Mark Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973 in Welkom, Free State Province) is a South African entrepreneur. As an early space tourist, he was the first African in space.

After going to school at Diocesan College, Shuttleworth obtained a Business Science degree in Finance and Management information systems at the University of Cape Town.

In 1995, he founded Thawte, which specialised in digital certificates and internet security. He sold Thawte in December 1999 to VeriSign, and subsequently formed HBD Venture Capital, a business incubator and venture capital provider, and the Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to social innovation which also funds educational and open source projects in South Africa, such as The Freedom Toaster.

Shuttleworth gained worldwide fame on 25 April 2002 as a civilian cosmonaut aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission, paying approximately United States dollar 20 million. Two days later, the Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, where he spent eight days, participating in experiments related to AIDS and genome research. On 5 May, he returned to Earth. In order to participate on the flight, Shuttleworth had to undergo one year of training and preparation, including seven months which he spent in Star City, Moscow, Moscow.

He participated as a Debian developer since the early 1990s, and in 2004 he returned to the GNU/Linux world by funding the development of Ubuntu Linux, a user-friendly version of Linux, through his company Canonical Ltd. In 2005 he founded the Ubuntu Foundation and made an initial investment of 10 million dollars. The foundation is used to pay Ubuntu contributors. In September of 2005, he purchased a 65% stake of ImpiLinux. [http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/m=show&id=828]

Mark Shuttleworth currently lives in London.

= Footnote =

# Shuttleworth claimed to be the first African in space, but some point out that Patrick Baudry — a France astronaut who was in space before Shuttleworth — was born in Cameroon. Others point out, however, that Baudry has always been a French citizen and that Cameroon was still a French colony at the time of his birth.

= See also =

*List of astronauts by name *List of South Africans - Voted 18th in the Top 100 Great South Africans

= External links =