About Us
About the Centre for Computing History
The Centre for Computing History (CCH) is an award-winning museum and educational charity that brings the story of the Information Age to life. Based in Cambridge since 2013, CCH inspires people of all ages to discover how computing has transformed the way we live, work and connect.
Through hands-on exhibits, interactive experiences, engaging events and learning programmes, visitors can explore the technology that shaped our world. By caring for and sharing a unique collection of historic computers, games and digital artefacts, CCH preserves the past while sparking curiosity and creativity for the future.
Why?
The rise of computing has been one of the most dramatic and transformative stories in human history. In just a few decades, technology has reshaped how we communicate, learn, work and live, creating a connected global society that would once have seemed unimaginable. Today, computers and the internet are woven into almost every aspect of our daily lives.
Yet for many people growing up in the digital age, the remarkable story behind these innovations remains largely untold. The Centre for Computing History brings that story to life, revealing the pioneers, breakthroughs and inventions that sparked the digital revolution. Through hands-on experiences and extraordinary historic technology, the Centre helps visitors discover how the Information Age began, and how it continues to shape our future.
History
The Centre for Computing History (CCH) began in 2006, when a new ‘hands-on’ museum of personal computing was an idea in the collective mind of three friends, one of whom, Jason Fitzpatrick, owned an extensive collection of computing-related artefacts. The other two founders were Elaine Symonds and Dr Lisa McGerty.
A company was formed in 2007, and together with an engaged and supportive Board, we consulted as widely as we could about our ideas for a museum of computing history in Cambridge, a natural home for such a museum. We formed a charity in 2009, which raised enough funds to be able to afford a building and the museum finally opened to the public in Cambridge in 2013. In 2019, we were awarded Accredited Museum status.
Jason served as Chair of Trustees until our current Chair Gareth Marlow took over that role in 2019, and Jason served as CEO until 2022. Lisa then took over that role, before she stepped down in 2026.
CCH is an accredited museum with an active visitor base and firm role in the local and tech communities, achieved with a dedicated staff team and a small army of volunteers, without whom we could not succeed.
CCH aims to be an open and welcoming visitor attraction, offering inspirational learning opportunities to a wide range of audiences – from pre-schoolers to the over-70s – so people can confidently and creatively engage with information and digital technologies and their history. We offer a range of learning services on site including programming and electronics workshops, activities exploring the history of computing and other interactive educational opportunities using people's stories along with 1980s BBC Micros, Raspberry Pis and Micro:Bits for school students and the general public.
We also deliver training sessions to teachers so that they have the knowledge, skills and confidence to teach computing and its incredible history to their students in an engaging way.
Collection
The fast-paced nature of the computing industry, along with its tendency to discard irrelevant technology as soon as it becomes outdated, means that the heritage around its origins and subsequent developments is at risk of being lost. CCH aims to preserve this fundamental part of our heritage and ensure it is valued, celebrated and secured for posterity.
CCH has an internationally significant collection of vintage computers, ephemera, artefacts, documents and hands-on displays – in total over 40,000 items. The core collection consists of over a thousand historic computers, as well as mobile phones, games consoles, calculators and, importantly, interviews with the pioneers. CCH holds extensive Cambridge-related archives (e.g. a Sinclair collection and an Acorn collection) as well as hosting the largest collection of Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) artefacts in the world.
Funding and Management
The Centre for Computing History receives no government funding. It is overseen by a broad group of volunteer trustees with day-to-day management delegated to a staff team currently led by Lizzie Salter, who joined the museum in 2023.
To find out more about the People at the heart of the museum, please visit our People page.
