How a Dubai venture hopes to gamify education and government
Gamification, as defined by PwC’s Technology Forecast, is the
use of a wide range of game design techniques in non-game
environments to motivate user behavior. When I last wrote about the
ways that gamification
can help startups make work fun, it seemed that few
entrepreneurs were exploring the implementation of game
mechanics outside the realm of actual game development.
Serial entrepreneur
Ahmed El Rayes is one of the few entrepreneurs looking to
change that, by bringing the “power of games” to the Middle
East.
After starting his first venture at the age of 17, El Rayes launched several other food and beverage companies in Kuwait before moving to Dubai to launch Gamified Labs, a gamification venture that focuses on gamification consultancy, interactive media, and education technology, spinning out ideas built on the tenets of “engagement, involvement, feedback, and rewards.” In less than a year, the young startup has grown to a team of 12, aided in part by the ecosystem of talent created by Ubisoft’s Abu Dhabi offices (allowing El Rayes to hire “people that are already gamers!” as he says).
One of the team’s most interesting and upcoming projects is
coming out of the education technology (or EdTech) arm of the
startup. The “Educators Club” is the first online platform that
aims to connect teachers and schools across the region. Teachers
using the platform can upload a personal video résumé, undergo
personality assessments, and provide “360 feedback” to one another
to facilitate learning across the region.
The Educators Club also includes a “community” component that helps
teachers collaborate online; the platform is designed to maximize
engagement and feedback. To generate revenue, the platform charges
schools a subscription fee for access to a database of teachers ,
ranked by their activity on the platform (such as answering the
questions of other teachers on forums) which may come in
handy as recent political turmoil may
exacerbate the shortage of teachers in the region.
Helping to reform education isn’t all that Gamified Labs has in
mind, however. Perhaps the most interesting twist the company will
put on achievement will be in the public sector. When pressed on
the issue of “gamifying government,” Al Rayes is quick to
illustrate its advantages in handling traffic control and
supporting e-government.
In fact, Al Rayes goes as far as recommending gamification as an
answer to the Arab spring. In his
words, governments should “[i]ncrease involvement, increase
engagement, increase feedback and create loyal citizens who feel
that their voices are valued especially when they get rewarded for
their participation! Gamification could act as an aid to prevent
unnecessary violent springs.”
This might be a very optimistic view, but that’s not to say
Gamified Labs hasn’t already received requests to work with
different governments in the GCC. Only time will tell what the
future of gamification holds for the Middle East.