Don Bora

Don Bora Email and Phone Number

Cofounder @ Eight Bit Studios | 4x Inc. 5000 | We create engaging web and mobile apps that delight users. Passionate advocate for women and people of color in technology. 9xCoFounder. @ Eight Bit Studios
Don Bora's Location
Chicago, Illinois, United States, United States
Don Bora's Contact Details
About Don Bora

I am seeking fractional CTO opportunities. I have co-founded, or helped start, over 10 companies: Kiwi Internet Group, WisePatient.com, Eight Bit Studios, MobileMakers, and a few others. In the summer of 2013, I co-founded a non-profit company with the goal of placing high-school students in tech internships in Chicago. I meet with students and young entrepreneurs alike in hopes of giving them the benefit of my industry years. I seek out opportunities to speak with students about my path and passion with the hopes of giving them a different perspective into the field of software development.BoardsMember of the Executive Board at codeplatoon.org (current)Member of the Executive Counsel at Ms. Tech Chicago in 2015AwardsNamed to TechWeek100 top influencers in Chicago in 2014Nominated for Moxie Mentor of the Year in 2013 and 2014 <-- Lost both times to Chuck Templeton! How cool is that!?Eight Bit Studios #2795 on Inc. 5000's 2019 fastest growing companies in the U.S.Eight Bit Studios #2762 on Inc. 5000's 2018 fastest growing companies in the U.S.Eight Bit Studios #1484 on Inc. 5000's 2017 fastest growing companies in the U.S.Eight Bit Studios #1559 on Inc. 5000's 2016 fastest growing companies in the U.S.Eight Bit Studios nominated for Moxie Digital Agency of the Year in 2013, 2014 and 2016SushiStatus.com nominated for Moxie Best B2B Startup 2016Mobile Makers - awarded Northwest Educational Council for Student Success Business Partner Award by Illinois Township High School District 214 and Prospect High School - nominated for Moxie Innovative Education Startup in 2013* Original Pampers test baby

Don Bora's Current Company Details
Eight Bit Studios

Eight Bit Studios

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Cofounder @ Eight Bit Studios | 4x Inc. 5000 | We create engaging web and mobile apps that delight users. Passionate advocate for women and people of color in technology. 9xCoFounder.
Don Bora Work Experience Details
  • Eight Bit Studios
    Co-Founder | Partner | Technology
    Eight Bit Studios Dec 2008 - Present
    Chicago, Illinois, Us
    At Eight Bit Studios, we work with a great breadth of clients. Everything from Startups to Enterprise. While our focused and nimble teams are superb at getting to your MVP, we add some serious booster capabilities and capacity to our Enterprise and Middle Market partners. Our team has a deep and empathetic understanding of hurdles bigger companies face. Our clients work with us because they want to stand out among their peers and competitors.As co-founder and Principal of Technology, I provide strategic direction to the company and collaborate closely with our CEO. I provide production risk analysis for existing products as well as proposals. I also advise clients on strategic technical direction.Visit http://www.eightbitstudios.com for examples of our work.
  • Tilt 365
    Chief Technology Officer
    Tilt 365 Dec 2023 - Present
    Raleigh, Nc, Us
    As a fractional CTO, I oversee new product development with specific attention to scalable, modern, community supported technology. Reporting to the CEO, I am directly responsible for building the delivery team setting architecture, and ensuring best practices as we build products and migrate from an older tech-stack.
  • 1871
    Expert In Residence
    1871 Jan 2022 - Present
    Chicago, Il, Us
    I am thrilled to be running the Explore sessions for 1871's PYROS program. Few things excite me more than helping entrepreneurs discover their path. I bring the latest business, entrepreneurial, startup and behavioral science industry research. If I can spark a thought, or connect the dots for entrepreneurs early in their journey, I consider that a great conversation and it genuinely feeds my soul.
  • The Josephine Collective
    Member
    The Josephine Collective Jan 2023 - Present
  • Code Platoon
    Founding Executive Board Member
    Code Platoon Jun 2016 - Present
    Chicago, Illinois, Us
    I serve on the board of Code Platoon and, apart from other board duties, I advise on curriculum when called upon.
  • Creative Candor Llc
    Co-Founder
    Creative Candor Llc Sep 2017 - Oct 2024
    Chicago, Il, Us
  • Startwise
    Chief Technology Officer
    Startwise Feb 2024 - Jun 2024
    As the fractional CTO of Startwise, I performed an audit of the current infrastructure for scalability and growth. I provided a budget and timing roadmap toward mobile products.
  • Mobilemakersedu
    Co-Founder | Curriculum Author | Ios Instructor | Advisor
    Mobilemakersedu Aug 2012 - Jun 2024
    Barrington, Il, Us
    In August 2016, we announced a partnership with INCubatoredu.org to exclusively deliver high school cirriculum. We are super excited by this move and for the opportunity to effect real change.Previously on Mobile Makers:Mobile Makers responds to the question: Where can I find software developers? Here! Mobile Makers was leading the mobile bootcamp industry, disrupting education and creating well rounded software developers. Teaching at Mobile Makers was easily the most humbling experience of my professional software career. I helped people change their lives as they seized the opportunity to start down the path to becoming software professionals. I drew on my own early, junior developer hurdles and my 20+ years in the industry as I explained key software engineering concepts and selfishly relished their light-bulb moments.At Mobile Makers, I developed curriculum for the Mobile Makers immersive program. I also contribute to our high school initiatives. I teach iOS architecture and Objective-C programming as well as the soft skills we believe are necessary to become an excellent software developer.I have been an outspoken advocate for women and girls in technology, seeking to bridge the technology gap by exposing the fun and creative side of programming. I frequently mentor both high school and college students who are displaying an interest in technology and coding.
  • Northwestern University Medill School
    Adjunct Lecturer
    Northwestern University Medill School Oct 2017 - Nov 2019
    Evanston, Il, Us
    I taught a condensed version of the UnchartedLearning/MobileMakers iOS curriculum to journalism students to bring them a taste of what creating digital products is like.
  • Sharecare, Inc
    Consultant
    Sharecare, Inc Jan 2012 - Nov 2012
    Atlanta, Ga, Us
    My responsibilities included the oversight and transition of the technical IP from WisePatient.com during it's transition as a Sharecare integrated system.
  • Wisepatient
    Chief Technology Officer
    Wisepatient Aug 2009 - Jan 2012
    Chicago, Il, Us
    Note: WisePatient was acquired by Sharecare, Inc. in 2012.WisePatient is a web based communication and collaboration platform for healthcare consumers and providers. Our mission is to save everyone time and money! For Healthcare Consumers, WisePatient is a free service that allows consumers to leverage their social networks to find trusted healthcare Providers nearby, book appointments immediately online, and manage health matters all in one place. We also plan to assist with healthcare record tracking and preventative health management with a few features that are still being developed!For Healthcare Providers, Practice Innovations’ Social Patient Relationship Management (PRM) platform empowers and streamlines the healthcare practice front-office. Our platform reveals availability in Provider's schedules and leverages social media in a combined effort to help practices attract new patients, strengthen relationships with existing patients, and increase overall patient satisfaction!I oversaw all aspects of the technical architecture on both the web and various client platforms. I built a Windows Service (C#) responsible for communicating with local Practice Management Systems and securely transferring portions of practice data to the WisePatient Rails web platform.
  • Symphono
    Software Consultant
    Symphono Apr 2009 - Jul 2010
    Chicago, Us
    Using C# .Net MVC, I ported a static website to a web application with a light weight CMS, Aquire Media new integration, online application process that generates 13 filled in PDF forms necessary for opening a financial trading account, retrieving options pricing based on an Activ 20-minute delay feed.(Visual Studio 2008, C#, .Net 3.5, .Net MVC, MS SQL Server, Windows Indexing Service API, NHibernate, heavy JQuery)As part of a 10 person team, used C#/WPF to implement features and fix defects on a proprietary options trading platform for a Symphono client. This work required a cursory understanding of options and option pricing and employed aggressive and complex WPF strategies and patterns to deliver rich and timely information to the user.(Visual Studio 2008, C#, .Net 3.5, WPF, Rhino Mock)
  • Designkitchen
    Director Of Application Development
    Designkitchen Aug 2007 - Mar 2009
    Initially brought on as the Ruby on Rails team lead, I was promoted to Director of Application Development overseeing all Rails and .Net development.As a developer I ported ezine.motorola.com from a static PHP implementation to a dynamic Ruby on Rails, CMS driven website. The CMS portion of the ezine was completely custom and employed WYSIWYG editing of the front end content within the front end templates. I also contributed to oprahsangelnetwork.com, oambassadors.com, clubbk.com.As the Director of Application Development I oversaw the .Net and Ruby on Rails teams as well as provided technical input on all client projects requiring custom implementation or integration. I also drafted core technical capabilities on client presentations, briefs and ancillary documentation. I brought significant portions of eXtreme Programming to the development team including: story and use case management, TDD, continuous integration, iterations, project and team velocity tracking. During my time at Designkitchen, my team was responsible for delivering as many as 15 client projects including: radio-info.com, butterball.com and hon.com.I also participated in and led product and client integration brainstorming sessions on leading edge/emerging technologies such as: iPhone/Android applications, Facebook and Facebook Connect, Social Networking and Google APIs.(RoR, .Net/C#, Java, Objective-C, Subversion, GIT, Eclipse/Aptana, XCode, iPhone, MacOSX, WinXP, Linux, Solaris)
  • Bank Of America
    Vice President/Sr. Software Engineer
    Bank Of America Mar 2004 - Aug 2007
    Charlotte, Nc, Us
    While at Bank of America, I had several positions including deployment and configuration management as a contributor, developer and technical leader. My final position was a member of the strategic initiatives group challenged with bringing Agile best practices to a team of 200+ people. My role on this team was that of a senior engineer and technical lead. While on this team my responsibilities included migrating our build process from a ClearCase/ant solution to a Perforce/maven/CruiseControl continuous integration environment and developing a Java based platform to capture and version all of the properties for our business aligned Java application. I have written several deployment and monitoring tools and a few web applications, using Java and Ruby on Rails, to facilitate SDLC and governance.(JBuilder, IntelliJ, Eclipse, Hibernate, Tapestry, Perforce, ClearCase, ClearQuest, Jira, BES, Tomcat, Linux, Solaris, Win20000, Sybase, MSSQLServer, Java, Perl, Ruby, Ruby on Rails)
  • Kiwi Internet Group, Inc.
    Owner/Sr. Software Engineer
    Kiwi Internet Group, Inc. Jun 2001 - Oct 2004
    This was a private software consulting company. Through Kiwi, I held contracts with Bank of America, meetHeads.com, Baxter, MarketForward and Mindfield Multimedia.
  • Meetheads.Com (@Kiwi)
    Owner And Software Engineer
    Meetheads.Com (@Kiwi) Mar 2003 - Mar 2004
    As a member of a small development team, I made architectural decisions and product specifications based on current competition. I wrote an administration tool to manage the user profile system which was based on an open key/value paring so that new profile based features could be easily added. I also worked with graphic desiners to establish workflow and design integration. Integrated JMS (OpenJMS) and JavaMail to facilitate cross-application communication for multiple platforms to enhance product flexibility. (WebObjects, Java, JMS)
  • Baxter Healthcare
    (Consultant@Kiwi) Sr. Software Engineer/Team Lead
    Baxter Healthcare Dec 2001 - Nov 2003
    Deerfield, Illinois, Us
    Initially tasked with analyzing the entire system for testability and as the project ramped up, that role evolved into to system enhancements and application maintenance. Made several major server side system enhancements to improve real-time communication with blood-plasma machines. Introducted resource sharing muli-threaded architecture to the communication module, greatly increasing performance. Introduced JProbe to remotely track down a race condition that only occured in the production environment. During the lifecycle of the project, used JMeter and JProbe for performance tuning, attending to general maintenance issues and Use case level testing. Use cases were the primary design tool for system enhancements. (Tomcat, Java, JSP, SQL Server Win2000)
  • Marketforward
    (Consultant@Kiwi) Sr. Software Engineer
    Marketforward Jun 2001 - Nov 2001
    Chicago, Il, Us
    Worked on MarketForward’s Digital Asset Management product line. Working with an online digital asset management system, developedin WebObjects and Java/J2EE, designed and implemented e-commerce modules to facilitate order fulfilment. Involved in the full life cycle of this project including requirements gathering, implementation and deployment using the use-case design methodology, eXtreme Programming. Integrated web to backend communication via XML object descriptions. Participated in the architecture and design of two projects. The first was their next generation of template driven dynamic print ad configuration tools . The second was a scheduling of video and animated advertisements to be displayed on contiguous flat panel displays in the Metrostation in Paris, France. All of the work done on projects at Market Forward were Use Case driven.
  • Mindfield Multimedia
    (Consultant@Kiwk)
    Mindfield Multimedia Oct 2001 - Oct 2001
    Participated in architectural and design sessions for an interactive and immersive dance space. Designed and implemented a multithreaded notification center responsible for managing both intra and extra application messaging. Ported a VisualBasic (VB) module to C++ for a performance enhancement to the signals processed from the dance floor.
  • Brandguard/Frankel
    Development Manager
    Brandguard/Frankel Apr 1999 - Jun 2001
    Maintained and enhanced legacy application to add flexibility to an online pre-press hi-rez image manipulation application. Added online order fulfillment module to this product. Researched and educated the technology, fulfillment and management teams about an integral legacy product. Researched alternative technologies in an attempt to keep the system up to date and competitive. Implemented a vertical slice for a proof of concept, using J2EE, to retrieve jpeg data and handle PDF and Flash image conversion, facilitate template configuration and convert the final product to flash and PDF for on-line workflow. The vertical slice was an attempt to duplicate the pertinent workflow in the legacy application.
  • Power 2000
    Managing Consultant
    Power 2000 Apr 1998 - Apr 1999
    While at P2K from 1999-1998, I worked as a consultant for Focal Communications, Northern Trust and Zurich Insurance.
  • Ubs
    Software Engineer/Team Lead/Project Mgr
    Ubs Jun 1996 - May 1998
    Zurich, Ch
    I worked on a team to design and implement real-time conferencing system and eventually became Project Manager. The system is currently in use by the entire organisation, on both WindowsNT and Solaris platforms. The project has since split from the bank and is now the MindAlign product from Parlano, Inc. Originally used for the IRC protocol, the application was designed modularly enabling future expansion for such protocols as T.120, http and LDAP. The backend module of this system could be run standalone with the intention of facilitating communication to the backoffice chat system by enterprise applications. Using C++ and CORBA, I built an interface to the backend conferencing system (IRC) thereby providing access to existing enterprise back office and financial systems. This CORBA layer could not only be used to facilitate application to chat system reporting but also application to application messaging.
  • Power 2000
    Senior Consultant
    Power 2000 Jul 1994 - Jun 1996
    Power 2000 was a privately held consulting company. While at P2K between 1994 and 1996, I worked at Ernst & Young and VRream.
  • The Institute For The Learning Sciences
    Software Engineer
    The Institute For The Learning Sciences Mar 1992 - Jul 1994
    The Institute for the Learning Sciences was an AI research lab at Northwestern University. While there, I participated in the design and implementation of many applications designed to pedagogically enhance and facilitate general learning experiences. I worked on projects for such clients as: The City of Chicago, Niles West Elementary, Anderson Consulting, Encyclopedia Britannica Education Corporation, Ameritech and The US Department of Defence. Designed and built a multi-platform GUI interface to a multi-user domain (MUD or MOO developed by Xerox PARC) Built a cgi based web interface on top of RCS. Designed and implemented video interfaces for interactive educational applications. This work included building a custom DV playback library to deliver fine control over speed, size and picture instances.
  • Motorola
    Programmer Analyst
    Motorola Oct 1990 - Mar 1992
    Chicago, Illinois, Us
    Supported and maintained network interfaces between an order entry system running on OS/2 and order maintenance systems running on AS/400, CICS, VMS, and DEC systems. Implemented an application to stress test CISCO routers which was later adopted by CICSO engineers. (C, OS/2, AS/400, CICS, VMS, DEC, SNA)

