Aral Balkan (London, England)

Aral Balkan is founder of Ariaware, a London-based company offering products like the Ariaware RIA Platform (ARP 2.0) and Ariaware Optimizer for Flash developers as well as RIA and usability consulting and development services. Aral holds an MA in Film and Electronic Media, is a Macromedia Certified Instructor and is celebrating his 20th year as a programmer (he is only 27!).

His passions include software architecture and Human-Computer Interaction - building solid, usable applications. Aral is co-author on the books Flash MX Most Wanted Components and Flash 3D Cheats Most Wanted, as well as author and editor of numerous articles for Macromedia DevNet and Ultrashock.com. He is also the director of the London MMUG and an active contributor and supporter of the Flash community.