Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING APRIL 2018 40 INDUSTRY PROFILE Oscar Guijarro: Tell us a bit about your background Hai and how you got to where you are now. Hai Ng: Where am I now? I started pretty young, I definitely started before I was a teenager – I was probably around nine or ten. In my first job I built a database for managing mailing lists. My brother was working for a restaurant so I helped him print direct mail labels. This was in the early ‘80s, so Apple II, 8-bit, that kind of stuff. Ever since I was a kid I loved computers. OG: So a career involving computers in some way was always on the cards? HN: It’s all self-taught. I am from a lower middle class family in Singapore, we couldn’t really afford to have computers. In the early years my friends and I would hang out at computer stores. They didn’t really mind us because we knew how to use their stuff. Sometimes we knew how to use their stuff better than they did, so we would just go there and learn programming. We taught ourselves. I guess the first computer thing I ever owned was a floppy disc, because I couldn’t afford a computer but I could afford a floppy disc. A technology strategist specializing in gaming and game design, skill-based gaming, gamification and general entertainment, Hai Ng ’s expert insights have become highly sought after on the global gaming conference scene. Inside Asian Gaming chats to the affable eSports maestro and co-founder of technology strategy and management group Neomancer. Hai Ng: Tech magician By Oscar Guijarro INSIDE ASIAN GAMING APRIL 2018 40