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Arvin Gunawan

Developer

I make games by day, and I play games by night. I’m also usually listening to podcasts about video games or listening to video game soundtracks anytime throughout the day. I guess I kinda like games a little bit. So that’s me – just your average Unity/tech nerd guy.

People usually write things like “I love being outdoors and travelling”. I’m more “I love being inside and staying home”.

I’m real bad at writing about myself. Not sure what else to say, this is long enough I think..

Nicholas Johnson

Head of Infrastructure

Oh Hey, I’m Nick. I write code strictly between the hours of 8am and 5pm and when I’m not doing that I’m usually making a fool of myself. I’m a lifelong Nintendo apologist, and can frequently be found controller in hand. I live vicariously through quoting The Simpsons (old episodes only).

I also enjoy walking everywhere I go, sampling new bars and good company… basically I’m always down for a pub crawl. 

When I’m not wasting my time, I’m wasting my money on a YouTube cooking show called Food Fusion, which I star in.

Check it out here: www.foodfusion.tv 

Niall Maloney

Ben Powell

Business Development Partner

Lina Ma

Customer Support Manager

I share the same three passions with Bertrand Russell: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. Following my passions I have been freelancing as an Interpreter and Translator for 10 years. You may have seen me in Courts, Tribunals, government departments and agencies, national/state political and business conferences, hospitals, etc. when I was exploring and finding my favourite area. I have been in Sydney long enough to call it home now. Becoming a mother in 2014 helps and strengthens my settlement with Prosper.

I am a bit of a perfectionist and a bit OCD. I cannot bear spelling mistakes and I check and update every phone app multiple times a day. I am among the first to try new gadgets. I can sing and dance but not so well. I love all sorts of sports and am a regular gym goer but I have the sweetest tooth so fatness is my forever foe. I (try to) travel a lot and write travel journals. I don’t like cooking, watching TV or movie because my time (if any) has been devoted to my BFF RPG computer games.

Bradden Wondra

Advisory Board Member

Bradden Wondra has a passion for learning and growing which has fuelled a life and career journey across 5 continents. He thrives on the diversity of cultures and ideas he’s experienced while focussing his career on digital and technology transformation. Bradden lives in Hong Kong along with his wife and 2 boys. He’s currently Head of Technology Initiatives at HSBC, and previously led Global Product Technology at Pearson plc. Bradden was the CTO Enterprise Services at HP Asia-Pacific; and, has extensive operating experience in China where he’s created and led digital teams for Kodak while living in Beijing. He co-founded Silverwire which was a leader in digital imaging and was acquired by HP. Bradden has been on the Board of the UK registered charity New Life Mexico and currently advises Give Asia, an online fundraising platform. Scuba, ski and enjoying the outdoors balance out his life.

Ben Rawson

Advisory Board Member and Investor

Ben is the Managing Director of Havisham Group and a Non-Executive Director of Huntswood. Ben works alongside David Brownlow on a range of business and philanthropic initiatives, including his contribution as an investor in and adviser to Prosper Education. Ben graduated from Bristol Business School with an Honours degree in International Business Studies with Spanish, having spent one year at Granada University. Ben speaks Spanish and English and is passionate about the global business opportunities for children who are multilingual and trained in 21st century skills.

Baroness Jenkin

Advisory Board Member

Baroness Anne Jenkin has a background working in politics, political campaigns and the charitable sector. She was created Conservative Member of the House of Lords in January 2011 for her political and charity work. With Theresa May, she founded and now chairs Women2Win – the successful campaign to get more women elected to Parliament – and chairs the Conservative Friends of International Development (CFID). Lady Jenkin is on the board of UNICEF UK and is a Patron of Restless Development as well as being actively involved with a number of other charities. She was a co-founder of Chartwell Worldwide Speakers Bureau and sits on the board of Eastern Data Group.

Lord David Brownlow

Board Member, Investor and Adviser

Lord Brownlow is a British entrepreneur, philanthropist and member of The House of Lords.

He is the co-founder of The Havisham Group, a diverse trading and investment entity, and the co-founder of Huntswood, a specialist resourcing and consultancy firm focused on governance, risk and compliance in the areas of regulatory conduct and financial crime.

Lord Brownlow takes pride in the work of his charitable giving; especially his own ‘David Brownlow Charitable Foundation’. All of which concentrates on helping individuals and communities where there is an element of disadvantage.

