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KATHY RITTWEGER'S defining moment came several years ago when she worked for Microsoft. During one of the company's sponsorship days she found herself seated next to its founder Bill Gates and realised to her horror that she barely understood anything he was talking about.
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'I decided from then on to read everything I could about technology,' she says. 'Just in case I ran into Bill Gates again.'
So far she hasn't. But Rittweger, 39, an attractive Japanese-American based in London, could be about to give Gates a run for his money.
Blinkx, the search engine company she co-founded last year, is growing rapidly. Since its low-key launch at the end of July some 800,000 people have downloaded the Blinkx technology - and that is just those she knows about.
Hundreds of thousands more are probably using it after downloading Blinkx from other websites or from CDs cover-mounted on magazines.
Like Google in its early days, the number of users is multiplying fast. There is huge interest from venture capitalists eager to invest and grab a share of what could be the next hi-tech money-spinner.
The technology the Blinkx team has developed originated from UK software company Autonomy, where her co-founder 26-year-old Cambridge graduate Suranga Chandratillake used to work.
The difference between Blinkx and other search engines is that it does not just search the web, it combs everything from personal emails on your desktop through to video clips from TV stations such as the BBC.
It is activated by the user asking it to carry out a search on a topic. But, if the user begins writing on a subject, it will automatically start a search.
'I think technology should take care of all the key words and be able to bring all the information to us before we ask,' says Rittweger. 'This is about technology serving us.'
Blinkx, which is run from London and San Francisco, started life with just £2m of investment from business angels.
Raising this cash was 'not really hard', says Rittweger. 'Business angels are much more visionary and much more in favour of backing people and ideas.'
But the company is on the brink of making a quantum leap. Less than three months ago an American technology writer was so enthused that he posted an exuberant piece about it on the internet.
Within hours news had spread through the US venture capital industry and Rittweger found herself targeted by potential investors with very deep pockets.
The recent Google float made billionaires of the founders, but Rittweger says she is 'in this to build a business and not to make money'.
Her immediate ambition is to right what she considers to be a terrible wrong.
During a meeting with an American analyst in San Francisco, she was told that she was only the fifth woman to walk through his door in five years.
'It is amazing,' said Rittweger. 'Now it is redemption time.'
If her ambition matches her technology, she is likely to become a role model for the next generation of entrepreneurs.
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