Ian Clarke (computer scientist)

Ian Clarke
Ian Clarke in June, 2009
Born	(1977-02-16) February 16, 1977 (age 40) Navan, Ireland
Residence	Austin, Texas, United States
Citizenship	Ireland, United States
Fields	Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Known for	Freenet peer to peer software, Revver
Notable awards	2003 Technology Review Young Innovator

Ian Clarke (born 16 February 1977) is the original designer and lead developer of Freenet.

Clarke grew up in Navan, County Meath, Ireland. He was educated at Dundalk Grammar School and while there twice came first in the Senior Chemical, Physical, and Mathematical section of the Young Scientist Exhibition. The first time, in 1993, was with a project entitled "The C Neural Network Construction Kit". The second time, the following year, was with a project entitled "Mapping Internal Variations in Translucency within a Translucent Object using Beams of Light".

In 1995 Clarke left Dundalk to study Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. While at Edinburgh Clarke became president of the then dormant Artificial Intelligence Society, resulting in its revival. In Clarke's final year at Edinburgh, he completed his "final year project", entitled "A Distributed, Decentralised Information Storage and Retrieval System". In July 1999, after receiving a 'B' grade for his paper, Clarke decided to release it to the Internet and invited volunteers to help implement his design. The resulting free software project became known as Freenet, and attracted significant attention from the mainstream and technology media.

In August 1999 Clarke began his first full-time job as a software developer in the Space Division of Logica plc, a London-based software consulting company. In February 2000 Clarke left Logica to join a small software start-up called Instil Ltd. In August 2000 Clarke left London for Santa Monica, California, where he co-founded Uprizer Inc, with the intent of commercialising some of his Freenet-related ideas. In January 2001, Uprizer Inc. successfully raised $4 million in Series A round venture funding from investors including Intel Capital.

In March 2001, Clarke published an article describing FairShare, developed in collaboration with Uprizer's co-founders, Steven Starr and Rob Kramer. Clarke was concerned that copyright would become increasingly difficult to enforce in the Internet age, the goal of Fairshare was to provide an alternative to copyright as a way to compensate creators.