Imran Ali

Current

• Advisory Board at Treasuremytext
• Writer at Giga Omni Media
• Founding Partner at Carbon Imagineering

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Past

• Writer at Corante
• Director at Ensembli
• Director at bmedi@

• ETel Advisory Board / Writer at O'Reilly Media
• Guest Writer at TechCrunch UK (Sole Proprietorship)
• Acting Director of Technology Research / Senior Research Consultant at Orange
• R&D Imagineer at Freeserve
• Producer at Freeserve
• Assistant Producer at Interactive Media Services
• Designer at Interactive Media Services
• Analyst Programmer at St.James University Hospital

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8 more...

Education

• Leeds Metropolitan University

Recommended

40 people have recommended Imran

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

• Personal Blog
• My Company

Imran Ali’s Summary

Part of the first generation of British dotcom professionals, quickly establishing a career around applying emerging technologies to the creation of new business opportunities.

Experience of five startups. Skills ranging from digital media development and production, to management, strategy development, public policy, product management and publishing; most notably R&D, business development, emerging technologies and innovation strategy.

Variously employed as a board director, deputy VP and a variety of production and development roles.

Driven and inspired by technologies that have the potential to challenge orthodoxies and change the world :)

Imran Ali’s Specialties:

Emerging Technologies
Emerging Consumer Trends
Digital Media Strategy
Broadband, IPTV & Mobile technology
Digital Identity & Social Software
Graphic Design
Software Technologies
Innovation Management
Digital Democracy
Blogging & Publishing
Fundraising
A great professional network :)

Imran Ali’s Experience

• Advisory Board

  Treasuremytext

  (Internet industry)

  July 2008 — Present (1 year 5 months)

  Providing strategic advice and guidance to the company founders on product, technology and investment.

• Writer

  Giga Omni Media

  (Internet industry)

  April 2008 — Present (1 year 8 months)

  Contributing writer for Web Worker Daily, covering the future of work in a post-broadband world at http://webworkerdaily.com/author/bmedia/; syndicated to both Salon.com and the New York Times.

• Founding Partner

  Carbon Imagineering

  (Internet industry)

  February 2007 — Present (2 years 10 months)

  Founding partner of Carbon Imagineering, an emerging technologies think-tank.
  
  Brought together a group of partners and associates to explore emerging technologies and their applications; providing consultancy to help clients shape their innovation strategy; creating and incubating concept technologies and services; publishing works for technology conferences and blogs; and contributing pro-bono expertise and guidance to public bodies and academia.
  
  Clients have included France Telecom R&D, Orange, Ensembli, Leeds Met, Vlume.com and Hallmark Cards. Concept services in development include - Believr, Dotnorth, DayLeeds & mee:view.

• Writer

  Corante

  (Privately Held; Internet industry)

  May 2007 — May 2009 (2 years 1 month)

  Contributing writer for Corante's Mobile Messaging 2.0 blog at http://mobilemessaging2.com/?author_name=iali.

• Director

  Ensembli

  (Internet industry)

  September 2007 — April 2009 (1 year 8 months)

  Non-executive director in a venture-backed startup, developing technology and infrastructure for personalised enterprise news services.
  
  Initially assisting with preparing the business for its first venture round and following with general guidance on strategy, assistance in recruiting a CEO, product design, user experience and social media strategy.

• Director

  bmedi@

  (Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Non-Profit Organization Management industry)

  July 2004 — July 2008 (4 years 1 month)

  bmedi@ is a network of companies in the creative and digital industries, from around the North of England..
  
  As an elected board director, my responsibilities included accountability in ensuring funding from the regional development agencies is utilised to create regional prosperity and employment for member companies and generally in the region.

• ETel Advisory Board / Writer

  O'Reilly Media

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Publishing industry)

  October 2005 — October 2007 (2 years 1 month)

  Part of the programme committee for both editions of O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony conference; helping to locate and define interesting sessions, contributors and themes. Also, a regular writer for O'Reilly's ETel blog over it's two year lifespan.

