Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African entrepreneur, philanthropist, and space tourist. He is best known for founding the e‑commerce security company Thawte in 1995, which was sold to VeriSign in 1999 for US$575 million, and for establishing the Ubuntu project, a widely used Linux distribution, in 2004 through his company Canonical Ltd. Shuttleworth became the first African in space when he flew aboard the Russian Soyuz TM‑34 mission to the International Space Station in April 2002 as a private astronaut.
Born in Welkom, South Africa, Shuttleworth earned a BSc in Finance and Information Systems from the University of Cape Town and later completed a master's degree in computer science at the University of Oxford. He began his career as a software developer and later co‑founded Thawte with his brother, focusing on digital certificates and secure internet communications. After the sale of Thawte, he founded Canonical Ltd. to provide commercial support for Ubuntu and to promote open‑source software. Under his leadership, Ubuntu has become one of the most popular Linux distributions for desktops, servers, and cloud computing environments.
In addition to his business activities, Shuttleworth has been involved in various philanthropic initiatives, including the Shuttleworth Foundation, which funds social entrepreneurs and projects aimed at improving public services through open data and technology. He has also advocated for space exploration and the development of commercial spaceflight.
Shuttleworth holds dual South African and British citizenship and has been recognized with several awards for his contributions to technology and entrepreneurship. He continues to serve as the CEO of Canonical Ltd. and remains active in the global open‑source community.