About Picture

Hello there!

I'm Sajo John, and I love building tech

As a CTO based in Dubai, I have been building turnkey tech solutions for several years in the MENA and APAC regions. A problem solver and hands-on software engineer, I help convert a vision and an idea into meaningful and useful products.

OTT Streaming | HealthTech | E-commerce | SaaS

View My Resume

My journey so far

Head of Technology
Ayadi, Dubai / 2022 - Present

Currently working with a top team of professionals and domain experts, making serious strides towards providing the best all-round mental health care leveraging AI, to millions in the region.

Head of Technology
Sihaty, Dubai / 2021 - 2022

Built the tech team from scratch and enhanced the platform by revamping and adding several fundamental building blocks to take the tele-health platform from an MVP to production-level platform. This primarily involved building out a stable partner agnostic payments integration and ordering system, SMS and marketing integrations, infrastructure improvements as well as multiple UX and solid performance improvements across all customer-facing apps. Contributions resulted in 220% month-over-month growth.

Chief Technology Officer
Ebizzr / Whatscookn, Dubai / 2019 - 2021

Architected, designed and built the entire SaaS platform from the ground up while leading an in-house tech team along with external contractors in all APIs, computing infrastructure and frontend applications development; resulting in a production-ready platform in under 6 months. Also have been actively working with Business Development in all sales activities including lead generation, sales pitches and primarily, demonstrating the platform to all interested clients and other stakeholders.

Chief Technology Officer
Icflix, Dubai / 2017 - 2019

Built a 10-member strong in-house tech team. Defined, designed and led the technological development, operations and the implementation of the corporate strategy across the company. Owned product roadmaps in cooperation with executive management, sales, and product management, while leading and managing the engineering team.

Lead Engineer - Streaming
Icflix, Dubai / 2015 - 2017

Led an engineering team to manage all core streaming, transcoding and storage optimization related development and operational activities on the platform. Also designed and developed other machine learning based core components of the platform from scratch during this period.

Senior Backend Developer
Saranyu, Bangalore / 2013 - 2015

Worked as a senior developer, designing, prototyping and building multiple streaming, transcoding and content metadata management services for several leading OTT platforms and broadcasters in the region.

Application Developer
Honeywell, Bangalore / 2011 - 2013

As part of the R&D team, developed Computer Vision applications in C/C++, mainly using OpenCV libraries. Gained hands-on experience in porting Video/Image Processing Algorithms from MATLAB and significantly contributed to live projects.

Master of Technology
Karunya University, Coimbatore / 2010 - 2012

Graduated with distinction, specializing in Computers and Communication. Wrote thesis in Context Extraction using facial and hand gestures using ML and AI for Computer Vision, while interning with the R&D team at Honeywell.

Bachelor of Engineering
M.S.R.I.T, V.T.U., Bangalore / 2005 - 2009

Specialized in Electronics and Communication. Excelled in logic design and coding. Re-affirmed my passion for programming.

Kid discovering code
Umm Al Quwain / 2002 - 2005

Built fun websites and Flash games. Created the best BSB fansite in 2002, complete with video streaming and flash games! Trained in programming fundamentals, primarily with C++ in high school.

Snapshots

Blog post15 Dec, 2020
Ebizzr goes live with top restaurants

Shakespeare and Co. and Sultan Baba Iskendar launch their e-commerce websites powered by Ebizzr, the region's first-of-its-kind e-commerce SaaS platform.

Blog post30 Apr, 2020
Whatscookn aces Wamda X

Whatscookn graduates from the Wamda X accelerator programme. Selected by Growth Studio, to have the highest potential to be a unicorn from amongst the cohort.

Blog post13 Nov, 2017
Speaking at TV Connect MENA

Discussing the future of streaming tech and the importance of tech integrations and partnerships to support growth, in a panel at TV Connect MENA 2017.

Blog post04 Sep, 2017
Icflix featured on Forbes Middle East

The Icflix story is featured on Forbes Middle East - the people, the vision and the key differentiators that sets it apart in the MENA OTT market.

Blog post29 Aug, 2017
DXB Airport streams Icflix

All passengers connecting to DXB international airport's Wow-Fi get free streaming of Icflix's blockbuster Hollywood, Bollywood and Arabic content.

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