Looking back over history, I find it useful—although admittedly an oversimplification—to think of each century as being defined by one great transformative force.
The sixteenth century was shaped by the Protestant Reformation. The seventeenth was dominated by civil and religious wars. The eighteenth saw the rise of Enlightenment philosophy, leading to the American and French Revolutions. The nineteenth century belonged to the Industrial Revolution, with the railways transforming society, communication, commerce and even time itself.
For me, however, the defining force of the twentieth century was the digital revolution.
I feel especially fortunate because I did not merely witness it—I lived through it and, in my own small way, helped to build it.
I began when computers were mysterious machines hidden away in special rooms, operated with punched cards and attended by technicians in white coats. At university I wrote my first programs and imagined computers simply as calculating machines. Later, during my Civil Service career, I learned languages such as BASIC, COBOL, RPG and Assembly language. We worked with flowcharts, punched cards and batch processing. Programming was painstaking but immensely satisfying because we knew we were pioneers.

Later I moved into industry, writing commercial software on minicomputers before becoming a lecturer in further education. There I had the privilege of teaching computing during one of its most exciting periods. I saw students discover the BBC Micro, early educational computers and the first portable machines. At home we had an Amstrad word processor long before an ordinary personal computer became commonplace.

Then came the great turning point: Windows.
Suddenly computers were no longer machines for specialists. They became machines for everyone.
From that moment developments came thick and fast. The internet transformed communication. Digital photography revolutionised the way we captured our lives. Computers became multimedia devices, capable of playing music through MIDI, editing photographs, producing documents and connecting people across the world. What had once been an expensive specialist tool became an everyday companion.

The transformation did not stop there.
The mobile phone evolved into the smartphone, and today the small device I carry in my pocket is incomparably more powerful than the first computers I ever programmed. It is simultaneously a telephone, camera, music player, encyclopaedia, map, television, newspaper, banking terminal, ticket office and communication centre. It gives me access to almost the whole of recorded human knowledge within seconds.

When I first came to Italy some twenty years ago, buying theatre tickets meant visiting the theatre in person. Today almost everything is done online. Digital technology is no longer simply convenient—it has become essential.
Of course, this creates challenges. There remains a digital divide between those who possess digital skills and those who do not. Older generations have often relied upon younger family members for help, although thankfully digital education has improved enormously. Every technological revolution creates winners and losers, and ours is no exception.
None of this would have been possible without the remarkable pioneers who laid the foundations. People such as Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing and Hedy Lamarr made contributions whose importance is only becoming clearer with time.

Now we stand at the beginning of another revolution: artificial intelligence.
Like every great invention, AI brings opportunities as well as dangers. It can generate knowledge, but it can also generate convincing falsehoods. It can assist education, medicine and creativity, yet it also raises profound questions about truth, privacy and responsibility. We shall need wisdom, legal safeguards and ethical judgement if we are to use it well.
Yet I remain optimistic.
Used responsibly, digital technology has enriched my life beyond anything I could have imagined as a young programmer carrying boxes of punched cards. Today I can identify the cast of a forgotten 1930s film, listen instantly to an early recording by Caruso, find the quickest route to a restaurant, discover the causes of the English Reformation or simply learn how to unblock a kitchen drain. All of this knowledge sits quietly inside the smartphone in my pocket.
And yes, I even enjoy conversations with my AI assistant, whom I have christened “Justine.” She is unfailingly polite, remarkably knowledgeable and endlessly patient. I certainly do not accept everything she tells me without question—healthy scepticism remains essential—but I value her enormously as a companion in learning.
Curiosity has always been one of life’s greatest pleasures. The digital revolution has given me access to more knowledge than I ever dreamed possible.
When I think of the journey from pounds, shillings and pence to contactless payments, from queuing in banks to online banking, from punched cards to artificial intelligence, I cannot help feeling extraordinarily privileged.
I truly believe I have been fortunate to have lived through one of the greatest revolutions in human history.

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