George Kourakos

Director of Innovation @ Kaizen Gaming

George is a serial innovator and VR/AR/Blockchain & Generative AI evangelist.

He studied Computer Information Systems in ACG and started his online career 18 years ago as a UI designer. Some years later he saw the potential of online video and started working extensively on this area. Among others he created 2 online video start-ups and co-produced the 1st interactive web series globally. He continued his journey in the entertainment/sports industry in various roles related to project management and online product. In 2009 he co-presented a LIVE TV tech show on Greek national television.

In 2012 he joined Kaizen Gaming where he led the product design and Innovation department. During the last 10 years he was fortunate enough to lead many talented teams under various roles. One of the most challenging but exciting roles was to create a CX department from scratch and build teams and CX culture across the organization.

His latest role is group Director of Innovation. Even though the last 10 years Kaizen's talented product teams launched many global award winning projects (first in the industry) such as: Voice Betting, Social Sharing, Smart Notifications and the world's first Sportsbook and Casino for Mixed Reality Kaizen wanted to take this initiative to the next level. That's why Kaizen Labs were created. Kaizen labs is a corporate incubator/accelerator that works with startups, universities and big tech organizations. Our main focus is to utilize open innovation frameworks in order to innovate in iGaming by using immersive technologies such as AR/VR, Blockchain, Computer Visions and AI/ML.

His free time is shared between Generative AI, Cross-fit, Tennis and technical/fundamental analysis on Blockchain projects.