Michael Hobbs

Intelligent Prospects Ltd

Intelligent Prospects is building a recommendation engine for study and career pathways.  What?  It's a set of AI tools to help people explore what to study and then where to work.  It's all based on the idea that the worlds of university education and, later, employment, are pretty confusing when you are outside them.  This leads to big drop out rates in universities and in early stage employment. 

We believe we can apply AI to assist people in these choices.  After all, recommendation engines feature in many of out other decisions - what to watch, whom to date, where to travel.  

You'll see our first go-to-market site taking shape at https://HeyDeesha.ai.  Our starting market is Indian students looking to study masters degrees in the UK.

After that, there's the rest of the world.

Co-Founder

Flow Fintech, RaiPay, Reputable.AI, Whichdays

I left Accenture to get back into startups and do some experimenting.  I started in Open Banking, with RaiPay, which I later sold.  I then moved into AI - before the generative stuff - with Reputable.AI and a project called Goally.AI (nothing to do with football - everything to do with people's financial goals).  We did a fair amount of consulting in this area and still do, but put the product developments to one side. 

WhichDays was a post-pandemic experiment prompted by the move to hybrid working and huge debates about the future of work.  I closed it when it became apparent that major companies and cities, were not really going to innovate in this area.

So a series of interesting tech experiments, one venture sale and loads of consulting work around topics that interest me.  Not a bad life, post big-Co. :-)

Founder

Accenture

I spent 11 fascinating years at Accenture selling and delivering mobile projects.  My final role was as MD for the UK & Ireland Mobility and IoT practice, where we exceeded all sales targets. 

Highlights of my time at Accenture include: establishing the iOS programming group; client work on some of the best mobile payment and banking applications in the market; innovation projects with retail clients; understanding selling and delivering digital at a scale that I had not done before.  Above all the best bit was leading a group of talented young people and helping them carve out their own careers in an awesome consulting company.  

I left in pursuit of pure entrepreneurialism and the chance to own what I am making.  I remain close to colleagues at Accenture and we have a mutually beneficial exchange of perspectives - they get to see how a start-up thinks and operates, we at Flow benefit from their deep client perspectives.

Managing Director, Accenture Digital

The Digital Works (Int) Ltd

I ran a small collection of companies doing cutting edge mobile stuff.  We were active in mobile betting, mobile content (before the big players got there) consulting - mainly organisational design and new ventures - and software projects.  We made some money, lost some money, and generally did interesting stuff, selling projects internationally, hence the company name.  It was here that I formed a belief in heightened learning when it's your own money that's at stake!

Company Director

M7 Networks Inc

A start-up before its time, offering specialised mobile application development and hosting.  Ultimately, this one suffered from the global withdrawal of venture capital following 9/11.

Director of Sales

Wireless Knowledge

This was meant to be the dream start-up, being funded by a combination of Microsoft an Qualcomm.  I established WK's sales operation in Europe and closed some good deals in mobile email and content management.  As was often the case at the time, the company over expanded, and burnt too much money too quickly!

British Telecom

I spent 10 years working in the BT Group, including Cellnet (now O2).  I am pleased to say that I always did mobile things, ranging from network deployments, air interface optimisation, programme management, to M&A in North America, licence bids and strategy.

Group Strategy & Development

I am a technology industry entrepreneur, with particular expertise in mobile, digital transformation, AI and consulting.  My main project is https://HeyDeesha.ai.  I also work with a number of other founders on their propositions.  

I also consult extensively on topics including the economics of the cloud, valuation of digital companies, digital transformation, digital marketing and AI application architectures.  

I am enjoying the explosion of activity in AI.  It takes me back to technologies I first encountered decades ago.  I am increasingly hands-on in building AI models, digital avatars and customer service systems.  Interesting times!

Taplio

Michael Hobbs's Linkedin Analytics

Michael Hobbs

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?