Accenture
50 W. San Fernando Street, Suite 1200
San Jose, CA 95113
USA
Lucian (Luke) P. Hughes was born in Virginia and brought up in Philadelphia. His interest in technology was inspired by his parents, particularly his father, a distinguished technology historian."As a high school student, I got to handle Edison's original notebooks in his laboratories, where my father was doing research," he remembers.
On graduating from high school, Luke became a Benjamin Franklin Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where he took an individualized major in cognitive science, studying psychology, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and physiology. Subsequently, he studied for a year at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, before winning a scholarship to study at Balliol College, Oxford, England, where he gained a second B.A.
He enjoyed his time as a post-graduate in the United Kingdom, pursuing sporting activities at Oxford at inter-collegiate level. "Oxford was pretty fulfilling," he recalls. "Small communities are a great benefit for education. I was able to row with the Balliol rowing team, which would never have happened if there had been 10,000 students. The scale was right."
Following Oxford, Luke began his doctoral studies in AI under Professor Roger Shank, initially at Yale, but completing his Ph.D. at Northwestern University, Illinois. After a year spent with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he joined Accenture's Research and Development organization in 1993, because he wanted to work on the fledgling Internet. In 1995, he took a role as vice president of an Accenture start-up, which he helped to establish, before returning to the Labs' Research group in 1997.
Now living on the West Coast, Luke loves both the physical environment and its culture of innovation, which ideally supports the Labs' ethos. "Working for the Labs is special," he says. "You have the freedom to pursue ideas, but in a pragmatic context, and you get to work with some very smart people."
He believes that the Labs is different because as well as "thinking" technology, Labs' researchers think about business, markets and psychology at the same time. In addition, Accenture's cross-industry reach means that new ideas can jump from one industry to the next far more effectively and cites an example where the Labs was able to innovate in consumer electronics based on work pioneered in the oil industry.
Although overseeing a wide range of research, Luke has maintained his interest in technology as it relates to humans. In his view, an important trend is what he dubs "labor-net": the idea that as reality comes online more and more, it creates the capability for things to be done somewhere else. Effectively, technology will enable the virtual movement of labor in the 21st century in the way the railroads and roads moved things physically during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Outside work, leisure activities center on his wife and three children. Luke enjoys reading ( particularly history), backyard astronomy and weightlifting.