle to found Siebel Systems in 1993 to pursue that opportunity. In 1999, Siebel Systems became the fastest-growing technology company in the United States. Siebel Systems grew to over 8,000 employees in 32 countries, more than 4,500 corporate customers, and annual revenue greater than $2 billion before merging with Oracle in January 2006.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: In 2009, Siebel founded C3.ai, originally to provide enterprise software for energy management. C3.ai currently provides an enterprise AI software platform and applications for multiple commercial uses, including energy management, predictive maintenance, fraud detection, anti-money laundering, inventory optimization, and predictive CRM. Its customers include 3M, Royal Dutch Shell, the US Air Force, and New York Power Authority. C3.ai was included in the 2019 “CNBC Disruptor 50” list, with a valuation of $2.1 billion. Through C3.ai, he created a collaboration to use AI to help address COVID-19.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Enterprise AI software applies artificial intelligence methods, such as machine learning and neural networks, to solve complex analytical problems in commerce, industry, and government. Organizations use enterprise AI software to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and improve operations. The US Air Force, for example, uses AI to predict engine failure in aircraft before a failure occurs in order to improve maintenance and increase aircraft readiness.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Siebel's fourth book, "Digital Transformation", became a "Wall Street Journal" bestseller in July 2019. In the book Siebel discusses how the confluence of four modern information technology vectors—elastic cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things—is impacting business, government, and society. He characterizes the 21st century as a period of corporate mass extinction. He states that since 2000, 52 percent of Fortune 500 companies have fallen off the list, and he discusses how new companies like Amazon, Uber, Tesla, Airbnb, and others have emerged and grown during this time.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Siebel claims that in order to survive and thrive in the 21st century, organizations must undergo digital transformation by harnessing the four information technologies discussed in the book. The book provides advice to organizations in the form of a 10-point CEO action plan.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Siebel is a proponent of building a “self-learning corporate culture” that motivates employees to continue their education on the job. C3.ai offers cash awards of $1,000 to $1,500 to employees for each course they complete from a curated Coursera curriculum. In 2019, Siebel initiated a program at C3.ai that pays 100 percent of the costs for employees to complete an online master's degree of computer science (MCS) program from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Employees who complete the MCS degree receive a salary increase of 15 percent, a cash bonus of $25‚000, and additional stock options.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Siebel serves on the Board of Advisors of the Stanford University College of Engineering, the University of Illinois College of Engineering, and the University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering. He is a Director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and is the Chairman of the Board for the American Agora Foundation. He was a member of the Trustees of Princeton University from 2008 to 2011. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Montana Meth Project and the Siebel Scholars Foundation, and Chairman of the Siebel Foundation. He was ranked #5 and #3 of the world's top 25 philanthropists by Barron's Magazine in 2009 and 2010, respectively. In 2007 and 2008, he was named one of The 50 Most Generous Philanthropists by "BusinessWeek".


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Siebel received the David Packard Award for his achievements as a technology entrepreneur and his contributions to national security from the Business Executives for National Security in 2002 and was named one of the Top 25 Managers in the World by "BusinessWeek" in 2000 and 2001.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: Call Center Magazine inducted Siebel to its Hall of Fame in 2000 in recognition for contributions to the business and technology of customer service. CRM Magazine inducted him into its inaugural CRM Hall of Fame in 2003 in recognition of his vision, strong leadership, and enduring commitment to innovation. He has also been named:


title: Thomas Siebel

text: The Siebel Foundation (founded 1996) is active in support of the homeless and underprivileged, educational and research programs, methamphetamine abuse prevention, and alternative energy solutions. The Siebel Foundation created the Siebel Scholars Foundation, the Siebel Energy Institute, and the Dearborn Scholars Fund in Montana. In 2005, Siebel founded the Montana Meth Project. The Office of National Drug Control Policy awarded the Meth Project a White House commendation as the most influential prevention campaign in 2006, and Tom Siebel accepted the award on the program's behalf. He was also recognized for his work on the program with the 2006 Director's Community Leadership Award from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: In 2001, Siebel donated $32 million to his alma mater, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to build the Siebel Center for Computer Science, opened in spring 2004. In 2006, Siebel donated $4 million to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to establish two endowed full professorships, the "Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science" and the "Thomas M. Siebel Chair in Computer Science." Siebel pledged an additional $100 million gift to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007. In 2015, the Siebel Foundation launched the Siebel Energy Institute to research the data management of energy infrastructure monitoring data. In 2016, Siebel donated $25 million to build the Siebel Center for Design at the University of Illinois, a 60,000-square-foot multidisciplinary hub designed by architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and was completed in 2020.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: From 2009 to 2014, Siebel made a total of $335,300 in political contributions. Approximately 90% of this was for independents and 10% was for Republican Party candidates.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: In 2013, C3 Energy hosted former Senator Max Baucus from Montana, and Siebel and Baucus discussed the ways in which information technology addresses the utility industry's big data challenge.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: In April 2014, Congresswoman Jackie Speier from California met with C3 Energy executives, including Siebel, to discuss how the latest developments in IT are being applied to the power grid.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: In February 2022, Siebel donated $90,000 to the Canada convoy protest in Ottawa, that also blocked border crossings between Canada and the U.S. to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions.


title: Thomas Siebel

text: A part-time Montana resident, Siebel owns and operates the Dearborn Ranch in Wolf Creek, Montana, a working cattle ranch. Siebel's time in Montana has extended over a period of 35 years.