Switzerland-based digital education company AckTao has a new application, DRIVE–just in time for CES® 2025!
And the goal: to empower the next generation, ages 25 and under, to gain digital literacy through gamified experiences.
“We are teaching students how to make their digital life more secure,” explains AckTao Co-Founder and CEO Cecile Maye.
In our 2023 conversation, Cecile shared the story of her company and some of the ways their applications empower users through engaging, gamified experiences.
One of their new applications: DRIVE, which is the world’s first digital drivers’ license program.
“We give (participants a) different way to play, and learn through playing,” Cecile explains.
As students play, DRIVE teaches them to watch for “traps”, such as devices which hackers have modified, that could compromise their online security. The program will react in real time, adding new occurrences based on their actions. At the end of each scenario, the program reviews the participants’ actions and their choices.
Then, each time they play, they can level up, learning from new and more advanced narratives.
AckTao is also currently working on additional new programs, including one about online security risks involved in working from home. Pilot programs are in progress, and Cecile says updates will be available on their website; they also have a newsletter for which future clients can sign up.
“We want to have the scenarios (crafted in such a way) that every second makes sense,’ she explains.
Cecile, who will be exhibiting DRIVE in CES® 2025’s Eureka Park startup area, offered a closer look at DRIVE, explained an application that helps users identify real photographs versus fakes, and previewed what’s next!
On this edition of Over Coffee® we cover:
- How Cecile first became inspired to use her expertise to boost digital education through play;
- Some of the milestones for AckTao since our 2023 conversation;
- Some of the scenarios in DRIVE;
- A definition of “deepfakes”;
- A look at some of AckTao’s other programs, both current and upcoming;
- What Cecile considers most fun, from her work with AckTao in the past two years;
- One of the best lessons she’s learned, as an innovator, during that time.