It's the Health Points Series 2 Finale recorded at the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge Conference, December 2023. 

We have a stellar lineup for our first ever in-person recording of Health Points:

Jon Hymus: Managing Director of Innerva - https://www.innerva.com/ 

Bruce Elliott: CEO of Memory Lane Games - https://www.memorylanegames.com/

Silvia Lin: Founder of Tycho MedLink -  www.tychomedlink.co.uk

A brilliant discussion and debate on the role and future of health gamification. 

We will be back with Series 3 in Spring 2024. 

Keep gaming and stay healthy, Ben & Pete

We're onto the penultimate Health Points episode for Series 2, and we have a cracking episode. Joining us is Pippa Boothman, CEO at Playfinity. 

https://playfinity.com/

Pippa has a background studying sociology and criminology and previous roles in marketing and commercials before joining Playfinity. 

In this episode, we explore:

1. Rather than focusing on the 2% of kids and adolescents who follow the competitive track for sports, instead focusing on the 98% of kids and adolescents whose main focus for sport, is fun.

Welcome to Episode 14 of Series 2, and joining us is Bruce Elliot, Co-Founder and CEO of Memory Lane Games. 

Before Memory Lane Games, Bruce had a twenty-year track record of building world-class, innovative eCommerce companies. Having competed with Paypal in the online payment world to bring Kodak into the blockchain world,  Bruce has led start-ups and publicly traded companies from start-up to 1 million users and $250M annual revenues.

Memory Lane Games started following a conversation between the co-founders on how to support family members, and now it's delivering over 3,000 cognitive-stimulating and socialising games, with over 100k downloads that’s being played in over 130 countries.

https://www.memorylanegames.com/

 In this episode, we explore:

• Designing ’ frustration-free’ games that includes ‘errorless learning’ that promotes longer-term engagement, social interaction, cognitive stimulation and empowered play

We've landed at Episode 13 of Series 2, and joining us is Wain Choi, Chief Creative Offer at Black & White. 

Wain worked with some of the largest brands on the planet, marketing tech giants health & wellness features and functionality. His previous roles were as Creative Director at Zulu Alpha Kilo Inc and Cheif Creative Offer for OgiIvy and Cheil Worldwide. It was while at Cheil Worldwide he was part of the team that created the advertisement for Samsung's ' Look at Me' app, an app to support autistic children. The 'Touching Autism' promotion won the Cannes 'Gold Lion Award. 

https://www.brandinginasia.com/samsung-autism-ad-wins-cannes-gold-lion-award/

This episode of Health Points is a curveball to our usual guests, as focuses on how to make health gamification more visible and accessible. In this episode, we explore:

• Taking digital products for entertainment and gaming and transitioning them to therapeutic purposes

And we're at Episode 12 of Series 2, and joining us is Dr. Jonny Bloomfield, CEO at Oopla.

Jonny is a Behavioral Health & Performance Coach specialising in stress management, sleep, exercise & nutrition. He has a background in Sports Science, with a PhD from the University of Hull, and started his career as a Fitness Coach at Ulster Rugby. moving on to a Sports Physiologist at the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland, then taking on the role as the first Sports Scientist for England Rugby, before moving on to occupational science roles ahead of starting Oopla.

In this episode, we explore:

Taking international-level Rugby sports science to the front line of the health service staff

The exercise motivation mechanics, of not just points for being active, but adopting a strategy to be active, to get more points, reflecting more traditional strategic board & videos games

And working with different player types, to make sure everyone feels part of a community, no matter if they more of the traditional active ‘gym bunnys’, or those who are starting to discover being more active.

Rolling on to episode 11, and joining us today is Scott Taylor, co-founder and CEO of Perx Health, a chronic condition management service that supports users in developing better habits and a lifetime of better health.

Scott has an academic background in behavioural economics, with real-world interest in its application to motivation and positive health behaviour. He has a background in private equity investment in consumer, industrial and technology companies before he started Perx Health.

In this episode, we explore:

• Taking an empirical approach with game feature identification, design and implementation, plus validating them with academic research

• Creating business models for health gamification services that align to the economic incentives for health systems and health insurers, impacting their bottom line, creates new revenues.

• That’s there’s no ‘silver bullet’ game mechanic. It’s the tailoring of gamification features to create personalised motivation for every user, which can lead to industry-defining engagement and retention stats

We’re at episode 10, and joining us is Geoffrey Kretz, co-founder and CEO of the Kwit app, a digital pocket coach based on cognitive Behaviour therapy to support people quit smoking for good, supporting more than 3 million people to date.

He’s an entrepreneur, user experience guru, and development expert who’s previously worked for banks, biotech companies, and everything in between

In this episode, we explore:

• How lived experience and a personal motivation to stop smoking led to developing a highly successful gamified health app

• The steps to the prescription of medical technology

• And yet, the challenges of regulatory approval and future feature development within digital gamified health products

Series 2, Episode 9 is LIVE!

Joining us for episode 9 we have Dom Raban, who is co-founder of Xploro, a unique Digital Therapeutics platform that delivers health information to young patients using augmented reality, artificial intelligence and games. Xploro aims to reduce their stress and anxiety and improve children's clinical outcomes.  

He is also Chair of Corporation Pop, a creative and digital agency that specialises in mobile app development and emerging technologies.  

In this episode, we explore:

- The importance of human-centred design for Xploro that involves adolescent patients, parents & clinicians to create gamified health services that are fit-for-purpose

- To test, test and test again to check design isn’t just representative of a co-design sample, but representative of the population, geography and cultures any product or service is working to support

- And that it's not just the role of gamified health interventions, it’s also the adaptations of society to support lifestyle change on a grand scale.

https://xploro.health/

Rolling on to episode eight we have with us Matt Omernick, who has over 20 years experience in the games industry.

Matt is Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Akili Interactive, the creators of the World's first and only FDA-approved, Doctor-prescribed video game in history, EndeavorRx. Working with leading cognitive neuroscientists, they are developing the World's first truly therapeutic mobile games to treat cognitive illnesses such as ADHD, Depression, Autism, Alzheimer's, and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as well as a range of additional patient populations.  

https://www.endeavorrx.com/

https://www.akiliinteractive.com/

https://tinyurl.com/E8S2-link1

https://tinyurl.com/E8S2-link2

He has a background as Executive Art Director, and Creative Director at studios including DreamWorks, Electronic Arts, @Lucas Arts, and Microsoft. He has worked on over 20 games, including multiple Star Wars and Medal of Honor titles. He has also taught computer graphics at The Academy of Art University, the Art Institute of San Francisco, and Cal State, and authored the book, "Creating the Art of the Game", published in 2004.  

Quite in the intro indeed. Get ready for an outstanding Health Points episode on:

• 'Knocking on doors', following passions (and finding people with diverse interests and passions) to create the foundations of games and health

Series 2, Episode 7 is LIVE!

Joining us is Michiel Van Eunan, who is a seasoned player in the field of gamification & game-based learning. Since running his first project (The Hunt) in 2003, he made and played over 70 different formats with thousands of people, groups, teams and companies worldwide. Ranging from serious games to escape rooms, Michiel loves to design games that use the immense power of play in the real world. He is a World Experience Organization founding member, was on the Rise Global Top 25 Gamification Guru list, and has spoken many times at Gamification Europe Conference.

In this episode, we talk through:

1. How kicking in a hotel door to find your students playing Nintendo can be the spark to inspire a career in gamification