Current Interests

Here are some things I currently enjoy being involved in (no particular order):

• Walking up hills and kayaking/canoeing. Have previously done club level paddlesport coaching. Following a house move not doing very much apart from personal paddling at this moment. May be found on one of the lakes or rivers near where I now live solo paddling a Wenonah Prospector, or further afield in a sea kayak.
• Aplisay https://aplisay.com/ InnovateUK funded venture figuring out how to break conversation tech out of the big AI provider silos.
• Hack the Lakes https://hackthelakes.uk prototype rural hack camp. Idea I’ve been toying with for a while, will probably run in 2023.
• IPCortex https://www.ipcortex.co.uk/ company I founded many years ago, making Opensource VoIP into a commercial proposition tailored to UK SMEs. Exited the company via a trade sale in 2019 and left my full-time CEO role there. Maintain a consultancy relationship.
• TADHack https://tadhack.com/ we took an IPCortex team to the very first TADHack in 2014 and walked off with the coveted Google prize for our WebRTC hack RTCEmergency. This has since spawned a raft of real world implementations saving lives in emergency situations. Been involved in TADHack/TADSummit most years since. Can usually be found running the London location where I enjoy enabling and mentoring talented local developers.
• Hack the Press https://hackthepress.org/ news is broken… looking at new ways to monetise quality journalism. Helped bootstrap this hackathon series which aims to improve news reporting through tech solutions to support journalists. Organised sponsorship for the inaugural event and privileged to do tech mentoring with them.

There are a few other projects and organisations that I think are fantastic, have worked with at some stage, but can’t really claim any credit for…

• Fosdem https://fosdem.org/ can usually be found crimping network cables and mounting access points as a volunteer at ULB on the Friday before Fosdem. Find me in the RTC room (probably).
• Founders and Coders https://www.foundersandcoders.com/ peer led free bootcamp that focuses on inclusion and social outcomes. Have run workshops as part of their curriculum, and engaged their graduates in the UK and Gaza on follow on projects.
• MK Hackathon https://www.mkhackathon.org/ civic hackathons in Milton Keynes. Last ran a hackathon in May 2019 in collaboration with Girls Code MK and the OU.