Spencer Striker

Spencer Striker (born 1978) is a Qatar-based American award-winning digital media designer, professor, and podcast host. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Digital Media Design at Northwestern University in Qatar and host at QatarPodcasts.com. He is best known for his award-winning project, History Adventures, World of Characters, which is a fully interactive digital learning series that takes a fresh look at history education by integrating mobile entertainment technology with the power of narrative design.
During his diverse career, Striker has contributed to the field of digital learning, launching multiple advanced projects such as Galxyz, a learning games startup, where he served as Founding Creative Director, and Dr. Sara: Disease Detective, a visual novel mobile game about epidemiology, nominated for Best Educational App at the 2021 Reimagine Education Awards. He has also gained recognition for his podcasts, including Digital Doha Podcast, Qandid Qatar, Qatar in Quotes, the Dubai Wave Podcast, and the Digital Dubai Podcast.
Striker is a recognized pioneer in the education technology industry who has over 15 years of experience in digital design and has produced a range of works that include apps, games, motion comics, virtual reality, podcasts, and original web series. He is also a celebrated keynote speaker who has addressed several national and international talks & conferences and also published other industry-related articles apart from his digital learning products.
 
==Early life and education==
Striker was born and brought up in New England between Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. He spent most of his teenage years in Southern California and Europe, before completing his high school education in Chicago. 
After acquiring his bachelor’s degrees in History (BA) and Radio-TV-Film (BS) from the University of Texas in Austin, Striker enrolled in Indiana University in 2006 to pursue a master’s degree in New Media Production and Design. In 2009, Striker went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison to acquire his Ph.D. in Digital Media. 
==Career==
Striker started his career in 2006 when he founded a game media studio, GameZombie TV, that eventually became a four-time Webby Award winner. Two years later, he expanded the studio at Indiana University, where he became a full-time Lecturer. This student-run game media studio produced content in a $2.5m HDTV studio on Indiana University campus. Between 2007-2013, over 500 students worked on the GameZombie TV project at Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin. As of 2021, the Media Arts & Game Development Program has become a premier game development program in the University of Wisconsin system. 
In 2009, Striker co-founded the Media Arts & Game Development Program at the University of Wisconsin, where he served for over three years while pursuing his Ph.D. The MAGD program has since become a premier game development program in the midwest. In 2013, Striker joined Kno, an education software company in Santa Clara, as a product manager and producer. 
Next Striker served as Founding Creative Director for Galxyz, a mobile digital learning company, launched in 2014, with $4 million in funding from Relay Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Emerson Collective.
In 2015, Striker became an Assistant Professor at the American University in Dubai, and launched the Digital Dubai Podcast, with the goal of providing listeners with educational interviews with local professionals about the latest news and trends in the MENA digital media and technology landscape. He also started another podcast in the same year, the Dubai Wave Podcast. This podcast covered a 360-degree viewpoint of happenings in Dubai with a focus on a diverse range of topics like fitness, music, the food scene, and social media.
In 2017, Striker founded History Adventures, a cross-platform digital learning series. This interactive, multimodal learning experience combines mobile entertainment technology with the power of narrative design. History Adventures foregrounds the power of story, narrativizing the experiences of people who lived in past centuries. The goal of the product is multifold: to prepare students for success in high school history courses; more broadly, to ignite a lifelong fascination for interest-driven learning about history.
Striker, in 2019 became an Associate Professor of Digital Media Design at Northwestern University in Qatar. A year later, he founded QatarPodcasts.com, a platform for developing Qatar-based podcast series, including Qandid Qatar, Qatar in Quotes, and the Digital Doha Podcast. In 2021, Striker released Dr. Sara: Disease Detective, an action-adventure, visual novel mobile game to teach students about epidemiology, supported by a competitive grant from the HBKU Innovation Center.
==Digital Books==
* History Adventures: World of Characters, Empires & Interconnections (1450-1750) on Apple Books
* History Adventures: World of Characters, Revolutions & Industrialization (1750-1900) on Apple Books
* Chromebooks Web App: Revolutions & Industrialization (1750-1900)
* Revolutions on iOS
* Revolutions on Google Play
* Revolutions on Kindle Interactive
==Awards and nominations==
===Winner===
* 2021	Tech Edvocate Award - Best Augmented Reality App
* 2021	w3 Silver Award - Best Mobile App for Education
* 2020	Horizon Interactive Awards, Gold, Mobile Apps - Education Empires & Interconnections, 1450-1750
* 2019	Horizon Interactive Awards, Gold, Mobile Apps - Education Revolutions & Industrialization, 1750-1900
* 2019	Tokyo Slush, Startup Showcase, (official selection) 
* 2018	Step Conference, Startup Showcase, (official selection)
* 2017	Web Summit ALPHA Programme, (official selection)
* 2010	Webby Award - Online Film & Video
* 2010	People’s Voice Webby Award - Online Film & Video
* 2010 	Davey Silver Award – Online Film & Video
* 2009	Webby Honoree Award - Online Film & Video
* 2008 	Webby Honoree Award - Online Film & Video
===Nominated===
* 2021	 Best Educational App, Reimagine Edu Awards - Dr. Sara: Disease Detective
* 2021	 Best New Mobile App, Mobile App Awards - Dr. Sara: Disease Detective
* 2020	 Best Educational App, Reimagine Education Awards - History Adventures
* 2017	 Dubai Smartpreneur 2.0 Competition - Big History Adventures
* 2012	 Digital Media & Learning Competition - GameZombie TV
* 2010	 Mashable Award – Best Web Video 
==In the media==
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==References==
==External links==
* Official Website
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Category:1978 births
Category:American professors
Category:Living people
Category:American podcasters
Category:Indiana University alumni
Category:University of Wisconsin alumni