Igor Aleksander

Timeline

1. 1937–1961

   From Zagreb to Queen Mary College

   Born in Zagreb in 1937, he moves with his family to Italy and then to South Africa during the Second World War, and he earns an electrical engineering degree at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. Arriving in the UK in the late 1950s, he works for Standard Telephones and Cables and then joins Queen Mary College, where he earns a PhD and becomes a lecturer in 1961.

2. 1968–1974

   From Kent to Brunel

   After his PhD, he builds his first network of artificial neurons, and in the late 1960s he proposes an artificial system with brain-like feedback loops. He moves to the University of Kent in 1968 as a reader in electronics and to Brunel University as a professor in 1974, working with industry at both.

3. 1981–1984

   The WISARD face recogniser

   In 1981, he completes WISARD at Brunel with John Stonham, Bruce Wilkie and Eric Conant; the machine recognises individual human faces with neurons simulated in random access memory, and it is one of the world's first applications of an artificial neural network. Computer Recognition Systems of Wokingham markets it as CRS WISARD in 1984. WISARD stays in use for over 20 years, with tasks including banknote and voice pattern recognition.

4. 1984–2002

   Professor at Imperial College

   He joins Imperial College London in 1984 as professor of the Management of Information Technology. From 1988 until his retirement in 2002, he is Head of Electrical Engineering and Gabor Professor of Neural Systems Engineering; he is elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1988 and serves as Pro-rector of External Relations in 1997. He receives the IEE Lifetime Achievement Medal for Informatics in 2000.

5. 1996–1999

   Magnus, a conscious neural machine

   In April 1996, he argues in Times Higher Education that machines can be conscious, drawing on Magnus, a neural machine he uses with his co-workers. In April 1999, he joins philosopher John Searle on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time to discuss artificial intelligence as the inventor of Magnus, a neural computer he describes as an artificially conscious machine.

6. 2002–2005

   Five axioms of consciousness

   After retiring in 2002, he works to understand consciousness and to build a machine that can achieve it artificially. In 2005, he publishes The World in My Mind, My Mind in the World, which proposes five axioms of consciousness drawn from his own experience; he lists them as a sense of self, imagination, focused attention, forward planning and emotion. He gives the Bernard Price Memorial Lecture in 2005.

7. 2011–2015

   Aristotle's Laptop and a Palermo degree

   He receives an honorary degree in computer engineering from the University of Palermo in July 2011. He publishes Aristotle's Laptop: Discovering our Informational Minds in 2012 and a revised edition of Impossible Minds, My Neurons, My Consciousness in 2015.

8. As of October 2026

   Emeritus professor at Imperial

   He is an Honorary Emeritus Professor in Neural Systems Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London, with research interests in artificial consciousness and digital neuromodelling.