P E O P L E 

Innovation Catalyst represent a unique and experienced multidisciplinary team bringing together diverse perspectives on the innovation process and audiovisual communication. We collectively represent many years of practical experience applying technology in a business context and helping clients communicate their vision and ideas to a wider audience.

F O U N D E R S

Hani Asfour

Prior to founding Innovation Catalyst, Hani Asfour was lead experience designer at the Viant Innovation Center where he developed prototypes and explored new directions in interface design and customer experiences. Hani worked on a range of projects for many clients including General Motors and Frank Gehry. His expertise includes experience, architectural, and information design.

Hani led the effort designing Viant’s offices, developing frameworks for a highly collaborative workplace to reflect the organization’s culture. The Los Angeles office received the International Interior Design Association Calibre award and has been featured in two major motion pictures. As an architect, Hani contributed to the Getty Museum master plan in Malibu, California and has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and Northeastern University. He has worked in Italy, California, and the Middle East.

Hani received an MArch with Distinction from Harvard Design School and a BS in Art and Design from MIT.

View some of Hani's design projects.

Hani is currently a professor teaching architecture and design at the American University of Beirut and provides user interface and design guidance on our projects.

David Tamés

Prior to founding Innovation Catalyst, David spent three years at Viant’s Innovation Center and served as Viant’s liaison to the MIT Media Laboratory. David has played many roles over the years: management consultant, director of marketing, experience designer, software developer, cinematographer, technology strategist, project manager, producer, director, editior, and film post-production specialist. A reel of visual works is available online.

Along with working as a producer, director, cinematographer, or editor on numerous film, video, and multimedia projects, David has crafted a customer experience strategy for Universal Music, worked at Apple integrating their technology in the enterprise systems of Charles Schwab, Stanford University, and United Airlines, and supported clients developing flight simulators at Harris.

David has been a speaker at conferences and industry events in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. He writes articles for New England Film and Imagine and blogs at Kino-Eye.com.

He holds a BS in Computer & Cognitive Sciences and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Florida, and an MS in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.

A S S O C I A T E S

Chris Boebel

Chris is a writer, director, and editor that brings together a unique mix of creative experience working on narrative feature films, documentaries, industrials, and marketing materials. His corporate clients include IBM, Lucent, Pfizer, Hachette-Filipachi, Hoffmann-LaRoche, Young & Rubicam, BBDO. Chris contributes his unique creative sensibilities to I:C projects helping our clients communicate their vision to their customers, partners, and investors with the unique impact and effectiveness only cinematic expression can provide.

He produced and directed Red Betsy, an feature film currently in theatrical release. Chris also directed and editied Containment, a one-hour documentary on the community around the Three-Mile Island Nuclear Reactor twenty-five years after the accident and recipient of grants from the Puffin Foundation, Hefner Foundation, and MIT Council for the Arts. His short film, Like/Dislike, won the CINE Eagle Award and screened at over twenty film festivals including: Sundance Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, NY Short Film Expo (Special Jury Award), and Philadelphia Film Festival (Gold Medal). His creative projects have aired on Nickelodeon, PBS, BBC-TV, and many other networks in Europe and North America.

Chris earned his MFA from New York University Graduate Film School and a BA from Oberlin College with High Honors in English Literature.

Colin Owens

Colin Owens is an information architect, graphic designer, photographer, composer, and sound editor. He has completed a wide range of information architecture and graphic design projects for global 1000 companies and created music for interactive kiosks, virtual reality exhibitions and internet games.

In 1993 he headed the hard dance group Blind VR and toured throughout the northeast and New York, their self-titled album was on the alternative press dance charts for weeks. Colin has released three cds of his original music and has composed original scores for five of Todd Verow's films including Against and Shucking the Curve.

He has engineered and produced music for Boston area bands in his studio, including "The Jumblies," "Unauthorized Use" Zeth Lundy and "Well".

Colin earned his BA from Tufts University where he studied english and earned a BFA in photography from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Phill Apley

Phill has broad experience in software product development, research, and project management. He is experienced with modern software engineering and testing methodologies and plays a key role evaluating a wide range of new technologies for Innovation Catalyst.

Phill’s research background includes the Viant Innovation Center, MIT AI Lab, Bell Laboratories, Thinking Machines, MIT Architecture Machine Group, and Digital Equipment Corporation’s Cambridge Research Laboratory. He was granted one of the first software patents for typographic scaling as Manager of Advanced Development at Bitstream, Inc.

Phill holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. He is also Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the Joseph M. Smith Community Health Center and is an instrument-rated pilot.

Bruce Chafee

Bruce worked as a Senior Business Strategist with Viant, where he mapped the strategic context and direction for clients’ utilization of the Internet as a business tool. He investigated the competitive advantages of moving clients’ business processes to the Internet, and outlined the parameters and requirements of tools needed to accomplish this.

Bruce has spent 10 years as a management consultant, advising and assisting clients with both external opportunities (competitive strategy) and internal challenges (process improvement). His experience spans financial services, manufacturing, chemicals, and healthcare, and ranges from billion-dollar global leaders to small non-profit organizations.

Bruce holds an MS from MIT in Technology and Policy, and a BA from Dartmouth College in Engineering Sciences.

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