Aral Balkan

URL = http://aralbalkan.com/

Bio

"Aral Balkan is an experience designer working to change the world by bringing design thinking to open source to create a new category of technology: design‐led open source. His latest initiative, Codename Prometheus aims to design open products that seamlessly combine hardware, software, and services to create beautiful experiences that compete with the likes of Apple in the consumer space. Being open, they also have a very important added benefit in a post‐PRISM world: you own your own data. Aral recently won Voice of the Year at the Critter awards for his talks at international conferences and sits on the board of Code Club." (https://prague2013.drupal.org/keynote/aral-balkan)

Discussion

Aral Balkan:

"I am an experience designer working to bring design thinking to open source to empower regular people to own their own data. The only way to achieve this goal is to create a new category of technology, what I call design‐led / experience‐driven open source, with the aim of making products that compete on user experience with the likes of Apple and Google in the consumer space. I’ve just launched an initiative code‐named Prometheus to realise this goal.

I also sit on the board of directors of Code Club, a nonprofit enterprise that facilitates a nationwide network volunteer‐led after school coding clubs for children aged 9‐11. Volunteer today to help spark lifetimes of curiosity by teaching kids to code." (http://aralbalkan.com/)