Professor Game Podcast

Yu-kai Chou is an Author and International Keynote Speaker on Gamification and Behavioral Design. He is the Original Creator of the Octalysis Framework, and the author of Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. He is currently President of The Octalysis Group and the Founder of Octalysis Prime, a Gamified Mentorship Platform. Yu-kai has been a regular speaker/lecturer on gamification and motivation worldwide, including at organizations like IDEO, Google, Stanford University, LEGO, Tesla, Boston Consulting Group, Turkish Airlines, the governments of UK, Singapore, South Korea, Kingdom of Bahrain, and many more. His work has affected over 1 Billion users' experiences across the world. Yu-kai was one of the earliest pioneers in Gamification, starting his work in the industry in 2003. In 2015, Yu-kai was rated #1 among the "Gamification Gurus Power 100" by RISE, and was also awarded the "Gamification Guru of the Year" Award in 2014, 2015 and 2017 by the World Gamification Congress and the Gamification Europe Conference. He has helped a variety of companies, from seed stage startups to Fortune 500 companies such as LEGO, Uber, Volkswagen/Porsche, Sberbank, eBay, Fidelity Investments, AIG Japan, Verizon, and more. His work has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, The World Journal, PBS, NBC, and many more.

Milica is a master psychologist and constructivist psychotherapist in education, with 5 years of work experience in multinational companies in the role of HR consultant. She started her career in HR in positions focused on recruitment and selection, as well as professional assessment of candidates, resulting in her specializing in assessing the development level of competencies and conducting assessment centers. As a recruiter, and later a consultant delivering career transition programs (outplacement programs), she was able to collaborate and guide many candidates through career change processes. Career transition programs, in particular, required personalized, consulting support and intensive work due to the process of change and the new challenges that candidates face.

David Chandross began his career as a neuroscientist working in the field of selective attention and cognitive science. After receiving his Ph.D. in curriculum and a second masters degree in medical education he went on to become an academic Dean and then held positions in senior administration across Canada in higher education. His work in gamification began in the 1990s and matured in at Ryerson University after which he accepted a position at the Simon Fraser University in the field of gamification under a 5-year, $3 million dollar simulation and advanced gaming environments federal grant. Currently, Dr. Chandross is a faculty member in the Masters Program In Digital Media at Ryerson University where his graduate students participates in research initiatives in gamification. He is the lead for the Game Design Unit for the World Health Organization Learning Academy in Lyon France and has recently completed a big video game project with the United Nations. His current titles in use for training in health care include Carthage, Hypatia, Symponia and games being delivered in the Canadian higher education system. He has ongoing collaborations with Baycrest Health Sciences, the College of Family Physicians, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto and other institutions to further the implementation of game-based learning in higher education.

Orin Davis earned the first doctorate in positive psychology, and is a self-actualization engineer who enables people to do and be their best. He consults for companies from startups to multinationals on hiring strategies, culture, innovation, diversity/equity/inclusion, and employee well-being, and coaches people at all levels on building self-knowledge and developing personal growth trajectories. As the principal investigator of the Quality of Life Laboratory, he conducts research on flow, creativity, hypnosis, and mentoring. Dr. Davis also serves as a professor of creativity/innovation, entrepreneurship, business, and psychology at SUNY Buffalo State College, and gives workshops and lectures globally about human capital, creativity and innovation, and positive psychology. He is a startup advisor who helps early-stage companies enhance their value propositions, pitches, culture, and human capital, and writes and speaks avidly about human capital, creativity and innovation, and positive psychology.

Welcome to the fourth anniversary of Professor Game Podcast! On a Monday like any other, back in November 2016, the first episodes of Professor Game Podcast were launched! And we are here to celebrate that moment. In this episode, we follow my personal journey in these past years, how this all started and much more. Here are cheers to many more years of inspiration for the fantastic community of Engagers out there!

Tisha is a district Student Engagement and Professional Development Specialist and Canvas Coordinator, national speaker, author from Southern Oregon. She has taught Family and Consumer Science for 25 years and has served in various leadership roles in her school and district as well as on Oregon regional and state edtech cadres. Tisha is the author of the book Make Learning MAGICAL, which unlocks seven keys to transform teaching and create unforgettable experiences in the classroom. She speaks nationally on a variety of topics related to teaching and learning in all content and grade levels and hosts the Make Learning Magical podcast.

This is a special episode that we have created as our tribute to the life and work of Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who recognized and named the psychological concept of flow. His theories have been used across multiple disciplines and have certainly been a significant part of the body of work around games-based solutions and gamification. Thank you, Professor Csikszentmihalyi!

Erik is a researcher and developer of Learning Solutions. He's the founder of Play Learn Develop and also a vegetarian. His research and products combine the use of Human Behaviour, tabletop games and Artificial Intelligence/Data Science. Over the past two years, he has worked with the University of Economics Krakow, in Poland, and with Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in Ireland in order to develop his research and products. Currently, he's working on a project to take ToolBox 4 Creativity (his latest L&D product) to Kickstarter. Check this out here: toolbox4creativity.com His research has been shown in various international conferences. More specifically, Erik will be talking about his ToolBox 4 Creativity and the use of Human behaviour data and AI at PMI Virtual Experience 2021 & SPIEL 2021 Educators' Day.

François Boucher-Genesse started his career in the AAA video game industry as a game designer. After his first big release in 2008, he started academic studies to determine how to best use games' potential as learning tools. The results were so promising that he cofounded Ululab, a company that creates games designed to change intuitions on hard-to-learn subjects. Creating truly enjoyable educational games has been his focus for 13 years now.

Mike Rizkalla is a visionary entrepreneur with a deep understanding of the advances made in the field of robotics with an award-winning track record in innovation and UX. He aims to enrich the lives of families through magical tech experiences. He is skilled at developing new business and creating digital products that push the boundaries of what is possible, bringing a unique perspective to projects. His latest project is Snorble®, a customizable interactive character that can improve kids' sleep habits and help them develop healthy daily routines.