Blockchain:  

While bitcoin has always been a headliner, few recognize its driver technology known as Blockchain. It is an advanced technology utilizing a peer-to-peer ledger of records that is of virtually incorruptible safety. As it is designed to be self-managed, it is highly affordable, barring the initial capital requirement. It can tread great lengths in fixing the apparent intangibility customers feel towards their insurance plans and policies. Due to its unique and secure trademarks, it could increase processing speed, help establish customer trust, and expedite claim processing without falling prey to fraudulence and manipulation.  

Artificial Intelligence: 

While AI needs no introduction, its deployment in InsurTech brings to the table a host of unprecedented gains that can revolutionize the face of the financial domain. Moreover, with personalization now being the norm for everything, AI has much to offer in creating bespoke experiences, helping customers feel discerning, and bolstering their trust.  

With adoption levels and implementation still slow, experts believe that its initial impact will be in the automation of underwriting and claims processes. In tandem with machine learning, it will analyze risks and identify new sources of capital that could lead to new frontiers in checking fraud and money laundering.  

Gamification:  

This is undoubtedly one of the most peculiar and yet promising trends of InsurTech in 2021, showcasing the adoption of video-game-inspired strategies like level clearing and unlocking, performance bonuses, and so on. Although rare, some actuarial companies even deploy their games to promote their insurance-related products. It may also lead to a sense of brand loyalty to the firm.  

Younger clients often duck the insurance business due to its labyrinthine and precarious nature; with this customer category, gamification has yielded the most results. Moreover, firms can utilize the aspects of gamification at every juncture in the customer experience, unlike the other trends that limit themselves to technological aspects.  

Machine Learning: 

Although machine learning is related to AI (while being highly specific), it is only with its integration that InsurTech can achieve total efficiency. While artificial intelligence can improve and speed up claims processing, it is only with machine learning that we can automate it. The power of pre-programmed algorithms will be a great tool in automation using the digital files accessible via the cloud. And its utility is not limited to either P&C firms or their customers; it supports both entities almost equally. In addition, it has numerous other payoffs, like risk calculation, CLV, and PIE computation.  

IoT: 

With the ever-rising number of connected devices around the world, insurers can use these tools to harness data; the open-source data available from smartwatches, homes, and even automobile sensors can help collect pivotal data that can assess the customer psyche. A simple use case is the collection of health data from a client’s fitness smartwatch, which could furnish the P&C insurers with information that would help in policymaking for the said client. Though it has come under the scanner for potential infringements of customer privacy and corporate fraud, this trend continues to thrive and grow with some of the top insurance companies in the US today.   

If you are looking for a Digital Product Engineering Services partner who not only keeps up with emerging trends but takes giant strides in the creation of their own, blackrock is the right partner for you. Browse our website to see more on our FinTech products.  

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In a pandemic-struck world where e-learning is the new normal and students no longer have physical schools to retain their attention, gamification is fast becoming a trend that has education providers jumping on board to ensure students stay interested and motivated in education.   

What is gamification?   

While the idea of dangling a reward in front of learners to encourage progress isn’t new, the term “gamification” wasn’t popular until 2010, and it took another year for it to become a viable trend. The term gamification has been defined in several ways, such as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts,” “the phenomenon of creating gameful experiences,” or “the process of making activities more game-like.”  

Gamification in Edutech  

If there could be a singular significant predictor of academic achievement in students, it would be motivation. A student’s motivation level directly affects the amount of effort and time they are willing to stay engaged in learning. Gamification in Edutech targets precisely this.  

Gamification in EduTech essentially involves creating your learning content around principles of gaming design. It aims to pique human beings’ natural curiosity and competitiveness to drive improved and continuous user engagement – which translates to capturing a learner’s interest and then sustaining it to ensure they stay focused on completing the learning path. Gamification has been adopted to support learning in several different contexts and subjects. It also addresses learning-related behaviors such as participatory approaches, collaboration, self-guided study, completion of assignments, integration of exploratory approaches to learning, and strengthening student creativity and retention.  

Gamification in EduTech uses the same principles that make games addictive to keep learners hooked to their coursework. A combination of the proper increments, strategically placed rewards, and leaderboards are used to push all the right psychological buttons, ensuring that the students repeatedly return in search of that shot of the reward hormone dopamine.   

The psychology behind the success of gamification  

Dopamine – the “feel-good” hormone, is highly addictive. It’s what gives you that rush every time you complete a level in a particularly competitive game or when your parents rewarded you for good behavior as a child.  

Gamification utilizes this reward-wanting, dopamine-seeking behavior to turn the learning process into an active one, rather than the passive one it traditionally is. Learning becomes an activity where the student controls how and when information is delivered, rather than being passive responders to spoon-fed information. Once students understand that they and they alone are responsible for unlocking achievements and rewards, they begin to want to learn more, relying less on the fear of failure or disappointment and more on the promises of rewards (in this case, continued progress in the game.)   

It is imperative to understand how to harness this natural attraction to rewards for course creators to design their learning paths around it and make gamification work for education. Learner Motivation is the most complex variable to control in an e-learning scenario, so tactics to increase motivation are crucial to its success. The more goals students achieve, the more dopamine is released, and the higher their motivation to progress on their learning paths and attain more rewards.   

This dopamine-induced motivation keeps the student hooked onto progressing in their learning path – they want to complete what they started, and they want to retain the knowledge they are gaining.   

The need for human-focused design   

Brian Burke gained a great deal of knowledge on the Gamification world during his stint at Gartner. Inc and even wrote a book about it – Gamify: How gamification motivates people to do extraordinary things. In the book, Burke talks about three main elements of motivation that drive gamification’s success – Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.   

The ability to make one’s own choices, the positive feedback that urges learners to try harder, and the emotional engagement of being rewarded with things of intrinsic value – like social standing or ranking amongst their peers – makes gamification attractive and engaging to students across subjects and age groups.   

You Kai Chou, a leading expert on gamification principles, developed the “Octalysis Framework” – a human-centric gamification design framework that explains the eight core motivations for human beings. His principles highlight the need for design to be structured around the users’ feelings, motivations, and challenges – the things that make them human – to motivate them to complete tasks.  

How gamification acted as a game-changer for an Experion client   

blackrock worked with a leading Edutech services provider in the Middle East to build the first e-learning platform in the Arab world. The platform included the utilization of gamification modules. The platform allowed students to learn their lessons while gaining points for each module covered. The tangible reward of a point system acted as a motivation for students to complete their modules. In addition, the application gave tokens for achievements like silver, gold, and platinum badges to the students for the level of excellence they completed their learning modules. The client noted that the students’ social recognition in their peer groups based on their badges inspired them to better their performance and earn more praise.  

We integrated APIs from Gamify, one of the most popular gamification marketing providers in our application. It influenced the learning behavior of the learner and helped the learning platform improve user engagement and retention.  

After the implementation of the gamification modules, the client witnessed substantial improvement in the engagement rate of students. Students showed a lot of interest in discussing their achievement badges in the e-learning platform & it was evident that it motivated them to keep going. A significant positive result was that students with lesser learning capabilities showed considerable improvement in understanding concepts while using the e-learning platform enriched with the gamification module.   

If you have an idea for utilizing gamification to enhance students’ learning experience worldwide, get in touch with us at sales@blackrockdxb.com.

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