Gaming and virtual reality allow consumers to connect and interact in unprecedented ways. In this panel, hear from creators who are leveraging games and VR as treatment for mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders, including anxiety, Alzheimer’s and ADHD. From teens to octogenarians, see how gaming and VR can help people manage and cope with conditions.
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Adam (M.D., Ph.D.) is the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at the UCSF, and the founder and executive director of Neuroscape at UCSF. He is cofounder and chief science advisor of Akili Interactive, Sensync and JAZZ Venture Partners. He has filed multiple patents, authored over 150 scientific articles, and delivered over 675 invited presentations around the world.
Adam has been producing innovative digital experiences with the world’s best-known organizations for over 25 years. He’s led digital strategy and production at preeminent Madison Avenue agencies and helped several media and entertainment companies, philanthropies and universities transform how they engage with their audiences. At Brown University, he teaches strategy and design for virtual and augmented reality.
Amir is cofounder and CEO at Virtuleap, a VR startup that unlocks neuroscience to detect the early onset of cognitive illnesses like Alzheimer’s. He previously founded Gameguise, a mobile games studio based in Dubai, and Time Dirham, the first social impact startup to introduce time banking to the Middle East. Amir is a regular contributor to tech blogs like VentureBeat and Tech Crunch on the topics of emerging tech, spatial computing, and startup ecosystems.
Dumeetha is a former BBC war reporter who used mindfulness in her struggle with PTSD. This inspired her to found a company which uses mindfulness and virtual reality to reduce anxiety in teenagers. In a randomized control trial, in the pediatric ER at Maimonides Hospital in New York, Take-Pause was shown to reduce anxiety levels by 45% in five minutes.
