David Simon Cartwright B.Sc. (Hons) CEng CITP FBCS (born 17 July 1970) is a technology specialist presently employed as Network, Telecoms and Hosting Manager at CPA Global in Jersey. Although now a permanent employee of CPA, he previously consulted for the company as a performance tester on one of its major new projects/

Early life

David Cartwright
David Cartwright
	200px --> David and Linda in the sunset on Meeru Island
Born	David Simon Cartwright
Occupation(s)	Technology specialist, journalist and host of programming competitions
Years active	1991–present

David was born at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire to Keith and Sylvia Cartwright. His only sibling Paula (now Paula Ashton) was 12 years old at the time; on seeing her baby brother for the first time, the latter is quoted as saying at the time: "Mum, he looks just like a loo brush".

Primary school

David's primary schooling was at Belton Lane County Primary School in Grantham. He spent two years in the Infants' section (under Mrs. Watson and Miss Gillian Hewitt) followed by four years in the Juniors section under Mrs. Watson, Mrs. Rapley, Mrs. Walker and Miss Stella Whitmarsh (later Mrs. Surkitt). During his last year in primary school the fourth year teachers (Mrs. Surkitt and her colleague Mr. Derek Wake, who oversaw the other of the two fourth-year classes) achieved a record pass level in the Eleven Plus exam, and as one of the successful candidates David was awarded a place at the local grammar school.

Secondary school

David's secondary education took place at The King's School, Grantham from 1981 to 1988. During this time he achieved ten O levels (nine of them taken in 1986, the last year before the GCSE was introduced) and five A levels.

University

Having achieved the required grades at A level David was awarded a place on the Computing Science degree programme in the School of Information Systems at the University of East Anglia. He graduated with a 2(ii) in 1991.

Career

University sponsorship

Whilst at university, David was sponsored by BMARC, a defence contractor based in Grantham. This involved the company making a modest annual maintenance payment, with David working during the university vacations in the company's IS department, predominantly in technical support and software development. The company was going through financial hardship when he graduated, and there was no compulsion to join as a full-time employee despite the company's investment in his education.

University support

In August 1991 David was offered, and accepted a position as a Research Associate at UEA, Norwich. He was initially the system manager for the UNIX systems in the School of Information Systems, but later moved into Apple Macintosh support.

Network Week and EMAP Online

In 1995 David was invited to join the EMAP group as technical editor of Network Week, a weekly newspaper the company was planning to launch in the August of that year. This he did, working under senior editor Maxwell Cooter and editor Richard Jones (the latter went on to found the FortuneCity Web community) and alongside founding news editor Madeleine Acey. Alongside his role on Network Week, David was also technical advisor for the fledgling online division of EMAP Online, the Web publishing division of the company, working under Roger Green and Carol Dukes.

As well as working full-time for Network Week and EMAP Online, David also wrote occasionally for other magaines in the EMAP group, notably Internet Magazine.

CMP Media

In January 2008 New York-based CMP Media acquired some of EMAP's IT titles, including Network Week, LAN Magazine (later renamed Network World) and Information Week - the latter having previously been a joint venture between CMP and EMAP. As part of the transition, and as a result of a desire to get back into hands-on IT, David became IT and telecomms manager for the UK arm of the group, with the agreement the he would also continue to write for the various magazines under the title of consulting editor. In the summer of 2009 he moved to NSTL, which had been acquired by CMP from the McGraw-Hill group, having been invited by the incumbent management to bolster te in-house technical expertise of the UK arm of the team. This involvement was short-lived since CMPs owners had decided to sell the business and it was clear that NSTL was unlikely to be part of a potential acquirer's core business.

Vavo

David therefore joined Vavo.com on request from Richard Jones, his former editor on Network Week. Vavo was a start-up online community for the over-45s, whose business plan revolved around e-commerce and selling financial services products such as equity release plans (which at the time were a relatively new concept in the UK). Vavo launched in September 1999, and was initially sucessful in obtaining further investment from companies including GE Capital, Prudential and McCarthy and Stone.

When the dot-com bubble was starting to look rather shaky in 2000 David decided to accept an offer from another former colleague to hop over the fence from a startup to a venture capitalist.

Cube8.com

Later renamed to the Cube8 Group to reflect the fall in favour of the "dot-com" concept, Cube8 labelled itself a business incubator, the concept being that an "incubator" would provide financial assistance in the same way as a VC, but with added-value services such as IT support, accountancy services and marketing advice. David worked full-time as chief technology officer for the company, providing investees with technical advice and support but primarily evaluating business plans from potential investments with a critical, technical eye. Then in February 2001 it became clear that the need for a full-time position of this sort was waning, not least because the company had all but exhausted its investment fund and so the need for further technical evaluation of businss plans was small. David therefore agreed that he would go freelance and would work for Cube8 on a part-time, contractor basis.

Contracting

Having gone freelance, David was soon introduced to the management of Welcome Holidays by a Cube8 colleague who met the latter at a trade show. He soon joined Welcome as a consultant in database architecture and software development, charged with building a development team and baselining the architecture of a new reservation system that would exploit statistical marketing techniques and CTI . When Welcome was acquired by Cendant Corporation David continued to work for the organisation to assist with systems integration and the data export component for a new brochure production system, as well as working variously for the new venture of Welcome's former owner plus Leger Holidays, Web Applications UK and Great Rail Journeys. This was followed by a long spell with Sykes Cottages, architecting and developing a new reservation system. Along the way there were several short contracts for a variety of organisations, doing a variety of tasks from technical due diligence to systems administration.

In October 2007 David joined CPA Global as a contractor for the company's new trademark renewal system, initially for three months. His contract eventually finished in April 2009, and after a few weeks off he returned to Jersey to work in IS as network manager. He was offered a permanent position in July '09, and followed a contract-to-permanent programme and became full time manager of networks, telecoms and hosting in October.

Freemasonry

David is a member of Wayford Lodge, No. 8490, one of over 70 Masonic lodges in Norfolk. He served as Master of the Lodge from 2009 to 2010, and so is presently the Immediate Past Master. As he has travelled a great deal on business he has been able to visit lodges from Chester to St. Helier.

Technical writing

Though no longer a full-time writer, David still writes a monthly column for Linux Format Magazine, and as one of three founding editors he continues to hold the informal title of technical editor for Techworld, for which he still occasionally writes.