Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher is TechCrunch’s “Editor At Large”. As such he has a roving brief to write about Startups, Venture Capital, technology trends and emerging markets. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long-time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a service company for startups with several locations in Europe.

Mike is the founder and on the steering committee of Coadec, the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which works to lobby for legislation that fosters a sustainable and innovative digital economy for the UK. He also serves on the Mayor of London’s “Smart London” Board, advising on Smart Cities and Entrepreneurship.

A former editor of New Media Age magazine and he was also an Executive Editor on the European edition of The Industry Standard magazine. Since 1996 he has launched or re-launched numerous media web sites.

In 2000 he was nominated as NetMedia’s European Internet Journalist of the Year. In 2004 he was voted ‘One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade’ by GfK NOP, the fourth-largest custom research business in the world. In July 2008 he named as one of the Top 100 people in London’s creative industry by The Independent newspaper. In August 2008 his coverage of the European tech scene was honoured in the best “Web 2.0 and business blog” category by Computer Weekly magazine. In 2009 Mike was named one of the Top 10 bloggers on Twitter in the UK. In October 2009 he was named one of the Top 50 most influential Britons in technology by The Daily Telegraph newspaper. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 he was named as one of Britain’s Top 100 “digital power-brokers” by Wired UK magazine. In November 2010 Mike was named as one of London’s most influential people in New Media and “king of dotcom commentators ” by The Evening Standard Newspaper, and again in 2011.

He has spoken at the prestigious Monaco Media Forum and Le Web, among many other conferences, and has been a Davos / World Economic Forum “Media Leader”. Mike is a regular commentator on the technology business, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg. Personal blog: mbites.com | Twitter: @mikebutcher | Linkedin.com/in/mikebutcher | Facebook.com/mikebutcher | Google+: Gplus.to/mikegbutcher

Mike supports:

Apps For Good: A non-profit which aims to ignite a passion for technology and social enterprise in young people in the UK. TeenTech: Which runs events to help young teenagers see career possibilities in Science, Engineering and Technology. Coderdojo: Free not-for-profit coding clubs and regular sessions for young people in the UK, Ireland and US. Code Club: A UK nationwide network of volunteer-led after school coding clubs for children aged 9-11. Young Rewired State: The philanthropic arm of Rewired State - which aims to foster the young children and teenagers who will become tomorrow’s technology stars. TeenTechEvent: A non-profit which runs one-day events to help young teenagers see the wide range of career possibilities in Science, Engineering and Technology. YoungRewiredState: A non-profit network of software developers and designers aged 18 and under.

Disclosures (reviewed, approved and signed off by TechCrunch/AOL): I’m a Co-founder and 50% owner of a co-working space in London, TechHub, established because it solved a problem for startups back in 2009, and today (I’m a strategic adviser only - not operational or ‘commercial’). I’m the founder and chair of “The Europas” annual tech startups awards for European startups and its associated events. I’m on the advisory board of The Coalition For A Digital Economy, a UK non-profit which argues for a ‘digital first’ approach to business legislation. I’m an advisor to Seedrs.com, a crowd funding platform, but I maintain journalistically independent views on crowd-funding. I hold 11 shares in BT which makes about $10 a year in dividends and I can’t be bothered to cancel.