The Inventor

Henry Ong, BSc Finance (High Honors), MBA, CMA

Problem
Most kids who are weak in Maths hate Maths. Why? They do badly in it, as they do not enjoy it, and so do not practice it, which is a sure formula for failure. All they do is homework. Also, the subject is so boring. No teacher has ever introduced to them the exploits of famous mathematicians. Kids love stories and to hear of exploits of famous people they can daydream about and aspire to be.

Ideas
Kids love to play. Watch them at Pokemon™ or Beyblade™ and you can see even weak students master very complex number patterns to win in games against smart kids. Why? They enjoy it, they have passion, they are active learners and a host of other reasons.

Solution
Henry was looking for a game that would get even weak students excited about Maths. A major starting area was in mental maths. Once we get students to practice their mental maths, their maths foundation would be well built and they are ready to tackle more complex maths problems. He decided to combine a simple and exciting game he designed to get students to enjoy maths along with this historical background on mathematicians. They can use Maths Warriors™ to battle their way to Maths supremacy. He first tested this out on his 2 boys and they jointly worked over a few months to develop this game.

Best Selling Maths Game in Singapore
From December 2003 to June 2005, Noble has sold over 30,000 sets of Maths Warriors™, to make this the best selling Maths game in Singapore. Over 100 schools in Singapore have adopted this as a game for students to play their way to better Maths.

Top Corporate Executive
Henry started as an Internal Auditor and rose through the corporate ranks. Within 3 years, he was appointed as a Senior Corporate Planner for the CEO of Whirlpool Corporation. Over the next 7 years, he held key positions as:

• Sales Manager, Asia Pacific,
• Managing Director, Whirlpool Singapore and Whirlpool Malaysia
• Director, Special Projects, China Joint Ventures
• Audit Director, Asia Pacific

Entrepreneur
In 1996, Henry left the corporate world and started Noble Education.com Pte Ltd. He and his wife, May, along with their 2 young boys enjoyed puzzles and started promoting the Binary Arts/Think Fun line of thinking games and puzzles in the South East Asian region. Over the past 8 years, the company has been instrumental in introducing many new concepts to the schools.

Programme Developer and Trainer
From his active promotion of games and puzzles to schools, he was invited by Teachers' Network (Ministry of Education) to train teachers on how to help students develop thinking skills through games and puzzles.

He was invited by the National Institute of Education's organizing commitee for the 1st World Maths Day to set-up the largest display of puzzles. He pioneered the set-up of puzzle corners, thinking carnivals and puzzle kits for teachers to use in the classroom. He also developed the puzzle making course - "From trash to puzzles, Treasures to tease your mind" and has taught classes on puzzle design. The company now focuses on running Mind Sports and Game Design courses for primary and secondary schools as well as at the cluster level.

National Tournaments
In conjunction with various partners like Hasbro, Noble also runs national tournaments at the school level for Upwords™, Monopoly™ and Maths Warriors™.

Game Designer
Henry's first major success was in developing IQ Logic™ and then Maths Warriors™, Magic Squares™, Win at 100™, Police and Thieves™, and I Know™.

His passion and motivation for developing these games come from many of his contacts with students engaged in Mind Sports competitions as well as game design courses. Noble's vision is to work with students and teachers to develop more curriculum based games for students to enjoy learning through play and for teachers to want to use these games to motivate students. Noble intends to export these teaching resources all over the world.

Math Olympiad Foundation 
Henry's passion for mathematics and his eagerness to help children enjoy math led him to start up the Math Olympiad, a Not for Profit Foundation.  He is the Executive Director for this Foundation.

The Foundation works with educators and schools to run Math Olympiad competitions for primary and secondary schools in Brunei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.