Hopper's PhD, completed in 1977 was in the field of communications networks, and he worked with
Maurice Wilkes on the creation of the
Cambridge Ring and its successors. Hopper's interests include
computer networks,
multimedia systems,
Virtual Network Computing,
sentient computing and ubiquitous data. His most cited paper describes the indoor location system called the Active Badge. He has contributed to a discussion of the privacy challenges relating to surveillance. He is a proponent of Digital Commons industrial and societal infrastructure. After more than 20 years at Cambridge University Computer Laboratory, Hopper was elected Chair of Communications Engineering at Cambridge University Engineering Department in 1997. He returned to the Computer Laboratory as Professor of Computer Technology and Head of Department in 2004. Hopper's research under the title
Computing for the Future of the Planet examines the uses of computers, data and AI for assuring the sustainability of the planet. Hopper has supervised approximately fifty PhD students. An annual PhD studentship has been named after him.
Commercial activities In 1978, Hopper co-founded Orbis Ltd to develop networking technologies. He worked with
Hermann Hauser and
Chris Curry, founders of
Acorn Computers Ltd. Orbis became a division of Acorn in 1979 and continued to work with the Cambridge Ring. While at Acorn, Hopper contributed to design some of the chips for the
BBC Micro and helped conceive the project which led to the design of the ARM microprocessor. When Acorn was acquired by
Olivetti in 1985, Hauser became vice-president for research at Olivetti, in which role he co-founded the
Olivetti Research Laboratory in 1986 with Hopper; Hopper became its managing director. In 1985, after leaving Acorn, Hopper co-founded Qudos, a company producing
CAD software and doing chip prototyping. He remained a director until 1989. In 1993, Hopper set up
Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd with
Hermann Hauser. This company went public on the NASDAQ as
Virata in 1999. The company was acquired by
Conexant Systems on 1 March 2004. In 1995, Hopper co-founded Telemedia Systems, now called IPV, and was its chairman until 2003. In 1997, Hopper co-founded Adaptive Broadband Ltd (ABL) to further develop the 'Wireless ATM' project started at ORL in the early 90s. ABL was bought by California Microwave, Inc in 1998. In January 2000, Hopper co-founded
Cambridge Broadband which was to develop broadband fixed wireless equipment; he was non-executive chairman from 2000 – 2005. In 2002 Hopper was involved in the founding of Ubisense Ltd to further develop the location technologies and
sentient computing concepts that grew out of the ORL Active Badge system. Hopper became a director in 2003 and was chairman between 2006 and 2015 during which the company made its
initial public offering (IPO) in June 2011. In 2002, Hopper co-founded
RealVNC and served as chairman until the company was sold in 2021. In 2002, Hopper co-founded Level 5 Networks and was a director until 2008, just after it merged with Solarflare. From 2005 until 2009, Hopper was chairman of Adventiq, a joint venture between
Adder and
RealVNC, developing a VNC-based system-on-a-chip. In 2013 Hopper co-founded TxtEz, a company looking to commoditise B2C communication in Africa. Between 2019-2026 he was Chairman of lowRISC Community Interest Company which develops industrial-strength open source hardware. Hopper was an advisor to Hauser's venture capital firm Amadeus Capital Partners from 2001 until 2005. He was also an advisor to the Cambridge Gateway Fund from 2001 until 2006.
Awards and honours Hopper is a
Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET) and was a Trustee from 2003 until 2006, and again between 2009 and 2013. In 2004, Hopper was awarded the
Mountbatten Medal of the
IET (then IEE). He served as president of the IET between 2012 and 2013. Hopper was elected a
Fellow of the
Royal Academy of Engineering In 2013, he was part of the RealVNC team to receive the MacRobert Award. In 1999, Hopper gave the
Royal Society's
Clifford Paterson Lecture and was awarded the Bakerian Lecture and Prize. In the
2007 New Year Honours, Hopper was made an
CBE for services to the computer industry. In 2004, Hopper was awarded the
Association for Computing Machinery's
SIGMOBILE Outstanding Contribution Award and in 2016 the Test-of-Time Award for the Active Badge paper. In July 2005, Hopper was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of
Swansea University. In 2010 Hopper was awarded an Honorary Degree from Queen's University Belfast. In 2011 Hopper was elected as member of the Council and Trustee of the University of Cambridge and a member of the Finance Committee. Hopper serves on several academic advisory boards. In 2005, he was appointed to the advisory board of the
Institute of Electronics Communications and Information Technology at
Queen's University Belfast. In 2008 he joined the advisory board of the
Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. In 2011 he was appointed a member of the advisory board of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at the
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Since 2018 he has been a Commissioner of the
Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. He was
knighted in the
2021 Birthday Honours for services to computer technology. ==Personal life==