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Nick D'Aloisio

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Nick D'Aloisio
D'Aloisio at London 2012, Central Hall Westminster
Born
Nicholas D'Aloisio-Montilla

(1995-11-01) 1 November 1995 (age 29)
London, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
EducationKing's College School, University of Oxford
Occupation(s)Computer programmer, Internet entrepreneur, philosopher, student (Hertford College, University of Oxford)
Known forSummly

Nicholas D'Aloisio (born 1 November 1995) is a British computer programmer and internet entrepreneur. He is the founder of Summly, a mobile app which automatically summarises news articles and other material, which was acquired by Yahoo for $30M, according to allthingsd.com, but price wasn't officially disclosed.[1] D'Aloisio was the youngest person to receive a round of venture capital in technology, at the age of 16.[2][3] D'Aloisio is currently the founder of a startup called Sphere, which has raised $30M in investment to date.[4] He is also a student at Oxford University, where he began the BPhil Graduate Programme in Philosophy in October 2019 which allows for automatic progression onto the doctorate course (DPhil),[5] and has had seven papers accepted for publication or revision & resubmission in peer-reviewed philosophy journals.[5]

Early life and education

D'Aloisio was born in London. His father, Lou Montilla, is an investment banker; his mother, Diana D'Aloisio is a lawyer.[6][7] He has one younger brother, Matthew. At a young age, D'Aloisio and his family moved to Australia where they resided in Perth and Melbourne.[8] When he was seven, they returned to London. D'Aloisio was educated at King's College School, an independent school for boys in Wimbledon, south west London.[9] In the summer of 2014, he took A-level examinations in three subjects.

From 2014, D'Aloisio studied his undergraduate degree in philosophy and computer science at Hertford College, Oxford University.[10] In 2019, he began the BPhil graduate programme in Philosophy at Oxford University.[5] Since 2017, D'Aloiso has published a number of academic papers in peer-reviewed journals.[11] One of them, titled "Imagery and Overflow: We See More Than We Report", was published in Philosophical Psychology[11][12] He presented a second paper at the Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp.[13] A third paper was published in the philosophy journal Ratio, and three more papers were accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journals Philosophia, Disputatio and Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.[14][15] A sixth paper recently received an R&R at Theoria.[11]

Career

Summly

In March 2011, D'Aloisio launched an iOS app named Trimit, which used an algorithm to condense text such as emails and blog posts into a summary of 1000, 500, or 140-character text.[16] With 100,000 downloads,[7] the app was featured as on the Apple App Store.[17] Shortly afterwards, Trimit attracted the attention of business magnate Li Ka-Shing, who provided 16-year-old D'Aloisio with US$300,000 in venture capital investment.[18][19] After gathering feedback, D'Aloisio re-designed the app and renamed it Summly in December 2011.[20]

Summly aimed to solve perceived problems with the way news articles are presented on smartphones,[18] with the initial version of Summly being downloaded by over 200,000 users.[21] He hired a team from Israel, including a scientist named Inderjeet Mani, who specialised in natural language processing, to improve the app.[22][23] With corporate support,[24] in November 2012, D'Aloisio received US$1 million in new venture funding from celebrities such as Yoko Ono, Ashton Kutcher and Stephen Fry, in addition to Li Ka-Shing.[25] In March 2013, D'Aloiso sold Summly to Yahoo! for approximately US$30 million, according to allthingsd.com, but price wasn't officially disclosed.[26].[27] He joined Yahoo! as a product manager the same month.[28]

Yahoo News Digest

In January 2014, D'Aloisio announced the launch of Yahoo News Digest at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.[29] An evolution of Summly, Yahoo News Digest provides mobile users with a summary of important news of the day in the form of a twice-a-day digest.[30] The articles are automatically and manually curated, as well as summarised into key units of information, known as "Atoms", which include maps, infographics, quotes and Wikipedia extracts.[31] The Verge praised the app, stating, "Yahoo! News Digest is the boldest and most visually impressive app the company has released since Yahoo! Weather last year."[32] It was the winner of the 2014 Apple Design Award.[33] D'Aloisio resigned from Yahoo! in October 2015.

