Kam Star is a digital media entrepreneur, researcher, investor and award winning games developer. Creating his first computer game in 1986, he studied Architecture and is deeply passionate about innovation in play, behaviour influence and collective intelligence.

Founder of PlayGen, Kam designs and develops playful solutions for delivering engaging experiences across the digital landscape. He has produced gaming projects for the European Commission, BBC, AVIVA, Eden, UNESCO, McKinsey, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, EPSRC, NESTA, MoD, NHS, Wellcome Trust and many more.

Kam is also the founder of Digital Shoreditch, a festival which brings together the outstanding creative talent of London and beyond. Through Digital Shoreditch, Kam has worked with City of London, London Stock Exchange, London and Partners, Ogilvy & Mather, Pearson, Amazon, City University, Queen Mary’s University, Ordnance Survey and hundreds of other awesome individuals and organisations.

A serious sceptic of homo-economicus thinking, Kam believes that most of us make judgements not based on rationality, long-term impact or self-interested utility, but based on our perceptions of how others are making decisions. Kam also believes that whilst personal liberties must be respected, those who can, must exercise libertarian paternalism where possible. To this end Kam has applied gamification and games to deliver engagement on issues ranging from attitudes toward extremism to teenage pregnancy, from flood policy to climate change and from drink driving to helping young people explore their future career potential. 

When he’s not focused on running a tech company, a festival, a tech fund or looking after his family, Kam is immersed in research. He is currently undertaking a PhD in Gamification. Kam is exploring the impact of different types of game dynamics on group performance in relation with personal traits and preferences, set within the context of social learning and social creativity.