About

The use of video games as therapeutic tools remains limited in clinical settings and few therapists practice them as a part of their clinical work, even though it is proven that they can be designed to help increase children's reading comprehension capability, cognitive abilities, motivation, as well as attention and concentration (Mercado et al., 2021). This is affected by the available resources as well as the time and effort needed in order to develop such a video game, not to mention that the timespan between designing and developing a game can render the research out-of-date. In this direction, the limited number of large-scale randomized control trials by research and education experts, are keeping organizations and clinicians from utilizing specialized video games in a clinical setting for special educational needs (Mahon-Daly & Jeyasingam, 2021), and this is a gap that we wish to fill.

Solution & Product

Our product is a therapy design software for people with special educational needs; eye movement, focus, response time, hand-eye coordination, time management and much other information are recorded, while the patient reads a specific text, listens to a sound, watches a video, plays a game in general, in an environment where colors, shapes, sizes, speed, rules, objectives and many more elements of the game are fully customizable. Since video game therapy is limited due to lack of large-scale research, our product's research use allows us to collect data in different custom-made conditions and generate descriptive statistics based on the subjects' performance, while giving the user-expert the opportunity to compare results between conditions. This way users can plan their game therapy in order to work on specific skills, in conditions designed and continuously adjusted to their performance progress by their healthcare provider, while their profiles' progress is being tracked.

Innovation & Scalability

Our unique selling proposition can be summarized in three letters; CCA, Customizable, Comprehensive, Accessible. The software uses all kinds of stimuli (video games, text, video, audio) and records all responses, this way the professional gets every possible information. Every aspect in video and audio used is customizable (colors, shapes, sizes, speed, rules, objectives and many more elements of the game are fully customizable), so the tool is fully adaptable. The software's comprehensive nature takes into consideration the modern special education professional and their multifaceted role as a researcher, evaluator and therapy clinician. Finally, the fact that it can be controlled using eye gaze and sounds makes it truly accessible to every patient. When it comes to our scalability, we expect to double our turnover every year for the first 6 years. We begin to project profits during the 4th year, with a substantial growth (at a rate of 2,5) each year after that. In regards to jobs, we expect to have around 50 new job positions by year 6. Our growth strategy mainly focuses on product development. Our goal is to launch new products in the special education market. Our products will be obtained as a result of the AI training based on the data collected from our existing products. We intend to explore unexplored markets as well, like psychologists and therapists working with kids focusing on our video game therapy use.

Traction & achievements

According to European Commission's report (2013), 6% of European population is affected by dyslexia alone and around 15 million kids in Europe have special educational needs. The global special education software (SES) market is projected to reach 3.5 billion dollars by 2027, from 2.4 billion dollars in 2020 (StrategyR, SES World Market Report, 2022), growing even amid the COVID-19 crisis. To this direction, our addressable market includes academic institutions and researchers, while our targeted customers and end users are children with special educational needs, clinicians & special schools, special needs evaluation centers and academic institutions. We have conducted a small market research using one on one interviews and self-administered questionnaires in order to gather consumer feedback on our product and collect pertinent information on the marketplace that proved to us that there is early market traction. We have already received 2 Letters of Intent from prospective customers who belong to our primary target group, both individually and at an organizational level (i.e. University of Cyprus, as well as “Behavior Therapy” learning center in Athens, Greece).

Team & Why Us

Hidden Digital is a company engaged in software development, with more than 20 successful partnerships around the world. Our areas of experience and expertise include game development and publishing (for PC, mobile, tablet & consoles), mobile and tablet applications, educational applications and games, kinect and ntel move detection, VR and AR technology, as well as Tobii interactions. With a combined experience of more than 15 years in developing applications and games, the company’s main workforce consists of highly qualified and experienced developers, coordinated, and supported by a highly skilled management team: 1. Konstantinos Tsergoulas, Chief executive Officer. Domains of expertise: Developer, Graphic Design & Business administration 2. Stavroula Triantafyllidou, Process Manager. Domains of expertise: Process management & Quality control 3. Evangelos Tsergoulas, Chief Technological Officer. Domains of expertise: Software engineering, Cross-platform Development & Leading activity

Funding Needs

Total amount of investment requested for this project is 618,213€. In order to achieve TRL8, the total costs for innovation activities is 519,875€ (419,500€ direct; 100,375€ indirect). Since we have already reached TRL6, 155,963€ is requested for TRL8. When it comes to market scale-up activities, the total costs for market preparation are 462,250€ (390,800€ direct; 71,450€ indirect). Direct Costs* breakdown as follows: (a) For Innovation Activities: -Management (Project/Financial/Risk Management): 82,500€: -Preparation to market activities (Pilot Design, Pilot Preparation, Pilot Execution, Collection of the results, evaluation and preparation for production deployment): 206,000€ -Development/Technology development (Debugging & Fixes, Certification of the final version of the software, Release management of the software): 131,000€ TOTAL costs for innovation activities: 419,500€ TOTAL INVESTMENT REQUESTED: 155,963€ (b) For Market Scale-Up Activities: -Management (Project/Financial/Risk/Data/Communication Management):125,300 € -Market Activities (Market Strategy, Plan & Implementation, Sales strategy & Implementation):265,500€ TOTAL costs for market-scale-up activities: 462,250€ TOTAL INVESTMENT REQUESTED: 462,250€ *Direct Costs include (a)Employees, (b)Equipment, (c)Travel and Subsistence, (d)Natural persons under direct contract, (e)Subcontracting, (f)Other goods, works & services (incl. expenses related to Digital Media, Print & PR, Conferences & Events, Sales Travel)