Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1989, Ali Albazaz’s entrepreneurial instincts emerged when he was 13, when he started buying second hand phones on eBay, polishing them, taking better pictures of them and reselling them at a 20-30% higher price. His education culminated in a degree in computer science from the University of Bonn. He describes Inkitt as a reader-powered publisher, where authors can upload manuscripts which readers can access for free.