As well as being a Trustee of DBCF, Lord Brownlow is a Patron of The Royal Osteoporosis Society, a Patron of The Prince of Wales Hospice in Pontefract, a Life Patron of The Landmark Trust, a Founding Patron of The Royal Albert Hall’s President’s Circle, a Patron of The Royal Drawing School, a Vice-President of Berkshire Community Foundation and a Founding Patron of Thames Hospice

Dominic Richards

Co-Founder and Chair

Dominic Richards is a community-focused place-maker who believes entrepreneurship should be a force for improving the quality of people’s lives. Dominic was raised in Australia and England and educated at the University of Cambridge and the Prince of Wales’ Institute of Architecture. Motivated to better equip our next generation to embrace the opportunities of the future, Dominic sought to create a stimulating learning environment through leveraging cutting-edge technology platforms with time-honoured educational foundations. He is realising this pursuit as the Chairman and co-founder of Prosper Education Ltd, a Chinese digital education initiative based in Sydney, Beijing and London. Dominic is also the Founder and Chief Executive of Our Place, a visionary architect development firm, currently regenerating urban sites in East London and Norwich as well as creating a new settlement for 10,000 people in the South of England. Dominic has served as Vice Chairman and Director of The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community and is proud to serve as a Trustee of the Prince’s Trust Australia.

Max Ortega

Country Manager Mexico

Max is a true citizen of the world. He was born in Mexico City to an English mother and a Mexican father, studied Business in France, Spain and Hong Kong, has travelled the world extensively and speaks four languages.
He is deputy director of Mundo Joven Group, a well established travel and education-travel company in Mexico and Latin America.
His interest in teaching young learners kindled from his mother, who spent her life as a kinder and primary school teacher.
Max has a strong interest in partnerships and businesses that help this world become a better place. He believes that empowering young learners to become global citizens through education, will widen their understanding and compassion to create a better future.

Danny Lu

Teacher Training Specialist

Shanghai Team.

Vitaliy Stepanenko

Official Representative Russia and CIS

Vitaliy Stepanenko has been working in the international education sector since 2013 as a department head at Students International. He is heavily involved with the promotion of international institutions in the CIS region, specifically from Australia and New Zealand. As a representative of the Group of Eight – Australia’s Leading Universities and by working with Austrade Russia, he has been traveling around the world on an annual basis with the sole purpose of communicating with future students by organizing educational events and fairs. Together with his team, he has been an essential link between brilliant students whose aspiration is to broaden their horizons and achieve greatness and the universities who are in search of bright minds around the globe to create the impossible. Vitaliy holds a degree in Commerce and Accounting from Macquarie University, Australia.

Konstantin Ananin

Business Development Manager, Eastern Europe

For the past 20 years Konstantin has been involved in a number of challenging projects in Australia, Vietnam, Canada, Russia and other countries. Playing leading roles, contributing significantly to the growth and development of educational companies.
After graduating with honours from the Air Force Academy and obtaining an Engineering Degree from Moscow State Technical University, he moved to Australia to study World Economics and Business Management.
Having children of his own, he believes that it is very important for every child in the world to be provided with an opportunity to get a high-quality education from a very early age.

Nadiia Zenchenko

Operations Manager, Eastern Europe

After graduating from Kyiv National Linguistic University, she started her career with International Company. For over 8 years, she was managing an IELTS Test Centre (International English Language Testing System) based in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Her big passion is to deliver a high quality education to young learners, which can provide a variety of opportunities for their futures. As a Mum, she understands that the way we think can greatly shape our lives. It can either help us in achieving new goals or make us afraid of new challenges. This is why educational content backed by psychology research can make a huge positive impact on our children’s lives.

Roman Ibarra

Senior Graphic Designer

I am a graphic designer, lover of good food, pop culture, movies and music addict.

As a designer, my passion is branding and editorial design. I find the whole process of creating a concept into a solid brand very rewarding, as it allows for creative freedom and a constant flow of ideas. I am originally from Mexico city, and arrived in Australia in early 2014. I am very proud of my culture and try to share it with everyone I can, specially in a place so multicultural as Sydney.

Whenever I am not working or designing something, you can find me playing guitar with my Metal band or by myself, watching as many movies (good and bad) as I can get my hands on, or just catching up with friends and looking for new restaurants and places in the city to explore.

Also, I think I am the only graphic designer who doesn’t like coffee.

