Mark Williams was raised on a 50,000-acre cattle station, educated by correspondence and School of the Air then off to boarding school at the age of 12. Mark spent a year in Germany on the Rotary Youth Exchange Programme then home to attend the University of Queensland. He studied a dual degree in Electrical Engineering and Honours Computer Science

Other than a year as a research associate at the University of Stuttgart in Germany, Mark worked for the next 12 years at the University of Queensland with new technologies like the Internet. He completed the first connection to the global Internet in Queensland.

While working as an engineer he gained a BA (Hons) in Chinese. In 1998 he resigned from his role of Chief Engineer at the Computer Centre to start a new career based in Beijing for 17 years in Product Marketing for network equipment vendors.