Name Suranga Chandratillake | Organizations founded blinkx | |
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Born 1977 Kandy, Sri Lanka Alma mater University of Cambridge, England Occupation Founder and CEO of blinkx.com | ||
Education University of Cambridge | ||
Suranga Chandratillake, Blinkx plc
Suranga Chandratillake (born October 1977 in Kandy, Sri Lanka) is the founder and president of blinkx.com, an Internet video search engine. In 2014, Suranga joined Balderton Capital, the London, UK-based Venture Capital firm, as a General Partner.
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In September 2017, the Prime Minister appointed Chandratillake as one of five new members of the UK's Council for Science and Technology, which "advises the Prime Minister on strategic science and technology policy issues that cut across the responsibilities of individual government departments".
Background
Prior to founding blinkx, Chandratillake held a variety of roles in technology, sales and marketing at Morgan Stanley, netdecisions and anondesign. He was also the US Chief Technology Officer of Autonomy Corporation, responsible for growing Autonomy's research and development division in the United States. Suranga Chandratillake founded blinkx in 2004 and launched the company in 2005. He took blinkx public on the London Stock Exchange on May 22, 2007. On April 8, 2011, Chandratillake and blinkx announced the acquisition of Burst Media, an online media and technology company headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Chandratillake has spoken at industry events including the Financial Times' Digital Media Conference, Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and the Monaco Media Forum. Named a Young Global Leader Honoree in 2009 by the World Economic Forum, Chandratillake has also been recognized as a leader in Science and Innovation by The Observer's Future 500 list, and one of Digital Media Wire's "25 Executives to Watch in Digital Entertainment".
Chandratillake holds an MA in Computer Science, specializing in distributed processing architectures, from the University of Cambridge; he received a double first. Chandratillake holds patents in the area of video discovery and online video advertising and was a 2012 recipient of the Royal Academy of Engineering's Silver Medal.
Chandratillake now devotes some of his time to encouraging and supporting the creation and growth of technology businesses in the UK. He has served as a member of the Enterprise Committee at the Royal Academy of Engineering and is an active mentor at the Academy's Enterprise Hub. He has also been involved in judging competitions at the Academy for startup businesses. “All of these things are helping engineers who want to build businesses,” he explained in an interview with Ingenia magazine.