Meet the Team

The ACES project features the partnership between Coventry University (CU, UK) as the project lead, University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS, Malaysia), Universitas Muhammadiyah Ponorogo (UMPO, Indonesia), and Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST, Vietnam), building on the combinations of complementary expertise, experience, and best practices as the basis for the educational research on the ACES pedagogical and practice model.

The UK team is based at Coventry University, comprising of researchers and practitioners across the various units: the Disruptive Media Learning Lab (DMLL), the Centre for Post-Digital Cultures (CPC), the International Centre for Transformational Entrepreneurship (ICTE), and the Centre for Global Learning – Education and Attainment (GLEA).

The team features expertise in innovative pedagogies, global education research, play and game-based approaches, frugal education, social value, and entrepreneurship with international reputation. The ACES project draws from the research and practice of the award-winning GameChangers initiative, co-founded by Professor Sylvester Arnab, who is the Principal Investigator of the ACES project. GameChangers focuses on empathic and experiential design and implementation of playful and gameful learning experiences, promoting the emergence of a more exploratory, creative culture in everyday academic contexts, and exploring the opportunities of creating games and game-like solutions as a medium for expression, learning, and practice.

Team Website | #GChangers

ACES Malaysia possesses a heterogenous and interdisciplinary team of researchers at UNIMAS. Our team members are diverse in their abilities and experiences, and under ACES they will perform a variety of tasks and functions ranging from education and pedagogy to engineering, GIS analysis, computer science, and marine biology. Collectively, all these strengths focus on using the concept of Play being utilised as a pedagogy to build a social resilience framework among the youth of Asia in today’s world, without undermining environmental resources and the challenges affecting the local communities.

In 2017, the CreativeCulture project, locally headed by Dr Jacey-Lynn Minoi and AP Dr Fitri Suraya Mohamad in partnership with Coventry University, successfully adapted and implemented an indigenised innovative game-based learning and design thinking with indigenous people in remote parts of Borneo Malaysia. Learning from indigenous communities is becoming increasingly important to provide insight on different issues that affect the communities.

In recognition of the invaluable wealth of knowledge belonging to indigenous communities, the Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations (ISITI), has spent over twenty years building a close, working relationship with these communities in Malaysia. A number of the ACES team members have also been part of the Institute’s projects since 2009. In ACES, the CreativeCulture programme will be the driver in ACES Malaysia.

Team Website | Team Twitter

The Indonesian team covers several scientific fields which support the ACES project research. The Indonesian team joined the project to positively impact education in Indonesia.

Moreover, in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the team aims to inspire teachers and parents to learn more about how to support and guide their children. The ACES Indonesia team also created a research center on a game called REOGIFY, which is an acronym for Research on Games and Pervasive Play. They hope to be part of the solution and give meaning to education, both locally in Indonesia and globally through the ACES project and beyond.

“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”

The ACES Indonesia team is driven by Co-Investigator Dr. Muhibuddin Fadhli, he is an expert in the development of learning for early childhood. His research interest is Gamification and its application in learning.

Team Website

The ACES Vietnam team consists of devoted educators, led by Prof. Hoang Thi Bich Thuy through the Dynamic Lab for Innovation and Transformational Entrepreneurship (D-Lab), Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST). Joining ACES project, the multi-disciplinary team with people from science, technology, business and education will take advantage of playfulness approach and educational 4.0 to create transformative methodology for Vietnam educational reform.

Established to initiate UK-VN higher educational partnership (HEP) 2018 and 2019, D-Lab aimed at the development of entrepreneurship and creative skills for Vietnam technological and scientific students. The D-Lab team has been developing rapidly and attracting greater concerns about Vietnam educational reform, particularly sustainable higher educational development. With solid technological background members and newly recruited experts in education, the Vietnam team is enthusiastically joining UK team and other teams in ACES project in order to create an effective pedagogical methodology combining playfulness and education 4.0.

Team Website