MathVentures (TM) - Forethinking People for Thinking People (TM)
Company Profile


Mission Statement
Ten Ninety’s goal is to deliver one hundred percent client satisfaction from its quality products and services. Paraphrasing Thomas A. Edison’s words, Ten ninety’s name is derived from the strong belief that excellence is ten-percent inspiration and ninety-percent perspiration. Ten Ninety invests all of its ingenuity and labor to achieve its goal. To measure its success in reaching this goal, Ten Ninety has set a single criterion: The distinction between it’s clients future desires and future needs. All clients should be in the position to employ the firm of their choice to solve their evolving needs. The choice to continue employing Ten Ninety should be based in the complete satisfaction with past experience, in the desire to work with and to enjoy the high-quality services and products provided by Ten Ninety. Ten Ninety’s clients should not have to continue to use our services, but rather want to.
Background and Philosophy
Uri Geva established Ten Ninety in the spring of 1993. Until 2001 Ten Ninety specialized in the design, development and implementation of database solutions. A critical element was developing intuitive and consistent user interface to simplify and ease workload. The R&D Division of Ten Ninety concentrated on product design and its Film Production Division developed instructional video projects.

Since 1999 Uri volunteered-taught math in the classroom of various grades. He realized that there exists an urgent need to improve the learning and, therefore the teaching, of mathematics. Testing his ideas, Uri discovered that his productive ingenuity has great potential addressing and solving math-education problems. Early in 2001 MathVentures was founded and, with it, Ten Ninety shifted its focus to mathematics education.

Long before multi-media became popular, Uri combined the formal studies of mathematics and computer science with the art of motion pictures. For years he has applied cinematic principles to improve communications and user interface. Since multimedia production is a multi-profession, highly collaborative endeavor, Uri understood that the producer is the leader of a team of professionals and applied the same management skills and principles to all of his endeavors.

Experience has taught Uri the value of design simplicity, consistency, intuitiveness and ease of learning. Whether the product will be used in a hectic office or chaotic classroom environment, whether the users are office workers, instructional video viewers, teachers or students, once they develop expectations, the product must meet them consistently. Principles and skills should be conveyed in a clear, easy-to-understand manner, avoiding the need to rely on rote memorization, in the workplace as well as at school and at home.

Click to Return to the Top of This Page
   Teaching Experience
       Stanford University Teaching and Coaching
     
      Lecturer, Hasso Plattner institute of Design at Stanford (a.k.a. d.School), Stanford University, for several design-thinking courses:
       
        Tools for Experience Design (MS&E430, Spring 2006)

            Interdisciplinary Design Innovation (ME325/CS447, Winter 2004.) Responsible for the Motorola Studio and student projects, Stanford University, School of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Department, Design Division.

      Member of the teaching team (coach), Mechanical Engineering Design, Senior Design Project (ME113), since 2000

      Coach graduate student teams, Tools for Team Based Design (ME310A) and Design Project Experience with Corporate Partners (310B,C) since 2000.


      Staff development (teaching teachers how to teach math). Uri has been teaching teachers, grades K through 8, how to improve their math teaching skills and, for those who need it, how to ease their math anxiety. Uri has been developing various methods to assist teachers, from math-relaxation exercises to number-sense tools and methods, from visual-computation techniques to geometry and algebra. He conducted classes and workshops, including at the San Mateo Foster City School District, for San Mateo County Office of Education, for California Mathematics Council and for the University of Phoenix. (MathVentures)
     

          Math to the Max, University of Phoenix, Spring and Fall 2003.


        Developed lesson plan for the California High School Exit Examinations, State of California Algebra 1 Project. Responsible for and developed the lesson quadratic-equation lesson plan (standards 14.0, including Material for standard 19, 20, 22, and 23.)

    Volunteer math teacher and math-teacher support in all primary and middle school grades. Since 1999 Uri taught mathematics in grades 3rd through 5th classrooms at least twice every week, working with students of all levels on all required subjects. In middle school Uri taught complete topics, required by the state standards, such as area calculation of various shapes and isometric and orthogonal drawings. Uri provided support to primary and middle school math teachers.
     

        Taught parents of low-performing middle-school students how to assist their children learning such subjects as multiplication. (MathVentures)
    Click to Return to the Top of This Page
   Product Design
    Creative, innovative problem solving, including prior-art research, benchmarking, applying existing or new technologies to and devising new solutions. (Suri & Co., clients include DKD, currently IDEO; Ten Ninety)

    Lecturer of and coach for graduate and undergraduate design courses at Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering Design Division. (See Teaching Experience above for details.)

   Film and Video Production    Writing Experience
  Wrote & published in professional periodicals.

    Writing user guides, manuals and context-sensitive, interactive online help documentation. (Ten Ninety for various clients; Borland International)

    Edited various research papers of post-doctorate researchers.

    Writing fiction and non-fiction for motion pictures, television, film and video production.

Click to Return to the Top of This Page
   Software Research & Development
    Proven ability to independently manage projects from initial conception through design, development, implementation and quality assurance to the final product delivery. (Suri & Co. and Ten Ninety for various clients; Borland International)

    Extensive experience in team collaboration, as both team leader and member. (Suri & Co. and Ten Ninety, various clients; Borland International)

    Software development experience, including all aspects of user-interface and database applications. (Ten Ninety for various clients; Borland International)

    Computer-security research and development (Suri & Co. for various clients)

    Research of graphical-environment for software development (Suri & Co. for SRI Int’l, Computer Dept.)

Click to Return to the Top of This Page
Business & Employment History
2003 – present Stanford University Lecturer, Hasso Plattner institute of Design (a.k.a. d.School), Multimedia Services and co-instructor of design-thinking courses (MS&E430, ME325/CS447)
2001 – present MathVentures Owner, a division of Ten Ninety, dedicated to math education.
  2000 – present Stanford University Coaching graduate and undergraduate mechanical Engineering students
1993 – present Ten Ninety Owner, product design, hardware and software R & D, motion-pictures production.
1986 – 1993 Borland International Software engineer, R & D department.
1977 – 1985 Suri & Company Owner, product design, film production, hardware and software R & D.
Click to Return to the Top of This Page
Education
    Stanford University, MA Communications, Film Production. 1981.

    University of California, Los Angeles, BA Mathematics and Applied Science. 1975.


Download a copy of MathVentures Company Profile (Adobe Acrobat PDF format, 17KB)
Click to Return to the Top of This Page
MathVentures Home

Table of Contents


Copyright  © 1993-2007 Ten Ninety, All Rights Reserved
Last Update: July 1, 2007