Welcome, Heroes Of Reality!

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 Founder Partner/Chief Creation Officer of The Octalysis Group, and Chief OP Mentor of Octalysis Prime, a Gamified Mentorship Platform.

Yu-kai has been a regular speaker/lecturer on gamification and motivation worldwide, including at organizations like Google, Stanford/Yale/Oxford, LEGO, Tesla, IDEO, BCG, Turkish Airline, the governments of UK, Singapore, South Korea, Kingdom of Bahrain, and many more. His work has empowered over 1 Billion users’ experiences across the world.

Formerly, he was the Head of Creative Labs & Digital Commerce for HTC, working on pioneering VR technologies. He was also Chief Experience Officer for Decentral, working on blockchain experiences with the Cofounder of Ethereum, Anthony Di Iorio.

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.

Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, is director of Health Services Research for Cedars-Sinai and Director of the Cedars-Sinai Master's Degree Program in Health Delivery Science. He directs the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CS-CORE), a multidisciplinary team that investigates how digital health technologies; including wearable biosensors, smartphone applications, virtual reality (VR) and social media; can strengthen the patient-doctor bond, improve outcomes and save money. CS-CORE unites clinicians, computer scientists, engineers, statisticians and health services researchers to invent, test and implement digital innovations, always focusing on the value of technology to patients and their providers.

Brian did an MA in Somatic Psychology at Naropa University. He has studied and practiced both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism for over 30 years. He also trained with Byron Katie and has practiced the Work of Byron Katie for over 20 years. Brian’s motive throughout his study and search was to synthesize and distill the essence of what makes a knowledge of our fundamental okness possible and easily accessible. Brian has worked with people struggling with addiction, depression, and anxiety. He now works primarily with entrepreneurs seeking relief from stress and overwhelm. He has developed a simple practice called ‘noticing’ that reliably uncovers a sense of peace and freedom and empowers people to grow in confidence in it as their natural state.

Dr. Adam Gazzaley obtained an M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed Neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, and postdoctoral training at University of California, Berkeley. He is currently the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco and the Founder & Executive Director of Neuroscape at UCSF, a translational neuroscience center engaged in technology creation and scientific research.

At Neuroscape, he leads the design and development of novel brain assessment and cognitive optimization technologies. Neuroscape’s novel approach involves the development of custom-designed, closed-loop video games integrated with the latest advancements in software and hardware (virtual/augmented reality, motion capture, mobile physiological recording devices, transcranial electrical brain stimulation). These technologies are then advanced to rigorous research studies that evaluate their impact on cognition, as well as neural mechanisms using a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Dr. Gazzaley is co-founder and Chief Science Advisor of Akili Interactive, a company developing therapeutic video games, Sensync, a company creating the first Sensory Immersion Vessel, and JAZZ Venture Partners, a venture capital firm investing in experiential technologies. He has been a scientific advisor for over a dozen companies including Apple, GE, Deloitte, Magic Leap, and the VOID. He was a Science Board member of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, and is currently a Board of Trustee and Science Council member of the California Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Gazzaley has filed multiple patents for his inventions, authored over 140 scientific articles, and delivered over 675 invited presentations around the world. His research and perspectives have been consistently profiled in high-impact media, such as The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, TIME, Discover, Wired, PBS, NPR, CNN and NBC Nightly News. He wrote and hosted the nationally-televised PBS special “The Distracted Mind with Dr. Adam Gazzaley”, and co-authored the 2016 MIT Press book “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World”, winner of the 2017 PROSE Award in the category of Biomedicine and Neuroscience. Dr. Gazzaley has received many awards and honors, including the 2015 Society for Neuroscience Science Educator Award.

Aleron Kong is an African-American physician turned WSJ Best Selling Author. His comedic fantasy opera, The Land, has eight novels and a main character that is an everyday kind of guy. The series has over 100,000 five-star reviews and has sold over 1,000,000 copies. Chosen as Audible’s Customer Favorite of the Year, it has wide appeal whether you are reading or listening. He has recently converted his novels into a webcomic. The author is also extremely proud of his fandom, which has raised over $150,000 for various charities over the past few years. Thirty-five of his fans have also gotten tattoos of his artwork, and three babies have been named after his characters. His fans are united by the words, “Through Service, Ascendance. Through Dedication, Transcendence.”

Travis Deverell was startled to discover that writing an internet story about an inter-dimensional kung fu wizard had somehow become a marketable skill when accidentally found himself to be a successful author. He's now quietly getting on with it while hoping that no-one notices the entire thing is ridiculous. Under the pen name Shirtaloon he has released several books in the ongoing He Who Fights With Monsters series.

For over 15 years Jeffery has conducted the largest international study on persistent non-symbolic experience (PNSE), which includes the types of consciousness commonly known as: enlightenment, nonduality, the peace that passeth understanding, unitive experience, and hundreds of other terms. This resulted in the first reliable, cross-cultural and pan-tradition classification system for these types of experience. It also led to the fundamental discovery that these were psychological states that had been identified and adopted for thousands of years by many cultures and belief systems.

