Course Fee

$1,755 (approx. £1,300) per student.

Seating is limited to ensure each student has time with the instructor, and registration for these courses will be closed when capacity is reached. Purchasing a GDC Masterclass pass also gives you full access to the AI Summit during London Tech Week. 

Course Description

An interactive workshop for those engaged and those interested in joining the rapidly growing overlap of gaming, health, and neuroscience. We will showcase the multitude of ways by which game mechanics, techniques, and technologies can be used to increase engagement and adherence, promote patient-centric care, and be applied for a wide range of healthcare verticals, from digital therapeutics and diagnostics to education, awareness, and training.

We will discuss and analyze the unique challenges and opportunities entailed in Games for Health, including specific design, creative, production, technical, security, medical, regulatory, and funding processes. A set of best practices, tools, and techniques intended to deal with these challenges and realize the opportunities will be provided. We will explore how healthcare & gaming multidisciplinary teams can succeed in the current market and will have the chance to employ interactive problem solving about individual issues as time allows.

Course Type

In-person, one-day course: This is a single course that takes place at the AI Summit in London over one full eight-hour day with breaks.

Intended Audience

Game developers (particularly designers and producers/project managers), healthcare industry professionals, clinicians, and therapists. Pharma executives and investors interested in a deeper dive into this rapidly growing field.

Key Takeaways

Student takeaways include:

• Both high-level overview of, and detailed case studies within the diverse field of games for health
• Technological applications like VR/AR, EEG, eye tracking, and neurofeedback
• Examples of challenges in creating or working within multidisciplinary teams that combine game knowledge with health care
• Common issues in production, design, governmental and medical regulation, continuing updates and live ops
• Best practices and creative, technical, and project management solutions to effectively overcome these challenges and avoid typical problems
• Funding sources for games for health projects
• Current and future opportunities for careers in games for treatment of myriad issues, diagnosis of disease, training medical professionals, and more

Prerequisites

None.

Instructor Bios

Noah Falstein has been a professional game developer since 1980 and was among the first 10 employees at LucasArts, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He served for four years as Google’s Chief Game Designer, working closely with their AR and VR projects, leaving in 2017 to work as a designer and producer for health/games companies. He served as Senior VP of Content for Mindmaze, a Swiss unicorn doing games for rehabilitation. Falstein was the first elected chairman of the International Game Developers Association and has published over 100 articles and book chapters. He is currently working with many health/neurogaming companies including as Executive Advisor to Akili Interactive, the company that recently won FDA clearance for a video game to treat pediatric ADHD, scheduled to go public in Summer 2022. Other games for health clients include Abbott Labs, Healium, TrainPain, Dopavision, and Level Ex.

Dasy Mandel is an Investment Principal at Sanara Capital, a leading Digital Health focused VC fund. Building upon over 15 years of executive and entrepreneurial experience in the HealthTech industry, Dasy leads investments, scouting, and formation of strategic business alliances. In her previous leadership roles, she led companies from early development to commercialization and turned around underperforming businesses back to market, sales, and deals. In 2020 Dasy founded the Games for Health Israel start-up community bridging between the gaming and healthcare industries, leveraging the unique potential of gaming technologies to fulfill unmet needs of patients and healthcare systems worldwide. In 2017 Dasy was recognized by Frost & Sullivan with a “Best Practices in Enabling Technology Leadership” award for heading commercial and non-profit Cardiology Digital Health projects in developing countries.