By Kunal Oogorah, Product and Technology Director at Visionaries.
On 10 October 2026, Business Heroes received the ISAGA Professional Award for Gaming Special Work at the International Simulation & Gaming Competition, ISGC 2026. The official results name Kunal Oogorah and Business Heroes as recipients of the award.
We represented the United Arab Emirates among eight finalists, alongside entries from Japan, Germany, Poland and Indonesia. We are proud to bring this recognition back to the educators, students and colleagues who have helped us develop Business Heroes.
Recognition from the simulation and gaming community
ISAGA is the International Simulation and Gaming Association, a community of researchers, educators and practitioners. Its international competition gives developers a place to demonstrate their games, receive feedback and share their work with others in the field.
For us, the hands-on review matters. Business Heroes asks learners to run a virtual food business and make decisions about pricing, marketing and cash management. Having specialists play and examine the simulation brings a different perspective to the work we do with faculty and students.
Our award certificate and recognition page document the result.
The three review criteria
ISGC's published review process sets out three criteria:
- Simulation: How well does the game connect to its teaching objective? The activity should support what participants are intended to learn.
- Playability: Can people play it within practical limits? The review considers whether a game preserves its important ideas without becoming unnecessarily complex or demanding too much time.
- Creativity: What does the game contribute? Reviewers look for distinctive ideas and strengths in the games they experience.
The process calls for the same reviewers to play every game. Participants have two hours to introduce its purpose and rules, demonstrate it, facilitate a debrief and answer questions. Scores across the three criteria inform a board discussion, with the final decision based on the reviewers' overall impressions.
These are the competition's criteria, not a published breakdown of Business Heroes' individual scores. The review also aims to offer suggestions for future development.
The ISGC 2026 scientific committee
The published scientific committee includes the five specialists we introduced in our award announcement:
- Prof. Ryoju (Roy) Hamada, Committee Chair. Professor at the National Institute of Technology, Asahikawa College, Japan, and a former ISAGA president. His work includes business gaming and entrepreneurship education.
- Prof. Hidehiko Kanegae, Associate Committee Chair. Professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan, and a former president of both ISAGA and the Japan Association of Simulation and Gaming. His field includes simulation and gaming.
- Prof. Tomomi Kaneko, Committee Member. Professor at the National Institute of Technology, Tomakomai College, Japan. His research interests include gaming.
- Prof. Heide Lukosch, Honorary Chair. Professor at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, whose work includes serious and immersive games. She is also listed as Acting Director of HIT Lab NZ.
- Prof. Sebastiaan Meijer, Honorary Chair. Professor of Health Care Logistics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. His research focuses on simulation, gaming and participatory methods for understanding complex systems.
These are the published committee roles, including honorary appointments. The roster does not specify which individuals scored each game.
What this means for our work
The award is a welcome moment for the team. The practical questions behind the review remain useful in our day-to-day product work: what should a learner understand, which decisions let them practise it, and how can a lecturer help them make sense of the result?
Business Heroes in use at the University of Sharjah. This is a classroom session, not the award ceremony.
Recognition from the simulation and gaming community gives us encouragement to keep developing that experience. An award does not replace evaluation in a particular course; faculty still need to consider learning objectives, student work and the support needed to run a session.
Thank you to the ISGC organisers and reviewers, and to the educators and students who continue to work with us. Their questions and feedback help us decide what to improve next.
To explore Business Heroes for your class or programme, book a demo. We can walk through the simulation and discuss how it could fit your teaching.
