Alister Main

Director, Systems Development

Alister is the primary systems analyst and programmer at ViaData and is Director of Systems Development. He is involved in the development of systems, interfacing directly with customers in design and implementation. He is also partly responsible for managing internal development resources. He is primarily focused on the design and development of the Catalyst Business Systems Engine.

Alister previously worked at Fin-Net Consulting, starting as a junior programmer and progressing in seniority, eventually taking on day-to-day administration roles as he became a part owner of the business. His first job was as a field engineer at Unidata (Unisys SA), where he worked on site maintaining a cross section of hardware systems for large corporates. Finding that hardware was not giving him space for creativity, he moved into the software world, where he could indulge his intellectual passion: finding a perfectly simple solution that eliminates a complex problem, to make the world a simpler, better place.

Alister has poured a considerable amount of his creative energy into Catalyst, which he sees as his legacy: an elegant piece of software that follows the 'simpler, better' paradigm.

His professional strengths are systems programming, especially in problem solving and logic, Object Oriented analysis and design, and user interface design, along with expertise in SQL Programming. He holds a National Diploma in Electrical Engineering and a National Diploma in Three Dimensional Design from Cape Technikon (now Cape Peninsular University of Technology).

He enjoys running, both on the road and the mountain, as well as working out at the gym, and spending quality time with his family.