Simon Block

Simon Block is the Chief Technical Officer at Optalert, a pioneer in drowsiness monitoring. With over 30 years in a range of technology and engineering roles, Simon has worked across product strategy, R&D, manufacturing, technical content, and platform architecture. He began his career at Hewlett Packard and has since built up broad experience in technologies including video encoding, telecommunications, testing and measurement, and real-time processing.

Simon is acutely aware of the challenges facing product development teams and how to balance those against commercial realities. Within Optalert, he spearheaded the development of a software development kit (SDK) to embed its world-leading drowsiness measurement technology in driver monitoring systems within the automotive sector.

Simon is passionate about laying solid foundations, getting the right team composition, and not cutting corners. In addition, he is mindful of privacy considerations within new technologies and recently became a certified EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Practitioner.