Team EnglEasy!

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself" - Henry Ford

  

Team EnglEasy has known each other for about 103 hours now, but we've moved forward together at lightening speed. As a culturally diverse group of eight strangers meeting on Friday night at StartupWeekend, we drew from our strengths and experiences to form the foundation of a company and idea in which we're all very proud. 

Many thanks to Franck Peignoir (@peignoir) and Marc Nager (@marcnager) for putting together StartupWeekend in the Bay area. Without this event, there would be no  Team EnglEasy to be presenting at Launch Pad at Web 2.0 Expo.

We proudly present the members of Team EnglEasy:

Ahmed Siddiqui (Founder) - Ahmed Siddiqui is the Founder of EnglEasy. English is Ahmed's second language, and the concept for EnglEasy came from Ahmed's frustration that children today are still learning English the same way he did 25 years ago.  Leveraging his background in Business Analytics at IBM, he developed his concept for adaptable learning. Ahmed's  mission is to change and improve the way children learn by combining games and analytics.  Ahmed has an MBA from Babson College, and his undergraduate degree is from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. He can be reached at the email address ahmed (at) engleasy (dot) com, or via twitter at @siddiquiahmed

AbdulAziz Al-Sulaim (Founder) - As a young entrepreneur, AbdulAziz founded two start-ups. In his first venture, ProStyleWatches, AbdulAziz negotiated authorized dealership agreements with Suunto Watches, Citizen Watches and Casio Watches without having the required credit or physical retail outlets. After liquidating a year later, he established a cultural apparel company in 2006 which is still operating in the United States as MuslimTees (www.MuslimTees.com). AbdulAziz graduated with distinction from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in Finance and a B.S. in Marketing.

Co-Founders (in alphabetical order):

Aaron Graham - Aaron Graham has a passion for data and design. He strives to improve customer experience and deliver business results through web analytics - test, measure, iterate, repeat. Aaron got the international bug while living and studying Japanese during his undergraduate studies at Miami University, which led to an International MBA at Thunderbird School of Global Management. He has been in Northern California for 10 years, working in the tech industry for companies ranging from a start up of 10 people to the world's largest dedicated security technology company, McAfee, where he currently works, overseeing testing and web analytics in the consumer division. He can be reached at @awgraham. 

Boashi Yan, PhD - A researcher in speech and language technology, his passion is creating killer apps for language education using speech and language technologies. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Southern California. He can be reached at @baoshi

Christina Mantel - Christina Mantel is a trilingual wizard when it comes to business development and marketing strategy.  Naturally curious, she utilizes her engaging interpersonal skills to facilitate business and to network. Her career spans investment management at Pacific Sun (Hong Kong) to internet start-ups (LookSmart.com) to non-profit foundations (Kitty Petty ADD Institute). A savvy world traveler, she is fluent in English, German and French and has the ability to bring localization to world-wide products and services. Fascinated by neurocognitive brain functioning, she has a Master's degree in Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, a Bachelor's degree in Political Economics and a Bachelor's degree in French, both from the University of California, Berkeley.  She can be reached via twitter at @christinamantel

Dhiren Patel - Dhiren Patel is a recent graduate of the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota with a BS in Electrical Engineering, who has a passion and drive to change the way children learn. He is also an execution machine, and the team's community manager. He is currently working at Sonoa Systems with the Apigee team. He can be reached at @Dstar9

Laura Schulz - Laura Schulz is a marketing technogeek with expertise in education and research science. Currently the Marketing Director and a Drupal web developer for Webthingee, she's actively engaged in the web 2.0 world and its possibilities. As an education director with 15 years of experience in  the informal education industry (museums, zoos), she's worked closely with both teachers and parents to design highly effective and engaging curriculum for children, and is excited by EnglEasy's emerging analytics for identifying and overcoming children's learning barriers. Holding a Master's degree from Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet in Munich, Germany and a marketing certificate from University of California at Berkeley, she's also an Advanced Toastmaster. For more information, please visit her Twitter profile at @lauraschulz

Walter Monterroza - Walter Monterroza is the collaborator of Social Entrepreneurship projects at C-INNOVA office at Universidad Dr. Jose Matias Delgado in El Salvador. He is a Business Director at the consulting group ROLES and a Co-Founder of "TodoJoven". He is also a committee member of Young Entrepreneurs  at the Chamber of Commerce of El Salvador, and Director of Finance at a local committee of AIESEC El Salvador Matias. He can be reached at @waltermonterroz

Winnie Kao - Winnie Kao is an expert in hardware and software development, as well as an expert project manager. Using her marketing finesse and communication skills, she is a geek who speaks. She has a strong desire to use her skills for a greater good, and as a multilingual technologist, Winnie plans to revolutionize language learning with EnglEasy's philosophy of improving learning through play. Winnie holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University. She can be reached at @wyykao

We also want to give a shout-out to our Rock-star Developer, UI guy, and Artist! 

Josh Dovishaw – Developer 

Justin Kelley – User Interface - @lostchrono

Jajeev Nithiananda - Artist