Where Reading
Becomes Adventure

Dan Shindell

Co-Founder & CEO

Dan Shindell is a product leader and education technology expert with over a decade of experience building digital learning products used by millions of students and educators. He has led product strategy and execution across K–12, higher education, and consumer learning, with a particular focus on literacy, humanities, and research-grounded instructional design. Dan brings a rare combination of product management rigor, deep knowledge of the education market, and an entrepreneurial mindset. He has founded and scaled a successful direct-to-consumer business and has extensive experience collaborating with researchers, educators, designers, and engineers to translate evidence-based ideas into engaging, effective learning experiences. He is particularly interested in how technology can help learners become better readers, thinkers, and problem solvers — not by replacing human insight, but by amplifying it. Dan has spent his career working at the intersection of pedagogy, product, and storytelling, and continues to explore new ways to design learning experiences that are both meaningful and motivating.

Aryan Jabbari

Co-Founder & CTO

Aryan Jabbari is a full-stack engineer and technical leader with over a decade of experience building high-performance web and mobile applications across edtech, e-commerce, and fintech. He holds an M.A. in Computer Science from Queens College, CUNY, and has held senior engineering roles at companies including CreateMe Technologies and Applecart, where he led frontend architecture, mobile deployments, and large-scale TypeScript migrations. Aryan founded and built Scarce.city — a real-time Bitcoin auction and marketplace platform — from the ground up, giving him firsthand experience shipping consumer products end-to-end. He has also served as a Web Development Instructor at CUNY Tech Prep, where he mentored dozens of computer science students in full-stack development and helped bridge the gap between academic fundamentals and industry practice. He is deeply motivated by the potential of technology to make learning more accessible and engaging, and brings to Echoes a builder\'s mindset rooted in real-time systems, modern web frameworks, and a commitment to crafting experiences that feel seamless and alive.

Kal Dudala

Kal is a product leader and entrepreneur with over a decade of experience at VMware, Pivotal, and Scholastic. He's also the founder of Autobiographer.io, a tool that helps job seekers craft compelling career narratives, and Chalk.my, an AI workspace for K-12 teachers: both tools reflect his focus on building AI that amplifies human capability rather than replaces it.

Gabriel Marquez

Gabriel Marquez is a product and creative-technology leader with nearly two decades experience building and scaling digital experiences at the intersection of product, media, and emerging technology. He has led and advised multidisciplinary teams across studios such as ustwo, Potion, Imaginary Forces, and Digital Kitchen, and has collaborations with organizations including Netflix, Meta, Google, Disney, and Sony. His work also spans education & culture through work for the Smithsonian, NYU, Northwestern, Brilliant.org, the Art Institute of Chicago. Gabriel brings a pragmatic, systems-level approach to helping teams translate ambitious ideas into scalable, human-centered products that engage real audiences to deliver lasting impact.

Benjamin Percy

Benjamin Percy is the author of seven novels -- most recently The Sky Vault (William Morrow, 2023) -- as well as three collections of short stories and a book of essays, Thrill Me, that is widely taught in creative writing classrooms. He writes The Punisher and Deadpool for Marvel Comics and is known for his runs on Wolverine, X-Force, and Ghost Rider. His honors include an NEA Fellowship, a McKnight Fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, the iHeartRadio Award for Best Scripted Podcast, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories.

Judd Ruggill

Judd Ruggill currently serves as Associate Dean of Academic Services for the Graduate College, Professor of Public & Applied Humanities, and affiliate faculty member in the American Literary Translators Association, the Arizona Astrobiology Center (Office of Research and Partnerships), the College of Information Science, the Department of Africana Studies (College of Humanities), the Department of English (College of Social & Behavioral Sciences), the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Social, Cultural & Critical Theory (Graduate College), the LGBTQ+ Institute (Office of Research & Partnerships), and the School of Theatre, Film & Television (College of Fine Arts).

Don Sechler

Don Sechler is a strategic finance executive with over 20 years of experience spanning interactive entertainment, private equity, and investment banking. Currently, he works with Vivrato, the first video game industry-focused consultancy built on decades of deep operating experience, helping developers, investors, and industry partners navigate challenges and achieve sustainable growth through operator-centric expertise. Previously, he co-founded and served as CFO at Blumhouse Games, where he built a genre-focused indie game publisher from the ground up, and spent nearly a decade at Sony PlayStation, where he led finance, strategy, and operations for PlayStation’s third-party business.