Chris Lightfoot


Chris Lightfoot was an English scientist and political activist. He was the first developer, with Tom Steinberg, at e-democracy charity mySociety.

Family and early life

He was born in Dulwich, England, in 1978. His mother, Prue, was a journalist and his father, Robert, was a patent agent. His older sister Steph taught him how to program the family's BBC Micro. He used this knowledge of programming to produce a crater investigation model in the physics department at Westminster which was of an extremely high standard. This was part of a physics project in which he was awarded a 15 Merit — an outstanding and very rare full mark.
He attended Westminster School, where he was part of the team representing the school in the British Informatics Olympiad. He began his undergraduate studies at Clare College, Cambridge focusing on Physics while studying a Natural Science Tripos. He graduated with a Master's degree in 2000.
Chris was one of the founders of , an ISP.

Death

He had suffered from depression throughout his adult life. Lightfoot committed suicide on 11 February 2007.

Contributions to Internet

He played an important role in the development of: