About Kindo - Our Vision and History

Kindo is where families get together, build their tree, and grow. With Kindo, you can build your own family tree for free, share it with the rest of your family, and learn more about who you are.

Enough talking, show me a demo!

The idea behind Kindo was born in early 2007. We had just returned back to London after spending the holidays with our families, and got together over a cup of coffee.

As always, the topics were mostly about billion-dollar ideas for new startups and the latest web technology. But we also shared jokes about drunk relatives, disappointed siblings, and other worldwide family malfunctions. And we got to talk about how hard it is to keep in touch with these guys once you’re back in London. A phone call once a week is nice, but doesn’t give you enough insight in what’s really going on in your family.

At the same time, the web is exploding with new ways of communicating and staying in touch. Skype, Facebook, and LinkedIn are all great tools that are being used, not only by the younger generation, but by people from all different age groups. If my mother can use Skype (and she does - she always laughs when I turn on my web-cam), I’m sure I can convince her to use something else that helps our family to stay in touch.

That’s where Kindo was born. It’s us trying to connect with our families back home, finding out more what they’re up to. It’s about creating a modern media/web company that has a 100% focus on the family and what families want. So what you see right now is only the first small step towards realizing this vision. We like to think of the family tree on Kindo as our own version of Disney’s Mickey Mouse - something to get it all started.

Mickey Mouse, 1930

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, 2007

Kindo is based in Putney, the hi-tech hub in south-west London.
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Alberto

Hi I’m Zio Alberto, and according to Italian tradition I’m loud, tallk too much, love pasta and my espresso after lunch (my real mission is to turn my collegues into espresso lovers!). I was born in Lima (Perù), but never lived there, my father is italian but with ethiopic blood (from my grandma!) and I have relatives spread out around the world! I’ve studied Political Sciences and International Relations and now I’m pursuing a master’s in International Management (of course when I’m not on Kindo!) in Madrid. I’ve lived in Italy (Trento, Padova, Roma), Spain ( Barcelona and now Madrid) and UK (London) and travelled a little bit around the world. I love healthy food, nightlife, cool parties and to enjoy good conversation.

Ali

Ali is French-Moroccan and speaks French, Arabic and English. He’s coding our website, and bicycles to work every day from Hackney (10 miles one way!).

Demian

Demian has been working with web technologies for the past 10 years and has participated in a number of well-known projects like OpenAds, Seagull framework, SimpleTest, PEAR and Artflock, recent finalist for the Seedcamp entrepreneur competition.
Raised in Canada but resident in London, UK since 1996, Demian co-organised the last two PHP conferences in London and is a co-founder of the PHP London user group.
Outside of the software world Demian is a big music fan with a particular taste for jazz, blues, flamenco and gipsy music. He has enjoyed traveling in Europe and North America, sometimes by motorbike and one day hopes to revive his previous career in oil painting.

Dmitri

Dmitri works on our development team and lives in Riga, Latvia but comes out to our London office on a regular basis. He’s also part of the core team that maintains the Seagull platform and he hosted this year’s developer meetup in his home town. When not at the keyboard tweaking algorithms and fixing bugs, he’s catching up on the latest from MMA and K-1, not surprising for someone who held the title of kickboxing champion of Latvia and Lithuania in 2001.

Drew

Drew is another one of the South Africans trying to take over London. He enjoys anything with a technology focus. His day time entertainment involves herding all the wild animals in the Kindo cage. He loves playing ultimate frisbee, football and even golf.

Gareth

I’m an entrepreneur, technologist and environmentalist. I’m also passionate about Africa, Africans, photography, open source stuff, and the web. I play hockey for fun. I believe we’re at a critical juncture in human evolution. I try constantly to be more productive.
By day I’m a web professional enjoying the famously sunny climes in London (if there was ever any chance of cheaper and faster bandwidth in South Africa, then you might also find me in Johannesburg). I come from a digital and enterprise software background, having done pretty much everything from web design back in ‘99, through to software business development more recently. At the moment I’m building an awesome web app with a bunch of really amazing people. I’m also trying very hard to get more sleep.
Find me on:
http://www.oneafrikan.com/
http://www.technovated.com/
http://del.icio.us/oneafrikan
http://flickr.com/photos/garethknight/

Julia

I’m Julia, Spanish, the only girl in the office, but the guys take good care of me I was born in the north of Spain but I’ve grown up in Malaga (”the Coast of the Sun”) so I miss the sun here in London!. I studied in Granada, Paris and London topics going from engineering to management but my real passion are languages. I’m very curious and have a big family, my personnal achievement has been to get my mum into the net and get her to build our whole family tree!

Julien

Hi there, I’m Julien one of the French team, representing Paris. I would describe myself as passionate, sociable and enthusiastic…well I’m more sociable after I’ve had my first coffee in the morning. I’m working in web-development and like to focus on ergonomically friendly user interfaces. When I’m not enjoying my day developing the next killer application, I also like to roller blade through the city, read a nice book or simply chill out with my mates and a good bottle of wine.

Mario

Born in the south of Germany, I have spend a wonderful childhood in Weingarten, a nice town in the beautiful area of Oberschwaben, close to the Alps and the Lake of Constance. I love coming around and lived already in Berlin, Hamburg, Paris and Delhi before coming to London. “Initiative Sozialmarketing” is one of the projects where I could could work on societal and environmental topics, so go and buy that book. Sports (Football, Marathon, Snow- and Watersports) and Music (Hiphop though its uncool nowadays) power my life.
Read more about me on: ruckh.org/blog

Martin

Morbror Martin, is Swedish and probably talks too much about his sister’s newborn twins (The Kindo mascots, which have appeared in at least one power-point presentation). Martin claims to be the one in the office with the best grip-strength - even though the others are getting closer, eager to test his Captains of Crush-grippers on a daily basis. Besides Internet, he likes martial arts and has always a book in the pocket, often on history. His favorite shelf in the supermarket is “Continental Meats” with the Italian prosciutti. If he didn’t work for Kindo, he’d like to be like MacGyver. Martin has his personal blog here: http://ms–online.blogspot.com.

Mutado

Mutado is a creative studio where ideas are encouraged, knowledge is shared and work is enjoyable. Working closely with the Kindo ninjas Ryan Shelton and Team Mutado were responsible for watering the tree that is the user interface design. Like any good marriage, the two (Kindo and Mutado) became one after a season of blood, sweat and spilt coffee.

Nils

I left the icy shores of Stockholm, Sweden in early 2004, and have since then been living the life in London. I’d like to think of myself as either a surfer dude or maybe a guitar hero, but my day job is about looking after business development and marketing for Kindo. You can read my full story on nilshammaronline.com

Stephen

I was born in South Africa and am proud to be a citizen of the country whose rugby team are world champions. I enjoy sport and currently play hockey, touch rugby, go to gym regularly and do quite a bit of mountain biking. I also love Guinness…
I served in the South African Navy for a few years and enjoy firing guns off the deck of a ship! My responsibilities at Kindo includes looking after the blog and forum and playing around with the site to make sure it works like it should do.

The Hoff

Everyone knows “The Hoff” - so don’t Hassel me! Enough said

Thomas

Hi everyone I’m Thomas, I work in web design and the sort of stuff I’m drawn to are Japan, graphic design, comics and electronic music. Yeah, Nerd power. ;-P Ahem, no really, I do spend far too much time in front of my computer but I love my bike and a good meal. particularly if highly saturated in animal fat. Kill All Hippies. Peace.