Who is Mike Lynch? The British man missing after luxury yacht sank off Sicily coast

Six tourists are missing after a luxury yacht sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily. According to local media one person has also died with 15 others rescued after the superyacht, named Bayesian, capsized near Palermo at around 5am on Monday.

Four of the missing passengers are British and two are American, Italian news website la Reppublica stated. Among those currently unaccounted for is British tech tycoon Mike Lynch.

The 59-year-old is originally from Ilford and grew up near Chelmsford in Essex. Mr Lynch, who founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, was made an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006. In the same year he was elected to then-prime minister David Cameron’s council for science and technology in 2011.

READ MORE: Sicily yacht sinking LIVE updates as British tycoon Mike Lynch among seven missing

He advised Mr Cameron on subjects including “the opportunities and risks of the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and the government’s role in the regulation of these technologies”.

The dad-of-two has been described at points as the Bill Gates of Britain, for founding Autonomy which became one of the biggest enterprise software firms on the planet.

Earlier this year he was cleared of conducting a massive fraud relating to a 11-billion-dollar (£8.64 billion) sale to US company Hewlett Packard.

In his first interview after being cleared, he told The Times newspaper: “I’d had to say goodbye to everything and everyone, because I didn’t know if I’d ever be coming back.”

The BBC reports that Mr Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, is among those who have been rescued.

The British-flagged Bayesian is said to have sank as a fierce storm battered the area overnight. The daily Il Giornale di Sicilia newspaper