Ian Clarke

Ian Clarke (born February 16, 1977) is the original designer and lead developer of Freenet. Clarke grew up in Navan, County Meath, Ireland, and currently resides in Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Related Topics:
February 16 - 1977 - Freenet - Navan - Meath - Ireland - Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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Clarke was educated at Dundalk grammar school, Co Louth and while there twice came first in the Senior Chemical, Physical, and Mathematical section of the Aer Lingus Young Scientist Exhibition. The first time, in 1993, was with a project entitled "The C Neural Network Construction Kit". The second time, the following year, was with a project entitled "Mapping Internal Variations in Translucency within a Translucent Object using Beams of Light". It later transpired that the iterative mathematical technique developed by Clarke for the latter entry was similar to that used to discover the location of Pluto.

Related Topics:
Dundalk grammar school - Co Louth - Aer Lingus Young Scientist Exhibition

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In 1995 Clarke left Dundalk to study Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. While at Edinburgh Clarke became president of the then dormant Artificial Intelligence Society, resulting in its revival. In Clarke's final year at Edinburgh, he completed his "final year project", entitled "A Distributed, Decentralised Information Storage and Retrieval System". In July 1999, after receiving a 'B' grade for his paper, Clarke decided to release it to the Internet and invited volunteers to help implement his design. The resulting free software project became known as Freenet.

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In August 1999 Clarke began his first full time job as a software developer in the Space Division of Logica PLC, a London-based software consulting company. In February 2000 Clarke left Logica to join a small software start-up called Instil Ltd. In August 2000 Clarke left London for Santa Monica, California, where he co-founded Uprizer Inc, with the intent of commercialising some of his Freenet-related ideas. In January 2001, Uprizer Inc. successfully raised $4 million in A-round venture funding from investors including Intel Capital.

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In September 2002, after leaving Uprizer, Ian formed Cematics LLC to explore a variety of new ideas and opportunities. Cematics LLC developed a number of products including Locutus, a P2P search application for the Enterprise, WhittleBit - a search engine which learns from user Feedback, and 3D17, a web-based collaborative editing tool.

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In October 2003 Clarke decided to leave the United States to return to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he currently lives. In December 2004, Clarke began work on Dijjer, a distributed P2P web cache, and Indy, a collaborative music discovery system, both in conjunction with Change TV Inc, a company founded by Clarke's long-time collaborator, Steven Starr, and Clarke's brother, Andrew.

Related Topics:
Dijjer - Indy - Steven Starr

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