Work Experience

NOW

Scientist and Developer

SEPTEMBER 2018 – NOW

Seaweed Heroes

Seaweed Heroes is a unique psychedelic adventure multiplayer Virtual Reality game. We currently have a high fidelity prototype developed.

Activities:

  • Research
  • Games Design
  • Systems design
  • Interaction design
  • Programming
  • Testing
  • Evaluation
  • Fundraising

Game features:

  • Virtual Reality
  • Unique locomotion system
  • Multiplayer
  • Conversational agent using IBM Watson Natural Language Processing
  • Volumetric lighting
  • Spatial audio
  • ScriptableObject AI system - enabling flexible implimentation of state machines, sensors, decisions, actions and steering behaviors
2017-2018

Senior Developer (Crowd Platform)

JULY 2017 – AUGUST 2018

Brandseye, Cape Town

BrandsEye mines opinion data from social media to provide actionable insights for their clients. I was a full-stack developer developing and supporting their services.

Activities:

  • Backend and frontend development
  • Testing
  • Bug-fixing
  • Research
  • System analysis
  • Systems design
  • Wire-framing
  • Interaction design
  • Programming
  • Evaluation

Outcomes:

  • Elaborate crowd roles and work activities
  • Develop crowd notification system
  • Develop work-bar interface element and backend functions
  • Improve the generation of training materials
  • Implement Bitcoin payments for crowd platform
  • Develop automated reporting and emails
  • Adapt existing services to new business processes
2017

Crowd Strategist (Gamification)

MAY 2017 – JULY 2017

Brandseye, Cape Town

Crowd strategist, conducting researching, developing proposals and facilitating execution towards Brandseye’s strategic objectives.

Activities:

  • Strategy development
  • Research
  • Proposal writing and presentation
  • Wire-framing
  • Interaction Design
  • Interface Design
  • Collaborate with programmers

Outcomes:

  • Analysis and evaluation of motivational affordances of crowd platform
  • Develop gamification strategy, plan and progression framework
  • Facilitate the implementation of crowd achievements
  • Scale the crowd
  • Reduce crowd member churn
2016

Entrepreneur

MAY 2016 – APRIL 2017

humanit, Cape Town

Research and development of virtual reality video game prototypes.

Outcomes:

2013 – 2016

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Computer Science

MAY 2013 – APRIL 2016

University of Cape Town

Activities:

  • Gamification of Computer Science
  • Support academic staff to enhance learning activities
  • Facilitate student engagement through innovation
  • Design, develop and evaluate learning activities
  • Design and integrate blended and online learning
  • Develop digital learning content and games
  • Managing projects and relationships with stakeholders
  • Lecturing, workshops and seminars
  • Industry engagement

Outcomes:

  • Course development:
    • Game Artificial Intelligence
    • Playability and Design
    • Mobile Game Development
  • Workshops:
    • Paper Prototyping for games design
    • Games Design
  • Educational games developed:
    • A* Pathfinder serious game
    • Enforcer Gauntlet Neuro-evolution Tournament
  • Publications:
    • Vermeulen, H., & Gain, J. (2014). Learning from mistakes: Evaluating learning in a serious game. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Serious Games, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa.
    • Vermeulen, H., Gain, J., Marais, P., & O’Donovan, S. (2016). Reimagining gamification through the lens of Activity Theory. In Proceedings of the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii, USA.
  • Seminars:
    • Vermeulen, H. The Gamification of Computer Science. Department of Information & Computer Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA, January 13, 2016.
    • Vermeulen, H. Virtual What? Virtual Reality South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, July 29, 2015.

2010 - 2013

Independent Consultant and Developer

NOV 2010 – APRIL 2013

humanit, Cape Town

Activities:

  • Project management
  • Client consultation and needs analysis
  • System specification
  • Instructional design
  • Application development:
    • Online games
    • Serious games
    • Interactive wall projections
    • Touch screens
  • E-Learning development
  • Learning Management System integration
  • Testing and debugging

Outcomes:

2009 - 2010

Chief Multimedia Developer

OCT 2009 – OCT 2010

FormulaD Interactive

Activities:

  • Development team management
  • Mentor junior programmers
  • Client consultation
  • System specification
  • Instructional design
  • Interaction design
  • Application development:
    • Online games
    • Serious games
    • Interactive wall projections
    • Touch screens
  • Testing and debugging

Outcomes:

2008

Flash Games Developer

JUNE 2008 – NOV 2008

Derivco

Activities:

  • Online game framework design and development
  • Backend Integration
  • Testing and Documentation
  • Games development using framework developed

2001 – 2003

E-learning Consultant and Developer

DEC 2001 – MARCH 2003

AST Collaborative Solutions

Activities:

  • Client consultation
  • Strategy development
  • Design for and promote a blended learning approach
  • Curriculum planning, instructional design, story boarding, screen capturing and authoring of online course material
  • E-Learning course programming and SCORM learning analytics
  • IBM LearningSpace5 installation, administration, training and support

Outcomes:

1999 - 2000

Web Developer

AUG 1999 - JULY 2000

Object Technology UK

Activities:

  • Design, develop and maintain the OTUK web site and intranet
  • Migrate data to Oracle8i
  • Develop web-clipping application for the Palm Pilot VII handheld computer
  • Develop the Seagram web management system to access, view, query and monitor data models running on various servers
  • Integrate Dimensional Insight’s Diver BI java applet into web management system