John Shawe-Taylor is Professor of Computer Science at University College London. He has contributed to a fundamental renaissance in statistical learning, with applications in new fields such as computer vision, document classification, and applications in biology and medicine focusing on brain scanning, immunity and proteome analysis. He has published over 250 articles and two books, which have been cited over 66,000 times. He has also helped to set up a series of influential European networks of excellence. The scientific coordination of these projects has influenced a whole generation of researchers, and fostered the widespread adoption of machine learning in both science and industry that we are now witnessing. He was appointed UNESCO Chair in Artificial Intelligence in November 2018 and is the lead trustee of the UK charity, Knowledge 4 All Foundation, which promotes open education and helps establish a network of artificial intelligence researchers and practitioners in sub-Saharan Africa.