Mark founded Thawte, an internet commerce security company in 1996 while studying finance and IT at the University of Cape Town. In 2000 he founded HBD, an investment company, and created the Shuttleworth Foundation to fund innovative leaders in society with a combination of fellowships and investments. In 2002 he flew to the International Space Station as a member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34, after a year of training in Star City, Russia. After running a campaign to promote code, science and mathematics to aspiring astronauts and other ambitious types at schools in SA, he started work on Ubuntu. Today he lives on the lovely Mallards botanical garden in the Isle of Man, along with 18 ducks, the equally lovely Claire, two black bitches and the occasional itinerant sheep.