Don Bora Skills

Agile Methodologies Software Development Web Development Web Applications Git Subversion Xml Objective C Ruby Ruby On Rails Test Driven Development Jquery Mobile Applications Java Html Integration Sql C# Linux .net E Commerce Javascript Iphone Visual Studio Java Enterprise Edition Programming Architecture C++ Eclipse Css Product Development Agile Mvc Tomcat Oop Agile Project Management C Mobile Learning Teaching Adults Experiential Learning Mysql Tdd Soa Application Development Unity3d Wpf Web Services Sql Server J2ee Ajax

Don Bora Education Details

  • New Mexico State University
    New Mexico State University
    Computer Science
  • New Mexico State University
    New Mexico State University
    General
  • Fau Erlangen-Nürnberg
    Fau Erlangen-Nürnberg
    And Linguistics
  • Crystal Lake Central High
    Crystal Lake Central High

Frequently Asked Questions about Don Bora

What company does Don Bora work for?

Don Bora works for Eight Bit Studios

What is Don Bora's role at the current company?

Don Bora's current role is Cofounder @ Eight Bit Studios | 4x Inc. 5000 | We create engaging web and mobile apps that delight users. Passionate advocate for women and people of color in technology. 9xCoFounder..

What is Don Bora's email address?

Don Bora's email address is db****@****mac.com

What is Don Bora's direct phone number?

Don Bora's direct phone number is +131252*****

What schools did Don Bora attend?

Don Bora attended New Mexico State University, New Mexico State University, Fau Erlangen-Nürnberg, Crystal Lake Central High.

What are some of Don Bora's interests?

Don Bora has interest in Children, Environment, Science And Technology, Human Rights, Arts And Culture, Health.

What skills is Don Bora known for?

Don Bora has skills like Agile Methodologies, Software Development, Web Development, Web Applications, Git, Subversion, Xml, Objective C, Ruby, Ruby On Rails, Test Driven Development, Jquery.

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