Sphere

In late 2015, D'Aloisio co-founded a new startup called Sphere Knowledge. Whilst yet to be made public, Sphere is said to be knowledge-sharing service where users can swap information via instant messaging.[4] As of March 2019, the Financial Times reports that the company has raised US$30 million.[4]

Awards and recognition

D'Aloisio garnered media attention for being a young entrepreneur. He has been covered by major publications, including ReadWrite,[34] Business Insider,[35] Wired,[36] Forbes,[37][38] The Huffington Post[18] and TechCrunch.[39] D'Aloisio has also made numerous television appearances.[6]

In 2013, The Wall Street Journal awarded D'Aloisio "Innovator of the Year" in New York City for his work on Summly and at Yahoo.[40] He was included in Time magazine's Time 100 as one of the world's most influential teenagers.[41] He also appeared in the 30 Under 30, an annual list of top entrepreneurs by Forbes, and appeared in GQ magazine's 100 Most Connected Men of 2014.[42] D'Aloisio was placed No. 30 on the 2014 Silicon Valley 100 by Business Insider.[43] He won a Spirit of London Award in December 2012 as Entrepreneur of the Year.[44] In addition, he was placed No. 1 in London's Evening Standard Top 25 under 25 for 2013.[19] D'Aloisio also received 2013's Entrepreneur of the Year by Spear's Wealth Management, as well as a Merton Business Award.[45]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Yahoo Paid 30 Million in Cash For 18 Months of Young Summly Entrepreneur's Time".
  2. ^ Rainey, Sarah (26 March 2013). "Nick D'Aloisio: 'It was a massive gamble but a good one'". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  3. ^ Lomas, Natasha (3 August 2010). "True Ventures Invests in 19 Year Old Entrepreneur Brian Wong". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  4. ^ a b c "Tech prodigy Nick D'Aloisio stumbles with secretive Q&A app". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2019. (subscription required)
  5. ^ a b c "Nick D'Aloisio | University of Oxford - Academia.edu". oxford.academia.edu. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  6. ^ a b Summly creator Nick D'Aloisio: 'I try to maintain a level of humbleness' The Guardian, 29 March 2013, retrieved 29 March 2013
  7. ^ a b Wakefield, Jane (28 December 2011). "Teenage app prodigy hits jackpot". Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  8. ^ Grubb, Ben (26 March 2013). "Teen's multimillion-dollar Yahoo payday before 18th birthday". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 15 March 2019.
  9. ^ Frean, Alexandra (6 October 2017). "Summly founder Nick D'Aloisio raises £12m for new app". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  10. ^ Clark, Liat (23 September 2014). "Exclusive: Nick D'Aloisio to combine Oxford studies with Yahoo role (Wired UK)". Wired UK. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  11. ^ a b c "Nick D'Aloisio, Academic Profile".
  12. ^ d'Aloisio-Montilla, Nicholas (2017). "Imagery and overflow: We see more than we report". Philosophical Psychology. 30 (5): 545–570. doi:10.1080/09515089.2017.1298086.
  13. ^ d&#39, Nick. "Two Seeming Successes of Introspection Workshop". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ d&#39, Nick. "A Brief Argument For Consciousness Without Access". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ d'Aloisio-Montilla, Nicholas (2018). "A Brief Argument For Consciousness Without Access". Ratio. 31 (2): 119–136. doi:10.1111/rati.12183.
  16. ^ Lomas, Natasha (15 July 2011). "Trimit Summarizes Emails, Blog Posts, And More with a Shake of Your iPhone". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  17. ^ "trimit for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store". Itunes.apple.com. 12 August 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  18. ^ a b c Grandoni, Dino (2 November 2012). "17-Year-Old Summly Founder Nick D'Aloisio's Immodest Goal: Change The Way You Read News". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  19. ^ a b "London's top 25 under-25s: they're young and successful – deal with it". Evening Standard. 28 March 2013. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  20. ^ Heesun Wee (16 November 2012). "Meet the 17-Year-Old Who Is Reinventing News". Cnbc.com. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  21. ^ "Teenager receives $1 million for creating app". Digitaljournal.com. 5 November 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  22. ^ Stevenson, Seth (11 November 2013). "How Teen Nick D'Aloisio Has Changed the Way We Read". The Wall Street Journal.
