Leading Pioneers in AI, Gaming & Global Impact
OUR TEAM
Dr. Anneloes Smitsman
FOUNDER & CEO
Award-winning futurist, systems scientist, and entrepreneur. Globally recognized for pioneering work in systemic transformation through collective intelligence, AI innovation, living systems design, and the activation of human potential. She leads the EARTHwise faculty and is the lead architect of the Elowyn game, the AI Alignment Arena, and the EARTHwise and AGI Constitutions. Named among the 2025 Leading Women to Watch™, recipient of the 2022 Visioneers Lifetime Achievement Award, and overall African winner in Human Development at the 2022 Africa’s Most Respected CEOs Awards. She holds an LL.M. in Law and Judicial Political Sciences from Leiden University and a Doctorate in Systemic Transformation from Maastricht University, the Netherlands.
Dr. Kurt Barnes
CO-FOUNDER & CHAIR
Senior psycho-social expert and architect of the EARTHwise Human Diagnostics for Psycho-Social Transitions and a core member of the EARTHwise faculty, with extensive expertise in testing, guiding, and measuring behavioral change across individuals, organizations, and complex systems. Worked across Europe, North America, Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula, supporting large-scale social wellbeing initiatives aligned with the UN SDGs. Registered Naturopathic Physician with specializations in psychology, psychotherapy, and biofeedback. Knighted in the Order of Academic Palms by the French Republic in 2004 for outstanding service. Holds advanced degrees from Université Paris 8.
Berick Cook
LEAD AI ARCHITECT
Lead AI Architect for the Elowyn game and AI Alignment Arena, senior game developer and AI researcher with deep expertise in experiential learning systems. He is the creator of AIRIS (Autonomous Intelligent Reinforcement Inferred Symbolism), a novel AI framework that learns through interaction and adaptation rather than handcrafted rules, enabling dynamic and efficient learning across complex environments. Former AI lead at SophiaVerse and SingularityNET, where he further developed AIRIS to extend beyond games into practical AI applications. His work bridges game design, adaptive learning, and emergent AI behavior, contributing to systems that can evolve intelligently in real time.
Chris Dowell
CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER
Over 25 years of experience in building and scaling products, leading nine-figure initiatives, and delivering award-winning innovation. Served as Chief Product Officer for four startups and led $100M+ engagements for Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 clients, driving strategic product development and market impact. With deep expertise in product strategy, user experience, and cross-functional leadership, he helps shape the design and delivery of player-centered systems within the Elowyn game and AI Alignment Arena. His work focuses on aligning product vision with measurable outcomes and scalable growth across diverse platforms and audiences.
Dr. Mariana Bozesan
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Guides the impact alignment for the Elowyn game and AI Alignment Arena. Polymath, AI pioneer, and award-winning integral investor with a strong track record as a serial-tech entrepreneur focused on leveraging exponential technologies to accelerate progress within planetary boundaries. A prominent alumna of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a distinguished alumna of Sofia University. Author of Integral Investing: From Profit to Prosperity, a full member of the Club of Rome, and a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. Named European Female Angel Investor of the Year (2019) and European Early Stage Investor of the Year (2016), she advises businesses, governments, and investment funds on ethical AI, integral finance, and sustainability. Sought-after keynote speaker at institutions including Stanford, Oxford, TEDx, and the United Nations.
Alex Peka
AI DESIGNER
Lead AI Designer for the Elowyn Tree AI and AI interactive features of the Elowyn game. Senior simulation developer with deep experience building intelligent systems at the intersection of AI, game engines, and immersive technologies. Led and built development teams at Meta, Luminar, Google, and SingularityNET, combining AI models for vision, language, and planning with mixed reality and robotics hardware. Built the SDK team for Meta’s AR headset platform, led the driving AI LiDAR simulation team at Luminar, developed Google’s MediaPipe multimodal machine learning pipeline, and helped build the SophiaVerse AI metaverse at SingularityNET. His work brings together scalable AI design, real-time simulation, and interactive systems to power the evolving intelligence of the Elowyn Tree.
