How are online resources such as AutismConnect helping to tackle autism issues?

It's a strategic approach. They are facilitating exchange between the professionals, including world experts, and parents. The web attracts people of ability who are also on the autistic spectrum. There are summaries of autism-related studies from peer-reviewed publications. The editor of AutismConnect speaks six languages so he scans all sorts of things.

So the web has helped make sharing resources much easier?

It makes a world of difference. The Awares site is an all-Wales autism resource launched in 2002. Wales was the first country to do this. It makes a great deal of difference to a sector that is, by nature, isolated.

More educational software for cognitive development of autistic children?

We've funded a few major projects. One at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, is about reading faces and body language. We've done a voice recognition project at Nottingham University for people with Asperger's Syndrome. It uses VR to teach people on the spectrum how to deal with real-life problems such as how to find a seat on a bus. I think the extraordinary thing with educational software is that people are enjoying doing things they wouldn't have done, or otherwise even tried.

Is the UK still producing IT innovators?

I spend a bit of time in the States and there is a perception that the US leads ... but I think that's arguable. We have people like Tim Berners-Lee. It's that stereotypical thing in this country that we're terribly good at the early role and we somehow fail to capitalise. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has just done an issue on women pioneers in IT, of which I'm part, but Berners-Lee's mother was also a pioneer. We've always been there, we just have to learn to capitalise on our ideas.

Any thoughts on the free software movement? I'm very un-technical but it is an interesting question as the open source movement has a commitment to how software is produced. My credo is that it has to be user-oriented. It's important to the producers but users generally don't care. I have heard it said that open source software is a decade behind.

Unlike the spammers? Bill Gates thinks there may be a technical solution but the truth is that it all generates from a few people. All early technologies, and we're still at that stage, don't have appropriate norms. Because tele-marketing is successful, spam is simply throwing petrol on the idea.

What next for the net? There will be more interaction with broadband, interaction with wireless broadband and with a variety of technologies. That's really going to change how society works.

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Stephanie Shirley's favourites
www.oii.ox.ac.uk
autismconnect.org
www.priorscourt.org.uk
www.awares.org
www.xansa.com