Austin Hill is a Canadian entrepreneur who has been creating technology start-ups for 15 years. He is co-founder of Montreal technology startups Akoha and Standout Jobs, where he currently serves as CEO (Akoha) and Chairman (Standout Jobs).
Austin was a founder of Zero-Knowledge Systems (renamed Radialpoint in 2002) and as its President helped the company raise $75 million between 1997 and 2001. He also served as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Zero-Knowledge Systems, CEO of Synomos Inc. (a Zero-Knowledge Systems subsidiary), and Executive-Vice President of Research for Radialpoint. Radialpoint was honoured by Deloitte & Touche as one of Canada’s fastest-growing technology firms in their 2006 Technology Fast 50 award.
A serial entrepreneur, Austin was a founder of the Internet provider Total.Net in 1994 and built its Canadian network as its Chief Technology Officer. In 1990, while still a teenager, he founded security consulting firm Cyberspace Data Security.
In 2001 Austin was awarded the 2001 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Emerging Entrepreneur in Quebec. In 2002 Austin was named a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Austin is an advisory board member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and a past Board member of the Information Technology Association of Canada. He serves on the advisory board of the Atwater Library Digital Literacy project, is a research fellow for Coburn Ventures, and through his angel investment firm Brudder Ventures advises a number of Canadian start-ups and entrepreneurs. He is a Board Member of Anges Quebec and a Venture Partner at iNovia Capital.
Austin’s work on the issues of privacy, governance and technologies of social change have been profiled on 60 Minutes, CNN and ABC News and covered in Time, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He speaks around the world on the issues of social entrepreneurship, civic society and the technologies of social change, and the role of entrepreneurs and corporations as agents of change in society.
