Meet the team - Ben Shaw

I help both the sales and engagement teams with whatever project or task they need doing that day, alongside finding people who might be interested in Lyfta. Everything from writing up newsletters and outreach, to data stuff behind the scenes which no one notices until they don't have it.

Because I'm in a pretty versatile role helping several different teams, it means I get to work on a different thing every day. It's great for keeping myself interested, learning the ins and outs of Lyfta as a whole, and just feeling like I'm making a difference across the board. I also find it very satisfying to do little jobs which make a big impact. The things that maybe slipped under the radar or just went unnoticed, that when done properly make everything smoother.

I started off wanting to be an archaeologist, but then during my last few years at university I realised what I really loved was sharing archaeology and history with other people, and using technology to do it. Archaeology has a lot to do with spaces and exploration, and I thought the best way to teach that (given that a lot of what we talk about just looks like a pile of rocks these days) was through digital environments. If we recreate archaeology in digital spaces, then through exploring and immersing themselves in that environment, the visitor ends up learning in a completely unique and powerful way. You're not likely to forget walking around the Roman Forum, even if it is in VR.

After writing a very long thesis about all that, I decided to see where I could use it, and lo and behold Lyfta were looking for a partnerships assistant to help bring their immersive environments to schools! Alongside the thesis writing I had a lot of experience helping people buy things I get really excited about (a tea shop, a board game bar, another tea shop), so the role with Lyfta seemed like the perfect fit.

It's a tie between Simon in Tanzania and Ilona and Erzsébet in Hungary (three way tie then?) Ilona and Erzsébet purely because they remind me of my own Hungarian family right down to the tabletop strudel, Simon because he is such a charming and charismatic person, who shows how anyone can make an impact on the bigger things with some hard work and a bit of empathy.

I have ten answers for this. Before I went vegetarian it was traditional carbonara (it still is, I just don't let myself eat it), ramen, or my mum's schnitzel. These days it's probably tteokbokki. I love anything which boils down to simple food prepared well, to me that's the most satisfying type of cooking and where the best dishes are.

Somehow despite having an exceptionally multilingual family and technically being an Austrian citizen, I never really had a head for languages. I can say "Hello" and "Thank you" in quite a few though.

More than anything else I love cooking, but I'm always happy in a museum, exploring new places, reading and writing, or seeing a show.

Beyond that, I embraced my identity as a nerd when I was 13 and never looked back, so board games, video games, anime, comic books and really trashy fantasy novels all feature far too heavily in my life. I even spend four weekends a year at a campsite with 2000 other nerds pretending we're in a fantasy town.

I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, but without question my time living in Hong Kong (and then visiting Japan afterwards) helped define me the most. You learn a lot while living abroad, about yourself and the wider world, even if it's sometimes harder than you'd expect. It helps that East Asia is an amazing part of the world, and being able to take the time to really explore it is something else.

It does ruin food for you though. The worst ramen in Tokyo is better than the best ramen in London and that's a burden I've carried every day since coming back.

Anicca (अनिच्च) is the Pali word for the first of the three marks of existence in Buddhism. I'm not as fond of the other two, but anicca means impermanence, that nothing lasts forever. What we do with that information varies person to person, but for me I think knowing that nothing lasts forever (and that's okay) helps you focus on what matters.

Also the German word for ambulance is Krankenwagen and that's just fun to say.

I was held hostage by pirates once. They cooked us a fish.

The fun part of that story is it looks great on paper but is actually pretty boring.