Inaugural Lecture: Sylvester Arnab, Professor of Game Science

When education blends seamlessly into our daily lives, the world becomes our biggest playground for exploration, experimentation, and meaning-making. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will expect competencies and capabilities in emerging technologies. However, technologies will be ever-changing, requiring a more holistic and human-centred approach for learners to develop inter- and trans-disciplinary competencies and capabilities towards becoming active lifelong learners.

As experiential learning is brought to the forefront, educators are now creators, agents, and facilitators of change, nurturing attitude, aptitude, and behaviour that will prepare learners for the realities of tomorrow’s world.

To celebrate Digital Learning Day, this lecture drew from research, development, and practice under the ‘GameChangers’ initiative. Games and gameplay provide insights into the mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics of engagement and participation in experiences that encourage learners to act, make decisions, and reflect towards nurturing lifelong creative inquiries. As educational outcomes are achieved, it is essential to ensure a more empathic and strategic approach that allows learning experiences to be configured as and when they are needed for supporting the learners’ growth in their educational process.

Sylvester Arnab is a Professor of Game Science at the Disruptive Media Learning Lab and an associate of the Centre for Post-digital Cultures at Coventry University, UK.

Sylvester is a co-founder of the award-winning GameChangers initiative, which also informed the Beaconing project. To date, Sylvester has successfully won research funding with a total value of £19 million. He is leading the ACES project and the CreativeCulture 4.0 project, funded by the UKRI under the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the Newton Fund Impact Scheme respectively and has over 100 publications.

Sylvester was previously a researcher at Coventry University’s Serious Games Institute and University of Warwick’s WMG. He graduated with a PhD in Engineering in 2009 at the University of Warwick.

Watch Sylvester Arnab's Inaugural Lecture 'Empathic & Hybrid Design of Educational Experiences inspired by Games & Gameplay'