This month, Mike Bursell, Executive Director of the Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC), was named in the OpenUK New Year Honours List for 2026. The list, compiled by OpenUK, “the UK organization for the business of Open Technology”, celebrates individuals supporting the UK’s leadership in Open Technology. The annual Honours List, now in its 6th year, recognises the commitment of individuals who contribute to the open technology ecosystem above and beyond the call of duty or the demands of their day job.
“I’m delighted and honoured to be selected for this award,” Mike said, “and aware that the open source community only flourishes because many people behind the scenes are working in all aspects of what we do. Though my work in open source, including with the CCC, has spanned many countries, the UK remains a great place to be involved with and promote open source and open collaboration and I’m proud to be part of a flourishing community here.”
The Confidential Computing Consortium is part of the Linux Foundation and represents organizations across the Confidential Computing ecosystem, promoting the adoption of Confidential Computing technologies and providing a home for related open source projects. The growth in availability of hardware supporting Confidential Computing has aligned with concerns around digital sovereignty, privacy of data and protection of AI models, leading Gartner to select it as one of its top 10 strategic technologies for 2026. The CCC takes a lead in technical work around open protocols employing Confidential Computing, providing mentoring opportunities, a job board and fostering open source underpinnings and frameworks using the technologies.
The Consortium also provides an important safe place for organizations to collaborate with other members of the ecosystem to create value for the wider community while minimizing anti-trust concerns. Mike’s role as Executive Director ranges across outreach activities such as speaking and membership activities through writing technical materials, engagement in technical discussions and nurturing open source projects.
A recent CCC report by IDC, Unlocking the Future of Data Security: Confidential Computing as a Strategic Imperative, found that adoption of Confidential Computing is accelerating as awareness of the technology hits critical mass and that the UK has one of the highest rates of awareness globally. Mike noted that while open source is important in all jurisdictions and across all sectors, it is particularly vital for security-related applications: “Confidential Computing has the super-power of allowing you to prove to yourself and others that your application the one you expect: allowing collaboration in new ways across new sectors like healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals, Adtech and telecommunications. But, in addition, you need to be able to be sure that the code you’re running is doing what it’s advertised to be doing, and the only way to ensure that is if you’re using open source.”
Mike, who is a UK national and based near Cambridge, has been involved in open source communities for over 25 years and has led the CCC since April 2023. He was involved in the setting up of the Consortium in 2019, serving as the Red Hat representative for several years and formerly holding the position of Treasurer. He was also a co-founder of the Enarx project, the first open source project donated to the CCC on its foundation, is the author of Trust in Computer Systems and the Cloud (Wiley, 2021) and is a graduate of both the University of Cambridge and the Open University.