Qiangpan Chen

Head of Creative

After eight years spent in the 2K Game Shanghai studio as their lead game designer, I moved to New Zealand to continue my study in creative technology. Besides being immersed within the beauty and peace of Aotearoa, I got three things out of the hometown of hobbits: a degree; a book called The Martian translated by me; and an offer from Sydney for a job.

Now I am working as lead game designer in Prosper, focusing on bridging the learning world and game world together to create RoyalABC: a world that I hope will change the future of millions of kids in China. Here’s more about my professional journey.

Plus Pingya

Senior Programmer

I like to do things, I did Break-dancing in my teenage years. I did Parkour for my exercises. Backflipping, jumping and climbing from buildings to buildings were my things. I rode a motorbike to school and I’m still riding it, of course, to work these days. I’m also a DIY geek, I just like to build stuff, I built a shed and garage a few years ago. I’m thinking of building a remote drone/robot that can wander around and deploy it in my home back in Thailand as my avatar. I wasn’t particularly a dog person until recent years I find them lovely, and I can name most breeds if you ask me. I would claim that I’m a hardcore gamer, but I rarely find a time for playing video games. Even when I was a student, maybe the reason for that was I spent a lot of time learning to make games rather than playing them. Well, as I said, I like to do things, things that matter.

Peter Cheng

Junior Audio Production Assistant

It’s my pleasure to work at Prosper as the Audio Production Assistant. I came from Hong Kong and have been in Sydney for two years. I can speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English. I have just graduated as a Bachelor of Audio this year from the media university, SAE Sydney. I have a lot of audio production experience in music, movies, animations and games from university and freelance jobs. Audio production has always been my passion and motivation, probably because I am more sensitive to sound than visuals. The importance of audio on all media platforms was highlighted to me by my university lecturer, who once told me that no matter how good a product looks visually, without good sound it would still be a bad product. I thrive off working towards achieving the best possible audio and this is a philosophy I live by daily.

Olivia Liew

Quality Assurance

I’ve always loved getting to know new cultures, places and languages. I began penpalling at the age of 12 and at one stage I had more than 40 penpals from different countries.  Till this day, I am still keeping in touch with penpals whom I’ve been corresponding since my teenage years.

I’ve caught the travel bug due to my passion to see new places and experience new cultures.  When I am not working, I’d be planning for my next holiday or being away for a holiday.  After coming back from a holiday, I’d have a humongous task of sorting through thousands of photos taken during the trip.  I try to be organised by compiling a photobook for printing and fit in as much details as I can about the places I have visited.  I usually find myself embarking on the next trip before I could even finish the photobook for the last trip!

Besides being a globetrotter, I’m also an avid crafter.  I love giving my friends handmade gifts just to make them feel special.

Nicola Herringer

Director of Teaching and Learning

As an educational technologist with more than 20 years of experience, I’ve thought a lot about how kids learn and how technology can enhance the teaching and learning process. I am especially interested in applying motivational theory and also embedding creative and critical thinking skills in the digital and print resources that I design and create.

I love learning and I love to make learning fun for kids.I want to live in a world in which all children receive the education that they deserve, education that challenges yet inspires them to go further and to believe in themselves as effective learners.

When I’m not thinking about learning or learning something new myself, I like body surfing, kite flying, pattern designing, or 3D printing my own CAD designs. My not so secret ambition is to possess the same magical powers as Samantha from Bewitched (as well as her mother Endora’s wardrobe.)

Wing Yip

Head of Special Projects

Curious with the way things work, I love learning and exploring new things. When at work, I enjoy tackling different problems and learning new things – often with a coffee in my hand. From full stack development to UX to project management, I enjoy looking at a problem from the big picture down to the nitty gritty details.

I enjoy experiencing new cultures through travelling and different culinary experiences – I think food truly is a mean of bringing people of different backgrounds together. When I’m not working, I unwind by doing anything creative – from painting to sketching to making potteries – often with a drink in my hand.

Thomas Brown

Senior Software Engineer

I have always loved games and seen them as more than just entertainment. I take a very philosophical approach to their meaning, often times finding messaging and subtext where there isn’t any intended.

My work is motivated by introducing the engagement of games to the education industry to unlock much more human potential and make the world a better place.

When not writing code or playing games, you will usually find me pulling things apart or putting them back together. Generally these things involve loud noises and engines.

LinkedIn

GitHub

YouTube

Stuart Leslie

Technical Lead

I spend my time watching rugby, tinkering with computers, and drinking various beverages. I also have a wife and two young children that I’m becoming quite attached to. I like playing poker at the pub, and passionately debating pop culture.

