Heya, I’m Richard, a London-based techno-tinker of sorts. I develop apps for mobile and social platforms like iPhone, Facebook and Twitter both for my own company, raaza, and on a freelance basis for others.
I’m originally from Vancouver, Canada and lived there until graduating from high school in 1998. I spent the early 90′s addicted to BBS’s, endangering my social life so that I could clock countless hours interacting with other faceless nicks at the grand old speed of 2400 baud. Good times. I first hit the internet in 1994 and spent a lot of time in IRC’s EFnet. When I wasn’t glued to the CRT montitor, I spent a large part of my winters skiing and snowboarding at Whistler mountain and summers were spent in Kelowna on the Okanagan Lake, with the Ogopogo nibbling at my toes.
I subsequently spent 1998 – 2003 in Montreal attending McGill University, where I majored in Computer Science, and completed minor degrees in Music Technology and Economics. I spent a lot of time doing what I love, coding, but also found the time for the occasional dance at some of Montreal’s legendary late-night venues. (Perhaps more than occasional, if I’m honest). I lived in the Plateau and and ate lots of smoked meat and bagels. I also consumed my fair share of the rather disgusting Molson Hi Dry.
I moved to London, England in 2003 and have lived here ever since. I only planned on staying 2 years, but in 2011 I became a full fledged British citizen. Yes, apparently they are still letting in Canadian West coast riff raff. I live in London’s East End and think it’s an amazing place, full of off-beat culture and random arty weirdness. When I first moved here I worked for Cresta and SQS for nearly 5 years on various IT consulting engagements around the UK. They were all enterprise gigs, and I ended up working at Barclays, Egg, Centrica, Clifford Chance, UBS Warburg and BP, among other places.
In 2008 I started out with Procinity and that landed me firmly in the consumer mobile space, which I’ve since come to love. raaza evolved naturally out of Procinity and is what dominates most of my time today.
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