About David Gildeh

When I left school I decided to study Electronic Engineering because I am a tech geek and I though it would be the best path for me to take in my goal of becoming a high-tech entrepreneur one day. When I finally finished my MEng at the University of Surrey, while looking for jobs in Singapore (I've always been fascinated to work in new countries and cultures) I found a company I'd never heard of before called Accenture. It turned out with about 15 minutes more research, that they had an excellent graduate program in the UK which would allow me to continue being a tech geek while also learning about business and working with large clients. I was hooked immediately and applied the following day and breezed straight through the interviews to get into Accenture where I joined their Portals & Content Management practice for the almost 4 years, specialising in FileNet and Sharepoint 2007.

During my last 2 years there, I decided to participate in Accenture's volunteer program, Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), to work with NGOs (Non-government organisation or charities). With my unique technical skills I quickly took on a range of portals projects starting with NetHope, a ITC consortium of 22 major NGOs. Through this experience I became the ADP portals & content management lead overseeing several high profile PCM projects and project managing many of them in a range of locations from Thailand, S.Korea, Hong Kong, USA and India, leading local teams in each.

After this experience finished I decided it was finally time to take the first step towards starting my own high-tech business and left Accenture in the summer of 2008. I am currently incorporating a company with two partners to provide online software (software-as-a-service) solutions for small businesses. 

On the side, my love for and expertise in the open-source web CMS, Drupal, has allowed me to do some freelancing for other start-ups. In my spare time I have contributed several modules for Drupal, and am an active member of the London Drupal community. I now provide consultative services for all portal & content management related projects but of course where possible I specialise in building highly functional and scalable sites for businesses on the Drupal platform.

I am also a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in the UK, and currently going through the application process to become a Chartered Engineer (CEng).

This site is a chance for me to showcase some of the work I've done, tell people who I am, but most importantly allow me to blog on the things I care about. Apart from technology, this ranges from global issues, politics, entrepreneurship and smart ideas. In my own way I hope that I can make a difference one day and the best way to do that is to connect with like minded people. Hopefully this site will help me find such people too.