LinkedIn

Steven Zhu

UX/UI designer

Before I moved to Australia, I have had six years experience in China Game industry as a UI/UX designer. The most impressive project I’ve done was about a children game product. It was also the first project that I had done after my graduation. The Feedback from children made me happy and proud. I still remember the moment when children were gathering around my computer and told me the design that they liked in a summer holiday visiting program. The Child will give us the real emotion feedback. As a father, I enjoy playing with my child and exploring the world. I believe playing is the best way to learn.

Now I am working as a UI/UX designer in Prosper and I am glad to return to such an interesting market where I can design products for children again. I’d like to create a world where children can play while learning and their interests in learning can be raised throughout my design.

Sheng Xu

3D Artist/Animator

hi. your fidgety friend here. i’m that rare type of person who’s artistic and equally technical, but technically i’m an artist. since forever, i’ve had this knack for detail and hunger to know how things work. these have been the perfect traits to complement my obsession with 3d and games.

currently wrangling pythons and fighting for maya in the maya vs 3ds max war.

as an artist, i’m obliged to draw a picture for you:

bye.

Salih Danaci

Senior Programmer

Game designer turned programmer, I’ve been powering through one year after another honing my skills which are all things game development, seriously, I know too much…

Prosper has given me an opportunity to grow both as a programmer but as a member of a team which is dedicated to bringing meaningful change into the world.

Check me out!

Lyn Scott

Senior ELT Advisor Vietnam

Lyn has always had a passion for the English language and studied English literature at the University of Warwick in the UK. Soon after graduating she emigrated to the sunnier climate of Australia where she completed the Cambridge CELTA and took up English teaching. At first she thought this would simply fund her travels around the world but she soon found a vocation in teaching. She has since taught, managed English schools and trained teachers in Australia, the UK, the USA, Russia, Poland, Malaysia, China, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. She holds the Cambridge DELTA with distinction, an MA in Applied Linguistics and is a Cambridge University certified teacher trainer. Lyn is also a published coursebook writer for Oxford University Press.

In 2003 Lyn and her husband David started English Language Company in Sydney and built it up to be a market leader in English language teaching and training. It is a multiple award-winning school having been voted Best English school in the Southern Hemisphere 5 times.

Lyn loves spending time in Vietnam where she assists schools with their recruitment, curriculum and teacher training needs.

Tu Linh Quach

Quality Assurance

It was quite a surprise when I ended up working in QA, as a career in Art is what I had set out to pursue. I am a self taught Traditional and Digital 2D artist. I’m also a freelance illustrator.

I love art and creating art, and it is my ultimate ambition to bring the art I work so hard on to others who enjoy my creations. However, I’m still looking to pursue my career either in the game industry or the art industry. I once attempted to make a game myself, spending days creating a script for the story, designing and drawing the main character, learning how to animate by watching youtube videos, etc, but after going through all these steps, I came to realise my strengths lay in the making of art, so I set out to earn a position in the industry someday.

Even after I achieved a career, I would still like to work on other projects, such as completing commissions and making art for my online store. My dream is to open my own art store one day. Selling art to people who love it is a very inspirational thought for me. As I said before, I have an online shop that I have been running for some time, selling a few posters of my art, but this has taught me how hard it is to run a shop by myself and how much I have to learn.

Something that really motivates me is seeing other artists work, browsing the internet in search of beautiful and inspired artworks. The artist who I am most influenced by is Minmonsta, I would consider myself blessed if I could reach even half of her skill, so that is what I am currently aspiring to.

I love playing games, reading manga, watching anime, listening to music and of course, drawing in my free time.

My portfolio is on https://lucianavessalius15.wixsite.com/tulinhquach. You can see my art on https://www.deviantart.com/lucianavessalius or https://www.instagram.com/lucilius.art/ or you can watch me draw on my Youtube channel.

Jason Chao

3D Animator

Official Divine Executive Admiral Animator

Jaffa Hu

Customer Service Specialist

Shanghai Team.

Genevieve Gilmore

CEO

I’m excited to be here! I’ve been involved in educational technology for over 20 years (not including my own schooling!) and am a true believer in the gift of education for improving the lives of children globally. One of the things I’m most grateful for in my life is all the little challenges and opportunities that have presented themselves along the way. The Growth Mindset is basically what I’m all about, there is no such thing as failure, only learning! I’ve enjoyed the crazy ride with my husband and four teenage boys, living not only in Australia, but the UK, USA and France, and travelling through the Americas, Middle East (the Dead Sea stings!) Europe and NZ. I still call Australia home, and am lucky enough to live on the beach. I am a passionate water baby, and like doing crazy outdoor activities (surfboat rowing) and camping. My current challenge is learning Mandarin, which is hard (and I’m pretty sure I sound like a crazy person in the car while I’m practicing).

