About Ali Asaria
work profile
Ali Asaria is the CEO and founder of Well.ca, Canada’s largest online health and beauty store.
Ali grew up in Guelph and Toronto, Ontario. He studied Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo.
In 2008, Ali was a recipient of the Top 40 Under 40 Award in Guelph. In the same year, Well.ca also won the National Angel Organization award for being the best Angel-funded startup in Canada.
Ali has been interviewed in the Globe and Mail, National Post, and the Toronto Star. Projects he has worked on have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Week, and GQ UK.
Media or speaking requests can be sent to Ali by email at (hisfirstname) at aliasaria dot ca.
my work experience
between the period of 1999 and 2006, i worked at research in motion (RIM) in waterloo and spoke on the bell wireless expert panel. i was awarded a patent there for something to do with motors and vibration.
one of the coolest places i worked at was in rim’s future prototype design team — i was free to build cool hardware prototypes of phones that are now in production. the first phones with mp3 players, cameras and reduced keyboards came out of our small team. in my last year there, i worked on the advanced software team, designing a super-efficient graphical animation engine for the mobile device. fun.
i also worked for a time at microsoft in their redmond office. i had the honour of working in the user interface design team for microsoft office 2007. i was a program manager working on the (at the time) very secret “ribbon”.
i specialize in hardware and embedded systems and i am skilled at circuit design, embedded software, and hardware design.
brickbreaker
people often know me as the guy who created brickbreaker which is a game that comes pre-installed on all blackberries. i made it completely independently during my free time. it was a silly thing for me and my friends to play with. it originally had a storyline about ninjas! today it is on more than 7 million blackberries. i still find this all very funny.
brickbreaker has been featured in stories in the media several times including in the wall street journal, business week, the new york times, and the globe and mail.
you can read more about brickbreaker here:
- gamers info
- baris.typepad
- daboys.blogspot
- the national post
- career journal
- business week
- bbhub
- wallstreet journal
involvements
these days, i am involved in the web entrepreneurial community in toronto, guelph, and waterloo. you will find me at local barcamps/democamps.
i like to volunteer too and i try to be involved in issues to do with children, feminism, and minority-issues.