A Peak in Dalian – Alastair Lukies sees a world ready for Monitisation

Source: Technology Digital

Date :23/07/2007 17:08:48

Alastair Lukies has incredible energy, a moral vision as well as a business agenda.

Written by John O'Hanlon

I spoke to Alastair Lukies at his moment of triumph, two days after his company Monitise span out from its parent Morse PLC and floated on the AIM market, raising £21 million and amid suggestions that this would be the next great global technology success, to be spoken of in the same breath as Skype or even Google. If that’s what it becomes, it will be no great surprise, though, because this business was designed from the start to be just that.

The great technology ideas are usually simple, he says. “You can always evolve your strategy but I think if you set out with ideas that are too grand then you are setting yourself up for problems. Larry and Sergey (Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founder of Google) told me a long time ago that they were setting out to make ‘the best library in the world’. That was my attitude too – you have an idea, and a strategy, and you develop it with a little risk as possible.”

Restless energy

In fact, I suggested, his life seems rather unplanned. At the point of setting out on a professional career as a rugby player, the one thing he had wanted to do since leaving school at 16, he found himself in Australia with a smashed foot and no prospects.

On the way home he got involved in sports hospitality, then co-founded ePolitix.com, which hosts MPs websites and demystifies Westminster. “I became hugely fascinated by the whole Westminster village experience. It is just the most fascinating place. To think these 646 people are collectively responsible for £400 billion spend every year and yet they seem less than connected with the real world or the business world!” He distinguishes this detachment, however, from what he calls their phenomenal knowledge, so started to engage in broader political lobbying and advisory work for important clients, including Vodafone.

It was at the back end of the politics journey, as he puts it, that he met Vodafone’s Stephen Atkinson, co-founder of Monitise and now its Chief Technical Officer. “We worked with Steve on creating a service called Live Parliament TV where you could view parliamentary debates online or on your mobile phone.”

That scenario may be less than exciting to some, and in any case, parliament has a longer down season than football these days, but Atkinson’s skills have been vital in putting together what Lukies describes as the spaghetti junction that supports the platform. “Steve is a technical wizard, and my job is to commercialise what goes on behind the scenes. That part is very complex, but what the consumer sees is very simple…”

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