Yu-kai Chou

Yu-kai Chou (Chinese: 周郁凱; born May 9, 1986) is a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur, author, lecturer, and business consultant. He is most notable for being one of the earliest pioneers in the industry of gamification. He has been a regular keynote speaker lecturer on Gamification at organizations like TEDx Lausanne, Stanford University, Google, Tesla, Lego, Huawei, Uber, Boston Consulting Group, among others. Chou is the creator of the Octalysis Framework and the Founder/CEO of the consultancy The Octalysis Group and the mentorship education platform Octalysis Prime.

Chou was born in Taipei, Taiwan. Because of his father's work as a diplomat for the Taiwanese government, he grew up in Taiwan, South Africa, and the United States. He received his undergraduate degree in Bachelors of Arts in Economics/International Area Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (commonly known as UCLA) in 2007.

In 2003, Chou started his research on gamification and helped pioneer the gamification industry.

In 2004, Chou started his first company, The FD Network, which connected professionals of various industries together to help each other through a gamified system.

In 2007, Chou co-founded Future Delivery, LLC., a company that focuses on gamified productivity and professional development. Its flagship project FDCareer, was rated on Mashable as one of the “Top 10 Social Networks for Generation-Y” in 2009.

In 2009, Chou co-founded Viralogy, Inc., a gamified social media rank aiming to become a leaderboard of the top online influencers. It later launched the gamified restaurant and retail loyalty program RewardMe.

In 2012, Chou stepped down as CEO of Viralogy, Inc., and published his Octalysis gamification framework on his blog to analyze and build strategies around the various systems to increase motivation and engagement. It was widely received, and his work was organically translated into over 16 languages within a year. Chou then started to speak across the globe and teach his Octalysis Framework.

In 2013, Chou worked for a company in Brazil, being the first to use the term Spot Premium.

In 2015, The Octalysis Framework was published into a book called Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboard. The book has also been published in Taiwan, South Korea, China.

In 2016, Chou co-founded The Octalysis Group. The Octalysis Group is a premium design and consulting firm specializing in gamification and behavioral design using the Octalysis Framework. The firm served globally recognized companies like Porsche, Uber, Volkswagen, Microsoft, AIG Japan, Lego, Huawei, eBay, CapitalOne, Avon, Fidelity Investments, among others

In 2018, Chou globally launched Octalysis Prime, a gamified education and mentorship platform to pass on his knowledge in gamification, entrepreneurship, productivity and behavioral science to subscribed members.

It was calculated from all of Chou's work on gamification, his work improved over 1 billion user experiences worldwide through his clients at Microsoft, Lego, eBay, Volkswagen and more. Chou also advised many governments including Singapore, UK, South Korea, and the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Rated #1 among the “Gamification Gurus Power 100” by RISE in 2015

“Gamification Guru of the Year” Award in 2014, 2015 and 2017 by the World Gamification Congress

Rated “#1 Industry Project in Gamification” in 2017 by the Gamification Europe Conference

“Gamification Guru of the Year” in 2017 by the Gamification Europe Conference.

Chou is an avid fan of video games since his childhood in South Africa. He also coached chess for K-12 students. Yu-kai converted to Christianity from Atheism in 2002 and has publicly declared his faith through his work. In 2012, Chou married his wife Angel Cheng at Forerunner Christian Church. In December 2017, they gave birth to fraternal twin daughters named Symphony Chou and Harmony Chou.