Ali Guryel, founder of Bromcom

Bromcom

Bromcom Computers plc is a British technology company. It provides schools and colleges with a Management Information System and handheld data capture devices to record and track pupil performance...

 Computers Plc and Frontline Technology Ltd. Ali Guryel acts as managing director in both of these companies.

Ali Guryel obtained masters in Computer Science from Imperial College London

Imperial College London

Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...

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In 1992 Ali Guryel developed a low cost, total solution for attendance recording in schools. Using little-known wireless technology to bring about a 'revolutionary system'.
This invention made mainstream news with, amongst others, The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Express and TES. National and Local Radio gave very enthusiastic coverage, and the system was even featured on both the BBC News and the BBC Tomorrow's World programme. EARS evolved into a school-wide system with many other functions in addition to attendance. Features such as messaging, alert, grade collection, behaviour recording and parent contact via pagers and SMS mobile phones have become popular options. With this added functionality, the name EARS changed to wNET and then later to e-School as it remains today. This work won many prestigious awards including Invention of the Year 1993 (finalist), BETT Gold award in 1994, The Queen's Award for Enterprise and a listing in The Sunday Times ARM TechTrack 100 and HotList 100 amongst others.

The Patent

Ali Guryel patented this invention, which is recognised in the USA, Canada, Australia and the main EU countries. The description of the patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

developed by Ali Guryel is as follows:

“A method of electronically registering student attendance data includes storing a plurality of student names in a central collection station. The stored student names are downloaded and stored to at least one portable data collection device. The portable data collection device is used to access the set of student names stored therein and one select student name from the set of student names is displayed on a visual display of the portable data collection device. The portable collection device prompts an operator thereof to input attendance data for the select displayed student name into the portable data collection device. The operator input attendance data includes one of a first input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is present, a second input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is absent, and a third input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is tardy. The input attendance data for each select student name is stored in the portable collection device and the foregoing is repeated for each student name in the downloaded set of student names. The input student attendance data is then uploaded from the portable data collection device to the central data collection station and stored in said central data collection station. A student attendance report is generated using the attendance data stored in the central data collection station.”

Commendation from the DCSF

The DCSF have commented on Mr Guryel’s achievements and contribution to the education sector. Stating that, "Frontline Technology Limited and Bromcom Computers Plc – have researched, developed and promoted electronic registration since the early 1990s. They played a part early on in raising the profile of electronic systems for better attendance management and in improving the services available to schools. The Department welcomes innovation and investment in education from commercial suppliers. The Department welcomes Mr Guryel’s and his companies’ restated commitment to helping achieve the Department’s ambitious objectives for children and learners."