Director Technology & Business Development
Playware Studios Asia

Professional Experience

Victor has more than 20 years’ experience comprising business development, business unit management, marketing, sales and sales management in various industries. He began his career with MINDEF as an Army military commander after completing his university degree under the MINDEF local scholarship scheme. His tour of duties exposed him to the rigor of field command as well as to the intricacies of staff management.

Moving on, he took up an academic position with Temasek Polytechnic. In addition to his academic duties, he was actively involved in heading pioneering international relations missions to countries such as China, Hong Kong, Israel, Sweden and USA and had presented in several leading international conferences. His commitment, dedication and outstanding contributions to the institution won him many awards in Temasek Polytechnic with the highest being the TP Excellence Award.

Wanting to be part of the raging technology interest then, Victor started a technology-enabling company, Mocha3D.com, which won the SingaporeONE Challenge 2000 top award , IDA’s inaugural broadband competition to identify killer applications .

Continuing his entrepreneurial drive, Victor went on to Savant Infocomm Pte Ltd, a local IT conglomerate, to assist the Chairman in corporate strategy, regional business development as well as to oversee the various subsidiaries.

Playware Studios Asia Pte Ltd is Victor’s latest entrepreneur venture. Started together with Siddharth Jain, the company is now the leading independent game developer in Singapore, developing a rich gamut of games of diverse genres across multiple platforms. Victor also played a key role in establishing the Games Based Learning Lab (GBL) and forming a collaborative partnership with SIM University to offer courses in the areas of game design, computer graphics, animation as well as graphic design. The GBL will work closely with SIM University in research and development in the Interactive Digital Media areas. Victor is presently the Course-cum-Exam Chair with SIM University for several courses of the BSc/BSc (Honours) Multimedia Technology and Design program.

Areas of Expertise

Professional

• Corporate governance
• Business development
• Game Business
• Entrepreneurship: Establishing and growing start-ups
• Corporate human resource training for all levels of executives in the following areas:
  • Leadership: Styles and Skills
  • Effective Work Mindset
  • Time and Work Management
  • Team building
• Effectively bilingual in English and Mandarin

Academic

• SIM University – Course Chair for the following:
  • Fundamental of Graphics
  • Advanced Graphics Design
  • Interactive Digital Animation
  • Computer Games Design
• Associate Lecturer for the following universities:
  • University of Western Australia
  • University of Manchester, UK
  • University of London (UOL)
• Subjects taught at the universities:
  • E-Commerce
  • Marketing Information Systems
  • Leadership & Ethics
  • Entrepreneurship
  • People, Management & Change
  • Strategic Management
  • Change Management
  • IT Project Management
  • Artificial Intelligence: Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks

Academic Qualification

• Doctoral in Business Administration
  University of Western Australia
• Master in Business Administration
  University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
• Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) (Hons)
  National University of Singapore

Professional Development

• 7 th National Service Command and Staff Course (NSCSC)
  • Singapore Command and Staff College, SAFTI Military Institute
• Associate Business Continuity Planner (ABCP)
  • Disaster Recovery Institute International (USA).
• Executive Management Programme by Indian Institute  of Management Bangalore
• Teaching in Higher Education Certificate (SEDA, UK)
  • Awarded accreditation as a teacher in higher education after successful completion of the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA, UK)

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

The following are some of the papers presented and accepted by the respective conferences:

1. Two conference papers were presented at the 1997 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Orlando, Florida, USA, from October 12-15, 1997), namely:

a. An Infrastructure for Basic Teaching and Networked Aided Learning (BTNAL)

b. Evolutionary System Dynamics In Enterprise Modeling

2. Two conference Papers were presented at the 5th International Conference on Manufacturing Technology (31 Oct – 3 Nov 99, Beijing, China), namely:

a. Remote Real Time Control and Manipulation of Physical Robots Using Virtual Reality And Internet Technologies.

b. Rhythmic Asymmetry for Machining Parameters Optimization.

3. One conference paper was presented by proxy at the Industrial Virtual Reality Symposium (November 1-2 1999, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA), namely:

a. Web Enabled Virtual Training In Manufacturing

4. Two conference papers were presented at the International Conference on Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing 2000 (June 26 – 28, 2000 University Of Maryland – College Park College Park, Maryland, USA), namely:

a. Smart Business Management Information Net

b. Demand Value Balancing – The Concept of Inter and Intra Manufacturing

5. One conference paper was presented at the Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference 2005 (ANZMAC 2005, Broadening the Boundaries, 5 – 7 December 2005, Fremantle, Western Australia), namely:

a. The Role of Ethical Behaviours in the Relations Between Leadership Styles and Job Performance