  23. ^ "What Does $30 Million Buy You?". The Wall Street Journal. 26 March 2013.
  24. ^ Bradshaw, Tim (8 November 2012). "The savvy network behind Summly". FT.com. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  25. ^ Lomas, Natasha (1 November 2012). "Backed With $1M in Fresh Funding, Summly's 17-Year-Old Founder Shows Off His App's New Look [TCTV". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  26. ^ "Yahoo Paid 30 Million in Cash For 18 Months of Young Summly Entrepreneur's Time".
  27. ^ "Yahoo acquires mobile news start-up Summly". Stuff.co.nz. 26 March 2013. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  28. ^ Luckerson, Victor. "Q&A With the 17-Year-Old Who Sold an App to Yahoo for $30 Million". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  29. ^ McCracken, Harry (8 January 2014). "Yahoo's News Digest App: The Least Overwhelming News Source Ever | TIME.com". Time. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  30. ^ "Yahoo News Digest: Get in the Know in No Time | Yahoo". Yahoo.tumblr.com. 7 January 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  31. ^ "Science Powering Product: Yahoo News Digest | Yahoo Labs". Yahoolabs.tumblr.com. 30 June 2014. Archived from the original on 30 October 2015. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  32. ^ Newton, Casey (7 January 2014). "Yahoo's sleek News Digest app swims against the stream". The Verge. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  33. ^ "Yahoo Wins Another Apple Design Award For News Digest". TechCrunch. 2 June 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  34. ^ "Summly: New App Helps You Read All Your Bookmarked Links in Minutes – ReadWrite". Readwriteweb.com. Archived from the original on 5 September 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  35. ^ Boonsri Dickinson (19 December 2011). "This 16-Year-Old Genius Scored Funding From A Hong Kong Billionaire for an iPhone App – Business Insider". Articles.businessinsider.com. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  36. ^ Bonnington, Christina (13 December 2011). "Teen's iOS App Uses Complex Algorithms to Summarize the Web | Gadget Lab". Wired.com. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  37. ^ Olson, Parmy (13 December 2011). "Teenage Programmer Backed By Hong Kong Billionaire Li Ka Shing". Forbes. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  38. ^ Carr, Coeli (15 September 2011). "10 Tips From A 15-Year-Old App Developer on the VC Fast Track: How Parents Can Nurture Their Teenage Tech Prodigies". Forbes. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  39. ^ Lomas, Natasha (13 December 2011). "16-Year-Old Programmer Raises Seed Round From Billionaire Li Ka Shing To 'Summarize The Web'". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  40. ^ Stevenson, Seth (11 November 2013). "How Teen Nick D'Aloisio Has Changed the Way We Read". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  41. ^ "Nick D'Aloisio, 18 | The 16 Most Influential Teens of 2013 | TIME.com". Time. 12 November 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  42. ^ GQ. "GQ and ei's 100 Most Connected Men 2014". British GQ. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  43. ^ D'Onfro, Megan Rose Dickey, Jillian. "THE SILICON VALLEY 100: The Coolest People in Tech Right Now". Business Insider. Retrieved 16 March 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  44. ^ Burke, Elaine (26 March 2013). "Meet Nick D'Aloisio, the 17-year-old entrepreneur Yahoo! just made a millionaire – Companies | siliconrepublic.com – Ireland's Technology News Service". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  45. ^ "Winners Announced of Spear's Wealth Management Awards 2013 – Spears". Spearswms.com. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
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