Happy is Celebrating its 20th Birthday
The origins of Happy date back to 1987, when founder Henry Stewart first registered the company and started providing training to friends and contacts.
Hi, we are Happy
We are leading a movement to create happy, empowered and productive workplaces.
How can we help you and your people to find joy in at least 80% of your work?
4th February 1991, 20 years ago, was the date on which Happy Computers established its first training centre in Wicklow Street, near King’s Cross. It had just one training room and the only staff were Henry and Tina, a part-time administrator.
At the time WordPerfect 5.1 was the latest word processing software, taking over from Wordstar and Multimate. Windows 3 had only just being released and Word for Windows had barely been heard of. Supercalc and Lotus were the spreadsheets of choice, and were a bit basic. Henry remembers teaching people how to enter a 12-digit code to print in landscape. The idea of the World Wide Web was still being worked on by Tim Berners Lee in his Swiss laboratory. Henry spent £1,300 per machine to get PCs with 16MB of hard disk space and a whopping 4MB of RAM.
A lot has changed since then. Technology is miles ahead, software is much easier to use and the web has changed just about everything.
Happy has grown steadily to our current training centre in Adler Street with 14 training rooms and 20,000 people trained last year. We now train online, and deliver webinars as well as our core classroom training. But the core principles on which Happy Computers was founded, of involvement and making learning about computers fun and having a positive effect on society, remain in place. We are very proud of our record of 20 years as an independent training company.
Related Blogs
- Happy is Proud to be a Freedom-Centered Workplace - Happy has qualified as a WorldBlu certified Freedom-Centred Workplace for the fourth time - one of only three companies in the UK to do so in 2022!
- Happy Recognised as One of the Top 15 Workplaces in Europe - Happy is very proud to have been rated in the top 15 of the Best Workplaces in Europe, in the Small Company category.
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Jonny Reynolds
Jonny worked at Happy for over 11 years, starting as Operations Manager and working his way up to Business Stream Manager.
Next Conference: 2025 Happy Workplaces Conference
Our Happy Workplaces Conference is our biggest event of the year, and we'd love for you to join us on Thursday 12th June!
This year's event will be held in London, venue TBC. We may also offer a hybrid option for people to join us online simultaneously — do let us know if you are interested in joining online and we can add you to the waiting list.
As always, our next conference will be filled with interaction, discussion and space for reflection.
Book now and get our special half-price Early Bird rate — just use discount code Happy2025.
Related courses
The Happy Leadership Programme
Brave Leadership: One-Year Leadership Development Programme for Women
Level 7 Senior Leadership Apprenticeship Programme
Not what you need? Take a look at all of our off-the-shelf Leadership and Management programmes.