Ramzi Rizk
Co-Founder & CTO of EyeEm
Berlin, Germany
Ramzi Rizk is a Lebanese-born entrepreneur, and a founder and CTO of EyeEm; the Berlin-based photography community and marketplace. EyeEm’s distinct blend of talented photographers sharing beautiful and authentic photos, and unique photo indexing and search technologies have made it one of the fastest growing photography platforms in the world. Before starting EyeEm, Ramzi was a PhD candidate with years of research and lectures on the social, economical and technological aspects of privacy in Social Media. He is a passionate software architect, photographer and pianist. Together with his team at EyeEm, he organizes PhotoHackDay, a global hackathon focusing on Photography. Ramzi loves product, scalable architecture, cross-platform design and development.
One night, while Florian Meissner and Lorenz Aschoff were hanging out at Ramzi’s apartment, Florian shared an idea he had earlier that year. His camera was stolen in New York and he had to use a friend’s iPhone to take pictures. Florian discovered – and was impressed by- the growing scene of mobile photographers. That’s when the founders saw the need for a photography platform that would be built by and for a new generation of photographers; fast, smart, and mobile first.
In February 2011, Ramzi, Florian, Lorenz and their friend Gen Sadakane started building a platform that enables mobile photographers to connect and do more than simply share images: they founded EyeEm. The app allows photographers to truly be creative with an array of filters, frames, and a totally new way of browsing photos by themes. EyeEm is also working on some cutting-edge technology that will change how people index and search for photos.
Their latest product, EyeEm Market, is changing the world of stock photography as we know it and is taking mobile photography further than ever. It is a platform for users to sell their pictures to third parties. In other words, for the first time ever, smartphone photos will enjoy full copyright and can be monetized by amateurs and professionals alike.
Today, it has over 10 million users in over 130 countries and is constantly growing.
EyeEm has truly embraced the age of apps and understood their users. The team works relentlessly to come up with new ideas and features to empower the mobile community. Ramzi has truly made his mark in the tech world and will hopefully continue breaking boundaries between traditional markets and modern content.
