Mahmoud Khasawneh – Founder and CEO

Mahmoud has 20+ years’ experience in technology and technology management. Prior to forming Quirkat, Mahmoud, in his capacity as the CIO of Government, founded and led Jordan’s e-Government Program for four years. Other highlights of his career include the positions of CTO at an Interactive TV Services startup in the UK, and Chief Technical Architect with EDS for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

Mahmoud’s in-depth knowledge of the regional video games publishing landscape culminated in the successful release of multiple titles developed by Quirkat and its international partners within the Middle East territory; including the hit PC strategy game Arabian Lords.

Mahmoud is the IGDA Middle East Chapter Leader and a member of the Dubai World Game Expo Advisory Board. He has spoken in many international conferences, representing the industry in the Middle East. His latest talk was at the DWGE in Dubai, and the next one will be at the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2012) in San Francisco; which is the world’s largest yearly gathering of game developers.

Candide Kirk – Co-founder and CTO

Candide has a proven record of leading development teams in the production of regionally relevant game products. Being half-Jordanian, her in-depth knowledge of the region’s culture, language and demographic have enabled her to tap into game storylines catered for the region. Prior to co-founding Quirkat, Candide played an instrumental part as a technology consultant in shaping the CIO Office at the Ministry of ICT in Jordan. She led international cross-Governmental cooperation efforts mainly focused on transferring knowledge and technical know-how to the Kingdom, in addition to her role as a strategic advisor to the e-Government Program.

Candide’s game credits include Arabian Lords, Mythic Palace, Tariq’s Treasure, Al-Moosiqar, Relic Hunters, Basha Card Games Collection, Tawle and the Quirkat EuroScorers game on Facebook.

Candide is also the Community Manager for the IGDA Middle East Chapter.

Rawan Sha’ban – Marketing Manager

Prior to joining Quirkat, Rawan spent 3 years as an Account Manager at Team Young and Rubicam in Amman, Jordan. She had full responsibility for the implementation of integrated advertising campaigns for high profile clients. She then joined Quirkat at the end of 2010 to take responsibility for the company’s marketing department and strategy development process including yearly communication plans.

Rawan graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce, Double Major in Business Administration and Marketing from McGill University.

Joumana Medlej – Concept Artist/Art Director

Joumana began to school herself in illustration and the comic arts at the age of 12, and later graduated with a BA in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut.

Before joining Quirkat, Joumana worked as part of the animation teams of Future TV and Zen TV. Her work has appeared in a number of local and foreign magazines and on regional TV shows.

She is also a globetrotter with numerous published travel articles and photography, and an active martial artist.

Natalie Hijazi – Concept Artist

It was back in the fourth grade when Natalie’s teacher confiscated her table, books and pencil case for an entire day in an effort to stop her from doodling over any surface prone to ink or lead rather than paying attention to her classes…Needless to say it was about then that everyone knew her future would evolve around nothing but art.

After graduating from high school, where she discovered the magic of digital painting and illustration, Natalie left for Florence to study at the Fine Arts Academy, followed by intensive jewelry making and design courses until 2005. She has been a freelance art director, product designer, jeweler and illustrator using both digital and traditional media ever since.

Ghina Al-Sharif – Programmer

Ghina first joined Quirkat in the summer of 2010 working on the upkeep and maintenance of existing code for Fuzztak’s portfolio of online games. She has since become a key player in all development activities undertaken by Quirkat, and her responsibilities now include online, mobile and platform game programming. Ghina is also experienced in 3D modeling and 2D Animation. Prior to joining Quirkat, she had worked in Beirut, Lebanon, as part of Future TV’s Animation department.

Ghina graduated with a Computer Graphics and Animation degree from the Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) in Amman, Jordan.