Academy of Achievement Profile

### [Listen to this achiever on _What It Takes_](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2)

_What It Takes_ is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.

![](https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2-article-2548355-1B0425C100000578-456_306x423.jpg)Demis Hassabis, the eldest of three, was born in London, England, to a Greek father and a Singaporean mother.

Demis Hassabis was born in London, England.  He is of both Greek and Chinese ancestry; his father came from Cyprus, his mother from Singapore.  Demis and his family moved frequently as his father pursued a variety of business and creative ventures.  Demis was four years old when he saw his father and an uncle playing chess and asked them to teach him the game. He took to it quickly and was soon beating both of them.  He showed a precocious aptitude for all games employing logic and strategy.  Given his first computer at age eight, he programmed it to play the board game _Othello_. His fascination with both games and computers grew with every year.  By age 13, Hassabis was a recognized chess master and was soon playing adults in international competition. Although he enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of chess competition, he longed to apply his skills to a larger area and decided to pursue the study of artificial intelligence (AI).  At 17, he joined the computer games company Bullfrog Productions, where he worked as a designer on the game _Syndicate_ and was lead programmer for the highly influential _Theme Park._ A bestseller, it won the industry’s Golden Joystick Award and spawned a host of management simulation games.

![](https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2-wp-hassabis-with-controller.jpg)Demis Hassabis started his professional games career at the age of 16 working at Bullfrog Productions. After finishing his bachelor’s in Computer Science Tripos, with a double degree from the Computer Lab at Cambridge, he joined the newly founded Lionhead Studios. In 1998, Hassabis founded Elixir Studios, producing games for Microsoft and Vivendi Universal, and contributed to many bestselling games, including Syndicate (1993), Theme Park (1994), Black & White (2001), Republic (2003), and Evil Genius (2004). He is an accomplished chess, shogi, and poker player, and has won the World Games Championships at the Mind Sports Olympiad, a record five times.

Hassabis attended Cambridge University, where he led the chess team in 1995 and 1996, and again in 1997.  Graduating that year with top honors in computer science, he joined Lionhead Studios, where he was the lead programmer for the game _Black & White_.  The following year, he founded his own company, Elixir Studios.  His first game as executive designer at Elixir was _Repu

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