Ali Al-Assam was born in Baghdad in 1950, and graduated from Cardiff University in 1972 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He obtained an MSc in Applied Nuclear Physics and a PhD in Magnetic Domains. In1979 he started 4 years' research work at Imperial College, London on the construction of optical fibre switching devices.

As co-founder and Director of Development, in Diwan-Science and Information Technology Social Enterprise, between 1982-1995, he pioneered the Arabic localisation of the Apple II and other micro-computers, creating the Arab desktop publishing revolution in 1984 in alliance with Apple Inc. He also conceived various media management products such as NewsNet, PictureNet and MAPS which were used by many UK and European newspapers such as the Times, Evening Standard and the Express.

Ali founded KnowledgeView Ltd in 1995 to concentrate on the development of Web-based news management systems.

He also founded NewsSocial Ltd in 2014 building a social platform that gives communities a platform for the open exchange of ideas leading to positive outcomes, currently used by the Preston cooperatives ecosystem design project. NewsSocial is being turned into a community owned coop.

Ali Al-Assam is a co-founder of the Mushtarek C.I.C a non-profit organization registered in the U.K. It is based on the premise that the open sharing of information, ideas, and opinions have the power to change our societies for the better.