Manu Deenapanray
GAMEPLAY DESIGNER
Youth leader and part of the EARTHwise Games team since the early inception of Elowyn: Quest of Time. A passionate gamer from an early age, Manu brings a unique perspective as someone deeply immersed in gaming culture. His creative input also extends to the Future Humans Trilogy, where he lent his voice and ideas to shape the teenage character Olaf, collaborating closely with his mother Anneloes. Manu’s diverse interests span music, gaming, entrepreneurship, science, international relations, and physics. He is enrolled as a drummer at the Conservatory of Mauritius.Â
Lake Watkins
AI & GAME DESIGNER
Game industry veteran, AI technologist, and founder with over 20 years of experience in deep tech and interactive entertainment. He has shipped dozens of game titles across all major platforms and specializes in designing AI motivational systems that align advanced intelligence development with human stewardship. With a background spanning game design, technology leadership, and AI innovation, he bridges the worlds of gameplay and aligned intelligence. Creating systems that support emergent behaviors, player engagement, and ethically grounded AI dynamics. Held senior roles across gaming and AI projects internationally and applies his cross-disciplinary expertise to the evolving intelligence of the Elowyn ecosystem.
Mitch Apley
EXECUTIVEÂ PRODUCER
Senior filmmaker for most of his career. Brings the world of technologically and philosophically enhanced creative production to the EARTHwise media productions. Graduated from Northwestern University’s vaunted film program, then established himself as a pillar of the Chicago film and advertising community. Directed international documentaries in the Middle East and Africa, and spent over a decade in high-end pharmaceutical advertising.
Daniela Quilitzsch
COMMUNITY STEWARD
Supports the community and partner development for the Elowyn game. She is a strategist, therapist, consultant and coach for global change and evolutionary leadership. Has founded and co-founded more than 10 social projects and organizations and guided over 100 social founders and projects worldwide from, which millions of people have benefited. Environmental and social responsibility, healing and empowerment. Â
OUR ADVISORS
Dr. Ben Goertzel
World-renowned AI Scientist, entrepreneur & author. Founder & CEO of SingularityNET.
Liv Boeree
World Poker Champion, Win-Win Podcast Host, TED Speaker, Influencer & Game Theorist.
Dr. Mihaela Ulieru
Award-winning Professor of AI Innovation. President of IMPACT Institute for the Digital Economy.
Dr. Trista Patterson
Former Sustainability Director of Microsoft/Xbox. Co-founder of the Playing for the Planet Alliance.
Dr. David Hanson
Creator of Sophia Robot, Founder & CEO of Hanson Robotics. Awards from NASA, NSF.
Daniel Mihai
Contract specialist and regenerative systems strategist. Founder of RegenRatio
Rachel St. Clair
AGI Expert, founder & CEO of ServaMind. She created the initial AI infrastructure for the Elowyn AI Arena.Â
Kees van der Vleuten
Global Business Leader. Operations & strategy advisor for a company with €6B portfolio.
Art Iinuma
Designer of EARTHwise Tokenomics & EWA token. Serial entrepreneur & top-tier crypto consultant.
Peter Warren
Award-Winning investigative Journalist: The Guardian, Sunday Times, BBC. Founder of Future Intelligence
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Dr. Jude Currivan
Renowned Cosmologist, ex-senior Business Woman, Futurist & Award-Winning Author.
About EARTHwise Ventures
EARTHwise Ventures is an AI startup building a supervisory intelligence layer between foundation models and real-world deployment. Our core technology enables AI agents to reason strategically, coordinate across stakeholders, and avoid deceptive or zero-sum failure modes before entering high-stakes environments.
Elowyn: Quest of Time is developed in collaboration with our game studio partner, Frag Games. Designed as a fun-first strategy card game, Elowyn also functions as a live AI Alignment Arena, where humans and AI are stress-tested on win-win logic, long-horizon decision-making, and resilience to deception. Insights from gameplay help benchmark new alignment standards for advanced and agentic AI systems as they scale toward general intelligence.
EARTHwise Ventures operates within the broader EARTHwise Ecosystem, initiated by the non-profit EARTHwise Centre, which serves as the educational and research and development backbone of the ecosystem.
