What piece of technology or tech company would you most like to have thought of and why?
"If I was being facetious, my answer would be 'the original bread-slicing machine' as that is often referenced as the source of the high-water mark of civilisation. Whenever anyone then said 'It's the best thing since sliced bread' I'd know that I'd had a hand in a vital cultural and social measure!
Seriously, the technology I wish I had thought of is the laser. Apart from its use by Goldfinger when trying to kill James Bond ('Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?' 'No-oh-oh, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die!'), the laser has enabled humankind to use light to cut, communicate, charm and cure.
Business users are also moving on. While BlackBerry was once an exclusive business platform and the phone to have if you were a sales manager, now they won't be seen dead with one.
Some of the fundamental technologies of satellites - which have helped to create the Global Village - can only exist because laser measurement is so accurate.
Fibre optics - which underpin the internet - run on laser light, speeding our vital data across the globe.
How many concerts and shows rely on the brilliance of laser light to add the wow factor? The ability to charm an audience using nothing more than streamed light is something we can all appreciate.
Laser eye surgery has the ability to change a person's life and return sight to people whose visual faculty has deteriorated.
All in all, I think that laser is still an exciting and functional human development, with capabilities we have yet to imagine."
Mark Evans, head of IT, RLB
"The Spreadsheet, invented by Dan Bricklin way back in 1978, while he was studying at Harvard Business School.
The idea was very simple. What is shown in a cell is determined by a formula. From that basic idea we are now modelling everything from household budgets to Jumbo Jets. The idea could have been thought of and implemented by any of us but of course it wasn't.
However, I only want the idea if I can patent it. Dan couldn't at the time, which meant that others came along, copied the idea, implemented it better and made all the money."
Bill Strain, CTO, iomart