Elisa Tamagnoli

2D Artist

My burning nostalgia for old school 3D platformers fuels my passion for warm, energetic and colourful game art that will hopefully instill the same sense of wonder and excitement in the young players of RoyalABC.

I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the game industry when I created my first Flash-based minigame at 13, and had so much fun brainstorming ideas for new games that I had trouble falling asleep at night.

Being fairly new to Australia, I love exploring the native wildlife and going bush camping. The sunburned landscape is such a stark contrast from the tiny European country I grew up in. Thankfully I haven’t been attacked by any drop bears….yet.

Dominic Lau

3D Artist

Since an early age I have binged watched animation and video games to nigh blindless.

After a few years working as a 3d artist for commercials,games and TV shows I am humbled to be working at Prosper with such a talented team on an amazing product.

When I’m not making 3D stuff or catching wild pokemon I can be found teaching my two cats how to play fruit ninja.

David Scott

Country Manager Vietnam

As a child David lived all over the world and attended 6 different schools in 5 countries. After starting university life as an economics student he soon realised that his real passion lay not in numbers but in languages and in travel. Over the coming years and interspersed with working as an English language teacher in several countries, he completed a Master of Arts with distinction (UNSW), the Diplôme supérieur d’études Française (Université Paul-Valéry, France), the Cambridge DTEFLA with distinction (IH London) and the Cambridge CELTA with Grade A (York House Barcelona). David is fluent in Spanish and French and is currently coming to grips with Vietnamese and Japanese. He has been working in the English language teaching industry for nearly 30 years starting out as a teacher in the UK, Australia, Spain, Sri Lanka and Malaysia and later becoming a CELTA teacher trainer, head teacher, director of studies and eventually national principal of Australia’s largest chain of quality English language schools. It was in the teachers’ room at this school that David met his future wife Lyn.

In 2003 David and Lyn Scott started English Language Company in Sydney and built it up to be a market leader in English language teaching and training. ELC now has campuses and operations in several countries and teaches over 3000 students English every year. In 2018 ELC Australia was sold to a publicly listed education firm which plans to take the brand and IP global over the coming years.

David is an avid and constant traveler and is particularly passionate about Vietnam where he, Lyn and their two boys lived for three years and where they currently operate Fluent Education training new English language teachers from all over the world and placing them into public schools throughout the country.

Caroline Thornton

Head of Learning and Publishing

I live for travel, adventure and busting shapes in yoga. I’ve been a bit of a nomad my whole life, having moved around a lot with my family as a kid, backpacking as a teenager, and teaching in different countries as an adult. From each place I’ve lived, I’ve picked up little bits of the lifestyle and taken them with me.

My love for the sea and the mountains in Europe; my love for spicy food in Asia; my love for sunshine, swimming and adventure in the States; and lately in Australia, my love for yoga and camping (I’ve become an ambivalent camping fanatic: love nature, hate the spiders).

And from all this travel and learning to communicate in different languages and cultures, I’ve developed a fascination with language acquisition and multilingualism…as well as a random, fluctuating accent. Want to know more? Take a look here.

Brad Gentle

Audio Director and Composer

Sfx_Loud_Noises.wav

Someone once told me that “If the audio in a game is doing it’s job, nobody should notice it.”

This might be true, unless you write jingles and music for kids game, in which case it will be stuck in your head for months. I moved from a small coastal town to the “Big City”  for love and to follow my dreams of making bleeps and bloops around 11 years ago. Since then I’ve worked on a number of mobile games, some PC, Xbox and PS4 titles, and more recently released a game on the Nintendo Switch.

My goal here at Prosper is to create compelling and memorable songs, music and audio design. Which will hopefully resonate with our students and help them get the most out of their time learning with us! I also love long walks on the beach among other cliches.

Rarely updated LinkedIn can be found here.

Fun Fact: I also play in a number of Death Metal bands when I’m not writing kids songs.

Abel Ibañez

Graphic Designer

I am a designer, an editor and a musician. I enjoy swimming, walking and reading. Here’s a quote from “Molloy”, one of my favourite books written by Samuel Beckett: “When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line.”