Daniel Laurence
Founder and CEO
Username: Dan
Entrepreneur and founder of VizWoz, Daniel Laurence worked for three years as a secondary school science teacher, before going on to establish an educational resources business called School Stickers in 2000.
School Stickers quickly grew to become the UK's largest sticker company, producing 60 million customised stickers and 6 million post cards every year. The company's products are used in primary and secondary schools across the UK.
In August 2006, Daniel established the MyStickers web site, where pupils can register and collect their school rewards online. The site quickly became the UK's largest school incentive and reward initiative, and was expanded to include facilities for teachers to review their pupils' rewards, and receive weekly updates via email.
Building on his success in the children's and teen market, in February 2008 Laurence identified a need for a safe, immersive online chat environment for children, and founded VizWoz Ltd.
VizWoz is shaping the future of online chat and games with its exciting virtual world aimed at 11-14 year olds, and offering entertainment, interaction and advanced game play through new and innovative technology.
People Insider Magazine thinks will dominate the regional economy over the coming decade
David Styles
Chief of Police
Username: Vizcop003
David joined VizWoz at launch and has worked his way up to the Chief Of Police. He has a difficult job running the moderation room, responding to all your queries and problems and ensuring VizWoz is safe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! If you have any questions regarding moderation, you can contact David at: david@vizwoz.com
Ian Bickley
Creative Director
Username: Ian
Ian has been working with Dan for several years and is the graphical artist and designer behind both MyStickers and VizWoz. Ian is an exceptionally talented designer and graphic artist. Ian and his team continue to amaze us with their fantastic designs.
Andrew Robins
Development Director
Username: Andrew
Andrew joined the company in May 2007, having worked for 15 years in the new media industry, as a developer, project manager and department manager, in sectors as diverse as education, online gaming and advertising. Having designed and developed the flash architecture of the site, he now works making sure Dan's great ideas come to fruition.
Mark Andrews
Lead Flash Developer
Username: Mark
Joined May 2007 as one of the founding Flash developers, Mark has been heavily involved in the development of the front-end client platform. Responsible for upkeep, maintenance and new feature development. Mark also builds multiplayer games for the site.
Paul Gardiner
Lead Illustrator
Username: Paul
Paul is our resident illustrator, drawing everything from room backgrounds to handbags and sunglasses. Before joining Vizwoz in May 2007, he'd worked on a wide variety of graphic and illustration projects since graduating in 1999. He also rides a bike.
Olly Klinkenberg
Lead Animator
Username: Olly
Olly joined Vizwoz after completing an Animation Degree at Newport University in June 2007. Olly also worked on MyStickers with Ian, developing graphics and games.
John Smith
PHP/MySQL Developer
Username: John
John Joined in November 2006 to help the process of making stickers a little bit easier. He then joined forces with Ian and created a new version of MyStickers. Now working at Vizwoz HQ, John is a PHP Developer with a passion for all things MySQL.
Owen Bush
PHP/MySQL Developer
Username: Owen
Joined late October 2007, working mainly on improvements to moderation functionality and administration. Owen also helps keep the automated filtering system running smoothly and is our lead-tester for all Vizwoz updates.
James Morris
PHP/MySQL Developer
Username: James
James joined the Vizwoz team in March 2008. James enjoys writing code, playing with APIs and graphing libraries, and developing new functionality for Vizwoz. James is responsible for the SMS payment system, the back end of the media player, and also the hearts, love and gifts systems.
Robert Warren
Lead Games Developer
Username: Bob
Having made Flash games since 2003, Bob joined the company full time in October 2007. He codes the majority of the Vizwoz games collection.