Sophie Hackford

Futurist and public speaker Sophie Hackford is an expert in analysing and exploring how technologies impact our daily lives. She uses quantum computing, artificial intelligence, data and virtual reality to discover how the digital world affects how we live, communicate, work and love.

Hackford is the co-founder of 1715 labs; a start-up business which stemmed from The University of Oxford’s Astrophysics Department. The company uses data such as images, text, visual and audio to manipulate algorithms. She is also a board member of Classlist and Not Just a Label, two growth stage start-up businesses. Other successful career ventures include previously working at magazine WIRED, working in Silicon Valley at the NASA Research Park, and most recently Oxford University; raising a colossal 120 million dollars for frontier-bending research.

Hackford has held over 160 talks on technology and novel science to exec teams and boards. From EY and Bank of New York to Adobe and Vogue, she attracts each and every type of client who desire the clarification and insight into an ever-evolving digital world. Hackford herself chooses to avoid social media and despite what she deems as extremely tangible threats in technology, she remains optimistic about the future. Her insightful talks include exploring our data identity, security, ethics, and how the world is ‘turning into a computer.’