Ivan Oliphant was the child of two London technology executives who disliked his propensity for artistic pursuits. Since they were workaholics, Ivan’s parents neglected him. Ivan went to college but dropped out to work in his family firm. The business collapsed with the advent of AI because Ivan leaked their new business plans to a woman who seduced him for that purpose. A friend found him a job at Universal Trust. Ivan’s career accelerated when he created the prototype for what eventually became Gina, as Gina showed the potential for pairing AI with human consciousness.

With Ivan leading the way, Universal Trust cleaned up the environmental problems of Cleveland and instituted Universal Basic Income. Ivan was the one who came up with the idea of using the qualification test to identify people with strong pattern recognition skills and high intelligence; these people were test subjects for the pairing of AI and human consciousness.

Echo was a chance find for Ivan. Her synesthesia and way of conceiving of numbers made her ideal for his project. With a mind like hers, they can likely abandon the masks Universal Trust hopes to use to harvest human consciousness.