• Guest Writer

  TechCrunch UK (Sole Proprietorship)

  (Sole Proprietorship; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

  October 2006 — December 2006 (3 months)

  A guest contributor for the UK edition of Michael Arrington's TechCrunch, working alongside publisher Sam Sethi and editor Mike Butcher. Focused largely on reporting startup activities in the North of the UK, writing speculative pieces on technology strategy as well as helping to plan regional events to promote TCUK and the British startup ecosphere.

• Acting Director of Technology Research / Senior Research Consultant

  Orange

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Internet industry)

  July 2001 — December 2006 (5 years 6 months)

  Served as Senior Consultant and Deputy to the Director of Technology Research (Wanadoo, Freeserve & Orange) - an emerging technologies think-tank for FT. Duties include managing staff, recruitment, research programmes & projects, incubation of strategy and ideas, creating & managing strategic partnerships, as well as the philosophy of innovation itself.
  
  Represented Wanadoo, Orange and FT in industry forums, public speeches, and conferences. In 2004, nominated for the Prix de l’Innovation – FT’s highest award for innovation. Also worked to establish the Wanadoo Research & Innovation division and edited a daily tech news service for FT from 2001-06.
  
  Most recently co-chaired the 'Design+' interaction design conference, served on the programme committee for O'Reilly Media's 'ETel' emerging telephony conference and was an invitee to the exclusive FOO Camp events from 2005-06.
  
  Held in high-regard across FT Group as one of the emerging champions of disruptive innovation practices.

• R&D Imagineer

  Freeserve

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)

  November 2000 — July 2001 (9 months)

  Worked with newly appointed Director of R&D to establish a research unit. Duties included supporting Director of Product Management in establishing product and service roadmaps and building an innovation cycle into service development.
  
  Also, assisted CTO and Director of R&D on business integration with the wider Wanadoo Group and France Telecom R&D.

• Producer

  Freeserve

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)

  November 1999 — November 2000 (1 year 1 month)

  Appointed by Freeserve founder and Director Of Media Development (Rob Wilmot) to develop services in emerging technology areas such as mobile, interactive television and Freeserve's portfolio of communication services. Worked closely with Business Development Director (Ajaz Ahmed) on development of product and service strategies.

• Assistant Producer

  Interactive Media Services

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Media Production industry)

  April 1999 — October 1999 (7 months)

  Managing production of interactive services for clients - from account handling, to pitching for new business and leading virtual teams of designers and developers.
  
  Clients included Threadneedle UK and the National Deaf Children's Society.

• Designer

  Interactive Media Services

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Media Production industry)

  January 1998 — April 1999 (1 year 4 months)

  Appointed as interactive media designer within a web agency; ‘pitching’ projects to prospective clients and providing design, media production and development for existing clients.

• Analyst Programmer

  St.James University Hospital

  (Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Hospital & Health Care industry)

  September 1995 — August 1996 (1 year )

  I was part of a small software development team at Europe's largest teaching hospital. My role included working with medical staff to develop clinical applications for the treatment of prenatal and asthmatic patients. I co-authored the 'Neo' suite of applications for the unit and, in collaboration with Glaxo Wellcome, the 'Asma' suite for monitoring asthmatic children.

Imran Ali’s Education

• Leeds Metropolitan University

  BSc (Hons) , Software Engineering (Upper 2nd Class) , 1993 — 1997

  Co-author of 'Dolphin' - a platform for developing interactive tutorials for students (published in PC Pro, 1997). Dissertation entitled 'A paradigm for visual programming' - a methodology for modelling and developing GUI applications. Specialised in advanced software development methodologies and digital media.

Additional Information

Imran Ali’s Websites:

• Personal Blog
• My Company

Imran Ali’s Groups:

bmedi@,University of Bradford Industrial Advisory Board (School of Informatics), OpenCoffee + GeekUp

•    TED
•    Girl Geek Dinners
•    eComm
•    Friends of BBC R&D North

Imran Ali’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch