Meet The Team
Will Murray
Advisor,
Product Scaling and Sales
Former Turnitin Chief Product Officer
15 yrs Ed-Tech expertise
Partnerships with 100% of the UK universities as Turnitin customers.
Ammar Mirza CBE
Advisor,
Business Development​​
Chairman, Institute of Directors NE; Chairman, Asian Business Connections; Member of NE LEP’s Board.
Former Professor for Innovation & Enterprise at Newcastle University, Maserati top 100 Entrepreneurs
Simon Sprince
Dealmaker, UK Government
Global Entrepreneur Programme
Simon’s background is in digital media with 20 years experience of content and application production.
In-depth understanding of digital industry’s key sub sectors as well as the technologies and markets that drive them.
Alson Show
Advisor, Universities and Higher Education
17th David Goldman Visiting Prof. of Innovation and Enterprise at Newcastle University.​
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Founder of the North East Futures UTC. Vice-President of the National Foundation for Educational Research.
Asanka Jayaweera
Founder | CEO
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Responsible for Sales
(University Collaboration)
Recognised as an 'Exceptional Talent' individual endorsed by the UK government under the Digital Technology sector through the Tech Nation scheme. Asanka is also part of the prestigious UK gov. DBT's Global Entrepreneur Programme, which accepts innovative, disruptive and scalable product-led digital technology companies.
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With 17 years of entrepreneurial expertise in university collaborations, international higher education, product innovation, strategic planning, and process development, he has consistently driven success and innovation in the education sector.
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He is the co-founder of one of Sri Lanka’s leading UK student recruitment companies, a former Entry Clearance Advisor (ECA) at the British High Commission in Colombo, and has experience in major corporates including banking and airline. With professional studies in aviation and as a British Council and UCAS-trained advisor, he brings a wealth of expertise.
Buddhika Herath
Founding Partner | Director Operations
Responsible for Operations
(Student Conversion)
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With 16 years of entrepreneurial expertise in international student recruitment, admissions, and conversions, as well as offshore operations management and team building, she has been at the forefront of driving success in the sector.
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She founded one of Sri Lanka’s leading UK student placement and immigration consultancy firms, where she managed the entire operational arm, expertise in international student recruitment processing thousands of applications and student inquiries. With an educational background in engineering, she also gained early career experience working in large construction firms in Sri Lanka and corporate giants like HSBC.
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A British Council and UCAS-trained advisor, she is a recognized partner of the UK Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) Global Entrepreneur Programme and an Exceptional Talent endorsement holder, underscoring her industry leadership.
Amila Prabandika
CTO​​
15 years in cloud infrastructure, and Devops. Masters in Al with a Distinction from Newcastle University.
Specialised in Artificial Intelligence, neural networks, vision computing, intelligent systems & development. 10 years expertise as a CTO, tech lead, Software Architect and Engineer, Managing Outsourced and Offshore teams. Exceptional talent individual endorsement by UK government.
Team Behind the Product
James Hanson
UX & UI Designer
James has over 10 years commercial experience as a former Senior Digital Designer pushing UX and UI design on large and small web projects, as well as Creative Head of an intl branding agency.
With an extensive background and passion for branding and design, James heads up the creative direction of Layers Studio, perfecting projects’ visual tone of voice.
Andrew Donaghy
Brand Strategy​​
A creative copywriter with well rounded experience. His career began with ITV and BSkyB in London writing for web and electronic programming guides.
Andrew has since worked across a variety of branding projects as a writer for small, medium and global clients. He was the in-house writer at The Great Run Company for two years before moving to award winning agency Gardiner Richardson, and then Layers Studio.
Chris Jennigs
Lead Developer
Chris is a vastly experienced Senior Developer, who has a wide & diverse range of skills.
His problem solving and attention to detail are exemplary having honed is craft for more than decade in leading roles for large and small digital agencies. His clients include global pharma companies.
Ryan Kirby
Front-end Developer
Ryan cut his teeth working in Newcastle University’s Open Lab – renowned as an ambitious and innovative launch pad for various web-based platforms.
Focused on Node, Angular and React JS, three of the most in demand development languages for cutting-edge apps today.