Meet Mina Johan
CEO & FOUNDER
Welcome to DashLabs!
I am the proud Founder and CEO of DashLabs, a certified woman-owned small business (WOSB), and am excited to virtually introduce myself to you. With more than 20 years of active experience in EdTech, I’ve performed in managerial roles across various industries in a way that has come to shape my current cross-disciplinary approach to EdTech product development. As an independent consultant, I would match innovation with efficiency when guiding internal client teams; and as the leader of DashLabs’ team of experts, I’ve formed operational structures that direct task prioritization toward your bottom-line needs with the same passion for advanced product development. We therefore take a partnering approach with every client, task, and project, ensuring that we have a vested stake in the outcome of the end product.
My career has included a number of “past lives” in which I have provided large-scale consulting services directly to organizations as an EdTech Consultant, Instructional Designer, Project & Training Manager, and then Founder and CEO at DashLabs. While I have worked primarily out of Chicago and DC offices for the majority of my career, my stint of nomadism led me to living and eventually working in Europe between 2016-2018. Before my return stateside in 2018, I worked onsite between Geneva, Switzerland, and Lyon, France, as a consultant with the World Health Organization (WHO), implementing and launching its first-ever serious game, in support of the WHO Health Emergency Programme. After this, I consulted with the U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute (FSI) within its Digital Learning Division (DLD), managing two of FSI’s most essential portfolios and its only mobile app development team.
My contributions at FSI were recognized by senior leaders who took notice of the methods I used to increase efficiency, productivity, and transparency when organizing my direct teams via integrated virtual tools and workspaces. FSI tapped me to duplicate the approaches I’d previously put in place so that the department could position itself as the go-to support for operational continuity as part of its COVID-19 emergency response that required a shift to remote work. DashLabs continues to consult with and serve the Department of State with the structuring and development of distance learning and virtual learning environments today.
At DashLabs, we take our role in supporting NGO, government, commercial, and military entities very seriously as we work to simplify complex policy and technical content so that essential needs rise to the top alongside practical recommendations. We recognize the uniqueness of each focus area, requiring a keen eye for detail and the ability to ensure compliancy and operational requirements are addressed within adaptive performance improvement experiences.
To further enable the capacity and quality of service we bring, our efforts are backed by a team of instructional designers, writers, and technical staff that work “third shift” so that our domestic and global clients remain supported around the clock. For added support, we also offer Tier 1 support in form of external team coaching and licensing custom designed templates for ongoing guidance after engagement. Ultimately, your project’s success becomes ours, and we are committed to delivering high-quality deliverables that inform the direction of your development efforts.
Thank you for considering DashLabs as your partner in your next project.
Mina Johan is a Chicago native with a primary residence in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area where she leads a private life with her family. She enjoys nature and being outdoors, exploring culture in her travels, sci-fi, historical fiction, accumulating a wacky sock collection, and dancing, rhythm optional.
As a créole American, she commonly celebrates the diversity of her own heritage and that of others. She founded DashLabs because she wanted to provide for others what she had hoped to find for herself: a place where your individual and collective interests aren’t to be left at the door before entering the office but are to be brought to every meeting, every effort, every thought put into the creative work that is produced. She believes that the best workers are inspired and empowered workers who clearly see themselves in their work, and takes pride in having created such a culture within DashLabs.
Mina (who also goes by the gender-neutral short name, MJ) believes in knowledge and performance mastery, which requires a deep-dive into examining the cognitive responses engaged by learning media. By forming DashLabs, she has been able to ensure that adult professionals–especially those in high-stakes roles–are able to systematically enhance their skills and apply it to the impactful work that they do; work that, oftentimes, requires proficiency in order to save more than just budgets but saves lives.
Publications and Case Studies
MJ’s work has resulted in licensed publications with ATD, the National Restaurant Association (multiple times), the production of multiple mobile applications for the Foreign Service Institute, and countless digital publications developed for clients across the world.
Check out some of our Case Studies to hear more about some of the solutions DashLabs have provided:
- Association for Talent Development (ATD) – Adult Learning Certificate Program
- Smithsonian Institution – COTR Refresher Training
- Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) – Remote Education Interfaces (REI)
- United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps (USNSCC) – eLearning Conversion Projects
Click a Title, Learn More
Other Tidbits About Our CEO
MJ completed pre-PhD studies at the Université de Paris – CRI – EURIP Graduate School achieving her M.Sc. Masters degree in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Research Education – Learning Sciences.
Her research involved conducting a Systematic Review that would uncover trends and considerations in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence relating to their entry points into the field of EdTech.
This research included a meta-analysis of more than 200 scientific publications, resulting in a completed thesis, “Can AI be Your Next Substitute Teacher? Effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence in Supporting Teaching in Distance Learning.” The results of this research has led to invitations to provide private coaching; but, most importantly, it has fortified the extent to which science-led research and development is done at DashLabs.
MJ served as a consultant onsite between Geneva, Switzerland, and Lyon, France, supporting the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), implementing and launching its first-ever serious game, in support of the WHO Health Emergency Programme. The objective of this project was to create a serious game that would simulate crises during an epidemic/outbreak in a way that traditional classroom and field training could not replicate. This effort involved considering the natural human responses to emergency situations of panic, neurological triggers that would need to be overcome and redirected, and methods to extract the different forms stimulation users engage when playing action-based games that create speed with accuracy. Such approaches have proven to improve the speed and precision of surgeons that do not have the luxury of time to focus their incisions with a steady hand, but must develop reflexes that help them to work quickly against the clock to save a life.
MJ helped to set the stage and springboard WHO’s efforts to apply similar approaches to aid in health crisis responses, impacting the lives, quality of health, and safety of citizens across the 192 countries served by the United Nations.
MJ worked as a Business Analyst overseeing 3 Portfolios for the Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, including:
- FSI’s first+ largest language portfolio (200+ active and developing products)
- FSI’s most high-stakes Consular Affairs portfolio (30+ products)
- All products for FSI’s Digital Learning Divisions Mobile App Development Team (150+ active and developing products)
MJ provides expert guidance on systems, operations, professional, and team building, including:
- Executive Coaching/Consultation
- Pioneered technological
instructional models and systems - Agile PM / KANBAN
- Custom Lean/Scrum Operational
Models
9 Apr 2014: “Being a 4.0 Student in Life and Career” at the Association for Education and Communications Technologies, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL
19 Mar 2014: “Importance of Assigning Meaning” at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Saudi Arabia
16 Mar 2014: “Extending Boundaries with EdTech” at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd Univ., Saudi Arabia
Sept 2011: “Social Media in Learning Technology” at Carney, Inc., Alexandria, VA