Personally, I think the most remarkable aspects of Bajillions are its robust content library and recommendation system.

Within each game, there are several layers of content and instructional feedback that can tailor to the child’s gameplay. At a higher level, the app suggests the next game that best matches the child’s math level based on their past gameplay.

Beyond games, we built a classroom management platform that connects teachers and caretakers to a vast collection of hands-on math activities. This way, the adults can plan in-person lessons that are supplemented and informed by Bajillions games.

Creating Bajillions was deeply rewarding, but also challenging. The teams collaborated to overcome the research-to-product gap. Discussions sometimes end with more questions than answers. Funding and time constraints were constantly at play. I personally grew tremendously, and felt my product management craft evolving constantly to meet the demand of the moment.

Link to research paper

Link to University of Denver article

As a museum-lover in my personal life, I had so much fun producing Project AMI.

Between January and August 2024, I got to work with 7 museum partners (~1 per month).

Each design cycle included 4–5 meetings and always ended with an in-person playtest event using the game prototype that we built that month.

I still pinch myself a little bit to see Paw Patrol among my past projects. It was such a privilege to work with a major property and an expert team of creatives.

The 10-episode show ended up having 13 voice actors who participated in 25 recording sessions — the largest scope produced by Audiyo-yo at the time. Ryder’s classic line goes, “No job is too big, no pup is too small!”, and I would add, “No spreadsheet is too big!”

The Mixtape podcast takes a totally original approach to music and history education using primary sources: to combine the old and the new, to connect the universal and the personal. With the creative leadership of Anne Richards, Executive Producer of the podcast and VP of the Audiyo-yo podcast department, Mixtape offered me a chance to experience building something from 0 to 1 with the help of great people.

In this sense, Mixtape is the perfect recipe of what I find educational media production to be energizing — that one can present extant knowledge in a creative format, engaging a single viewer through a larger narrative, while having fun working with really great people.

This project was a precious nugget of all the things that I love producing: original art and script, original music, animated explainer videos — all rooted in historical content and a robust learning framework.

Between 2022 and 2023, I led the team to create a new mini-game nested in a new content module themed after the ADA. Then, to assess how the new mini-game is received by students, I organized a 40+ student survey with positive findings. This led to the decision of incorporating the new mini-game into 4 existing modules. In 2024, I supervised the development of another historical content module themed around Title IX.

Most projects I produce start with a blank canvas, but the Civics game was already launched when I took it on. My focus was on its expansion, so I took away a different but valuable perspective.

I learned to balance between following conventions vs. challenging them, adapting to constraints vs. improving the system.

It’s a distinct experience to be embedded in a research project that comes with years of insights and iterations. There, production management is first learning, and then, creative translation.

On the HTKS project, I took on the challenge of learning quickly and precisely about the HTKS research. This enabled me to map out the flow of the app based on the real-life research protocol, guide the organization of its contents, and help define the scoring logic.

While my days as a social science undergrad are many chapters ago, I’m always ready to get up close to academic concepts and research findings. Reflecting on the HTKS project, it was an experience where I’m happy for my team to lean on my experience managing academic research projects, and my ability to ingest new information.

I got to produce something for THE Cat Stevens. That’s crazy!

The music on this album is beautiful and timeless. I’m honored to have played a small part of what goes on behind the scenes to present this music to the world.

Check out this Rolling Stone article about the album: “Yusuf/Cat Stevens Spent Nearly a Decade Crafting ‘King of a Land’”