Paul Darvasi

Paul Darvasi is a game developer, educator, speaker, and writer who works at the intersection of games, culture, and learning.

He is the CEO and co-founder of Gold Bug Interactive, and is a founding member of the PlayLab at the University of Toronto, where he lectures on social media and education, and games and learning. He is a passionate advocate of serious games, digital games for learning, media and digital literacy, design thinking, experiential learning, virtual simulations, and locative experiences. His experiments with game design have included large-scale ARGs, activating institutional archives, interrogating online surveillance, addressing climate change issues, and supporting humanitarian activity.

Paul writes for a variety of publications about progressive and innovative education models, and his research explores how commercial video games can be leveraged for teaching and learning.

He wrote a widely circulated white paper for UNESCO about how digital games can support peace education and conflict resolution, and helped global youth develop games to prevent violent extremism in the Digital Games for Peace initiative run by UNCCT, UNESCO, and UNAOC.

Paul is a frequently invited keynote speaker and panelist, who has lectured and presented at conferences and universities around the world. He has shared his expertise with the US Department of Education, UNESCO, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), Epic Games, US presidential libraries, foundry10, Consumers International, iThrive, and Connected Camps, among others. His work has been featured on PBS, NPR, CBC, the Huffington Post, Polygon, Killscreen, Gamasutra, Sterne, Endgadget, Edsurge, Edutopia, and MindShift.

• Paul.Darvasi@USherbrooke.ca