In 2007, Jeffery conceived of and created the Transformative Technology space. Since that time he has worked to catalyze the space by bringing together makers, scientists and other researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs, companies, educational institutions, non-profits and NGO’s, public policy experts, and investors. He is a co-founder of the first academic lab dedicated to TransTech, its first conference, taught the first university-level course and established the first graduate program in TransTech, and many other firsts.Jeffery is a successful serial and parallel entrepreneur with a 25+ year background at various intersections of wellbeing, media, advertising, and technology.

Nichol co-founded and built Transformative Tech.org, a global ecosystem dedicated to educating, gathering, and activating wellbeing tech founders, investors, and innovators. Today, Transformative Tech has members in 72 countries and 450 cities and their tentpole events online or in person attract 1K+ attendees. They help founders leveraging exponential tech for mental and emotional wellbeing, social and emotional wellness, and human potential and performance find feedback, funding, and friends. They help investors find the best wellbeing tech founders and companies. Nichol helps corporate innovators understand and apply these powerful tools. Nichol curates the Transformative Tech Conference -- the most important event at the intersection of tech and wellbeing (www.ttconf.org).

Terry Real is a nationally recognized family therapist, author, and teacher. He is particularly known for his groundbreaking work on men and male psychology as well as his work on gender and couples; he has been in private practice for over thirty years. Terry has appeared often as the relationship expert for Good Morning America and ABC News. His work has been featured in numerous academic articles as well as media venues such as Oprah, 20/20, The Today Show, CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today and many others.

In 1997 he published the national bestseller: I Don't Want To Talk About It, the first book ever written on the topic of male depression. That was followed by How Can I Get Through To You? an exploration of the role of patriarchy in relationships and most recently, The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work, a practical guide for couples and couples therapists.

Terry founded The Relational Life Institute, in Arlington, Massachusetts, dedicated to working with the general population to help women reclaim their voices and men open their hearts. The Institute offers a training program for therapists as well as workshops and trainings throughout the US and Canada.

As an environmental consultant, biologist, and marine scientist, Garrett Stuart uses his diverse background and love of story-telling to drive a change in our future generations. His passions lie in bridging the gap between Nature and our youth to teach families sustainability and safe farming and gardening techniques.

Gary Moon works and plays at the intersection of capitalism, consciousness and social impact. As Managing Partner, Gary led the formation of Nfluence Partners, a Technology Boutique Investment Bank. Previously Gary ran the Tech, Media & Telecom practice for Headwaters MB which Gary and his partners grew into a top 5 Technology & Boutique by number of transactions before forming Nfluence in 2018. At Nfluence, Gary focuses on managing the firm’s institutional investor network, as well as working with mission-aligned businesses.

In 2018 in partnership with Conscious Capitalism, Gary launched the Mission-Aligned Growth Summit , an annual banking conference, and now a monthly salon series focused at the intersection of conscious business and capital markets. Gary serves on the San Francisco Bay Area board of Build.org, a non-profit teaching entrepreneurship to high school students in under-resourced communities. Gary and his partner Maria have 5 kids between them, ranging in age from 7 to 25. You can most often find them traveling somewhere in the world on various internal and external adventures.

Christopher Stapleton is an award-winning creative developer of innovative guest experiences that define global brands using next generation talent, technology and techniques. Projects include product and venue development for theme parks, education centers, conventions, attractions, rides, shows, events, health services, food & retail venues. His influence crosses over commercial, civic and academic sectors to rapidly transform ideas into real-world innovations leveraging his pioneering work in XR (Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality)

Tipatat Chennavasin is a General Partner of the Venture Reality Fund investing in early stage VR, AR, AI and 5G companies. He has experience creating VR/AR content and became convinced of the power of VR when he accidentally cured himself of his real life fear of heights while developing in VR.

He is an adviser for many VR and AR companies as well as a mentor for VR and AR incubators and accelerators around the world. The Venture Reality Fund has looked at over 5,000 startups in the space and invested in over 40, including Beat Games, acquired by Facebook, and Rec Room, the first VR software Unicorn.

David Perry is a Northern Irish video game developer and programmer. He became prominent for programming platform games for 16-bit home consoles in the early to mid 1990s, including Disney's Aladdin, Cool Spot, and Earthworm Jim. He founded Shiny Entertainment, where he worked from 1993 to 2006. Perry created games for companies such as Disney, 7 Up, McDonald's, Orion Pictures, and Warner Bros.

In 2008 he was presented with an honorary doctorate from Queen's University Belfast for his services to computer gaming.He was the co-founder & CEO of cloud-based games service Gaikai, which was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment. In 2017 Perry became the co-founder & CEO of a customer intelligence startup called GoVYRL, Inc. developing a new advanced brand dashboard called Carro.

Kyle Riesenbeck is Operations Manager at UploadVR, the #1 virtual reality news outlet. In his previous lives, he has been a VR developer, a training consultant, and host of the "Rev VR Podcast".