After graduating from HKUST, Dave worked for two years in the government before pursuing his graduate studies in the University of Exeter in the UK and then returning to Hong Kong to work in corporate finance as a business consultant and fund manager. Through these experiences he was able to meet entrepreneurs in various industries from different countries and learn from their successes and mistakes, equipping him with the confidence and know-how to start his own business.
Dave and a group of friends had been passionate about board games since they were young, and dreamed of someday coming up with their own game. However as they grew up they realized that board games may not a lucrative business. Console games were too expensive to get into, but with the advances in cell phone technology, the friends realized that there was an exciting potential for mobile games. This led to the establishment of Hidden Boss in 2013.
Hidden Boss started out creating mobile games with the widely-recognized Japanese art style, but the team soon realized that just developing mobile games on their own is risky. To combat this challenge, Dave and his partners decided to expand their scope to mobile app development and digital marketing in order to achieve a more sustainable business model, and currently also offer a wide range of creative gamified solutions to help clients better connect with their target audiences.
Then in 2017, the Hidden Boss team began thinking about how gamification could be applied in the education sector. “Most children do not enjoy working on homework or assignments, but they enjoy playing games even if many parts of the game are boring and repetitive,” explains Dave. “With so many things happening around them, it is hard for children to focus on one thing. That’s where our team comes in. How can we use gamification to help children focus and learn?”
To tackle this challenge, Hidden Boss partnered with Ho Yu Primary School to create STEM City, a gamified multi-subject learning mobile application. Parents simply download the app and children are able to use it themselves, without the need for adult supervision. Hidden Boss is also working with Education University of Hong Kong’s Psychology Department to develop big data analytics for STEM City.
With the STEM City project, Hidden Boss joined the Cyberport Incubation program in 2019 under a new brand, EdTech Interactive Company Limited. EdTech focuses on educational business and strives to provide helpful EdTech solutions to the education sector in Hong Kong.
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