R Blank is an entrepreneur, educator, author, and community leader, who has specialized in the creation of outstanding digital experiences on connected devices since 1994, for a wide array of blue chip clients including Apple, MoMA, Tiffany's, IKEA, Mattel, Toyota, Microsoft, Viacom, Reebok, Honda, as well as premier agencies including Chiat/Day and McCann Erickson.

R is CEO of Almer/Blank, a boutique digital production studio, based in Venice Beach, specializing since 2005 in the production of engaging, powerful, media-drenched applications, games and video delivery platforms for Fortune 500 clients across industries, including NBC, MTV, DirecTV, PBS, Ford, Konami and the House of Blues. R also founded and runs the Rich Media Institute, offering a catalog of online training available 24/7.

Previously, R co-founded Wildform, where he co-created Flix, the first video encoder for Flash (now owned by Google), and founded LA Flash, the Adobe User Group for Flash in Los Angeles, which he grew to over 3,000 members over seven years.

In his spare time, R teaches at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, and participates actively in community activities, including user group meetings and conferences. He is the lead author of Advanced Flex Application Development book from Friends of ED, and the creator of the Practical ActionScript 3 online training series (see more publications).

R has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the UCLA Anderson School of Management (2004), and an undergraduate degree in History from Columbia University (1998). During his undergraduate years, R additionally matriculated at Cambridge University (Pembroke College, Cambridge, UK), the University of Salamanca (Salamanca, Spain), the Russian School at Norwich University (Northfield, VT), and the Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia). He has lived and worked in the former Soviet Republics of Estonia and Georgia, and spent part of his childhood growing up in Australia.

R loves music, hiking, camping, gardening and considers himself far better a cook than he actually is. Originally from northern New Jersey, R spent several years living in New York City, and now splits his time between the deeply connected life in his beloved Venice Beach, California (where he works and lounges), and his serene, disconnected existence in a remote slice of a national forest in southwestern Oregon (where he strives to achieve a zero-cost-of-living), with his gorgeous wife, Cindy, their beautiful golden retriever, Leila, the adorable terrier mutt, Max, and the always-vocal cockatiel, Thunder.

Some of R's random claims to fame include:

• Building the first website for a movie on the web (Sex, Drugs & Democracy, 1994).
• Building the second website for the Parliament of the Republic of Georgia (1997).
• Co-creating the first Flash video encoder (2001, Wildform Flix, now owned by Google).
• Being one of the first 50 certified Flash developers in the world (2002).
• Building the first website that included video embedded inside of Flash, for Tibetan Buddhist Scholar, Robert Thurman (2001).
• Building the first interface and help system for a desktop PC application in Flash (2000, SWfX, now Wildform Flair).
• Releasing the first free, legal MP3 from Bob Marley ('Splish for My Splash', Tropia, 1999).
• Skipping kindergarden, taking first grade twice (in two different countries), flunking out of the fourth grade, skipping sophomore year of high school, and then, finally, taking a year off before college to work in the US Congress. If you're keeping track, in the end, R graduated college right on time.

You can contact R here.