Ardan Michael Blum
A Brief Biography
I am a Swiss-born American writer, cellist, and dachshund lover. After working in nonprofit management in Geneva, I founded A. Blum Localization Services in 2016. The Palo Alto SEO agency specializes in organic search visibility, search strategy, and localization.
Background and Education
I was born in 1970 and grew up in Geneva, where I attended the International School of Geneva from 1974 to 1988. After graduating from Bennington College in Vermont in 1992, I returned to Switzerland. I later lived in Clyde Hill, near Seattle, before moving to Palo Alto.
A Memory
In 1999, driven by a commitment to combat loneliness among the elderly, the NGO Vivre Avec le 3ème Âge was established in Geneva, Switzerland. Over the subsequent decade, this charity undertook a range of impactful initiatives. One of these initiatives involved securing and distributing substantial hardware and software donations from leading technology partners—Logitech, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft—to equip senior centers and nursing homes throughout French-speaking Switzerland. This became one of the charity's most significant achievements.
Another successful project was the creation of Histoires de Genève, a French-language website that enabled senior citizens to share their life stories.
Cultural engagement was a key focus, highlighted by a free concert at Geneva’s Victoria Hall, organized in collaboration with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. The charity also hosted a free holiday dinner for 80 older people at Brasserie Lipp in Geneva. These events represent only a small selection of the diverse activities undertaken by Vivre Avec le 3ème Âge; further details can be found in these press articles.
