The Sutardja Center is pleased to announce the Fall 2016 Kabam Innovation Collider Project. Kabam creates, develops, and publishes games via Apple App Store, Google Play and the Amazon App store. The company has more than 850 employees worldwide and is headquartered in San Francisco. Three of Kabam’s co-founders, a majority of their first 25 employees, and 10% of their San Francisco workforce are Cal alumni. The company strongly believes in giving back and has been a very generous supporter of SCET and the University.
This four-week collider project is an open challenge for Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students to develop and present a comprehensive market research and analysis report that predicts the next emerging market hot spot for iOS revenue over the next two year period.
The competition is one of several Innovation Collider projects for this coming year. The aim of collider projects is to bring together students, researchers, investors, entrepreneurs and industry leaders in a learning environment to ‘collide’ and create ventures, solutions, research driven commercialization and opportunities to create impact in society. “Partnering with Cal allows us to continue creating significant educational and innovational programs that benefit students and the community at large,” said Kabam CEO and Cal Alumni Kevin Chou.
Kickoff Event: September 22, 2016 at 4:30pm at the SCET office (California Memorial Stadium, #Rm 122 – 2227 Piedmont Ave, Berkeley, CA 94720)
Register: www.eventbrite.com/e/kabam-
Eligibility: Undergraduate and graduate students with skills in engineering, finance, economics and market research are encouraged to participate. Students should form teams of 3 or 4 for the project. Team members are required to attend the kick-off lecture.
Award: Kabam is offering a unique opportunity for the top teams to present their findings to key business leaders at Kabam, and is additionally offering a $15,000 award for the best team proposal.
Project Description: Kabam develops and publishes games on mobile devices using a “freemium” model. Gamers then have the option of purchasing “in-game” currency that can be used to buy various items (energy, heroes, etc.). In Q2 of 2016, China surpassed the U.S. in iOS revenue. Kabam would like each team to consider, at a minimum, the following factors in predicting the next iOS revenue hot spot in emerging markets, particularly app store revenue:
- Smartphone Penetration
- Cost of Marketing Disposable
- Income
- Adjacent Applicable Expenditures (i.e. entertainment)
- Cultural Background
- Power
- Infrastructure
- Wi-Fi Accessibility