Mark Shuttleworth is the creator of Ubuntu which means 'for humanity'. Ubuntu is a debian based operating system having more than 50% of usage share among the linux users.
Mark was born in Welkon,Free State South Africa as a son of a surgeon and a nursery school teacher. He holds a degree of Finance & Information Systems at the University of Cape Town.
His enterprenural stint began in 1995, when he formed a company 'Thawte' which dealt with Internet Security and digital certificates which was later acquired by Verisign for 3 Billion Dollars.
In 2000, his next venture was the HBD corporation to nurture the talent of young enterprenuers. HBD is a venture capatalist firm which invests in bright ideas & innovations.
Due to his love for free software and being an open source fan, he founded Cannonical Ltd in 2004 to fund in free projects. Kbuntu,Edubuntu and Launchpad.Net are some of the free products of Cannonical Ltd.
Apart from being an technocrat, he is a philantrophist and a space adventurer.The Shuttleworth foundation is one of the biggest non-profit organizations in Africa that supports social innovations in education in Africa.
On 25th April 2002,he self funded his mission to space by investing 20 million dollars in Russian Soyuz TM-34.
He currently lives in Cape Town,South Africa and his one of the most eligible bachelors.Billionare at the of 36,Mark promises to fund Cannonical Limited and ship Ubuntu CD's free as long as he can afford it with the number crossing 600 million already!.
He is an inspiration to all the budding entreprenuers who wish to pursue their own ventures and at the same time have the zeal to contribute to the society.