Jani Momolu Anderson is a creative dreamer, innovator, and entrepreneur. In doing so, she’s changing the face of creative tech through her trailblazing projects at Elephant & Falcon, a creative tech studio based in Chicago. Growing up in 1980s Detroit without a home computer, Anderson credits her mother for ensuring that she and her brother received quality education in the city’s best schools. This formative experience ignited her path into a career that now encompasses the last 25 years in design. It opened doors to her journey to better understand the intersection of technology and civic engagement.
She eventually received an art scholarship to attend a university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There, she gained access to innovative equipment that sparked her newfound passion for digital art. “That’s where I caught the digital art bug,” she recalls. That early exposure allowed her to develop a varied and multidisciplinary skill set. She now runs a graphic design, UX, 3D graphics, and web development business.
In 1994, Anderson started a cutting edge design and technology firm in Detroit with the three other minority students from that class. Thanks to their collaborative efforts, they were able to reframe what was possible for Black-led creative tech firms across the region. Years later, she started her own agency Elephant & Falcon, which has since delivered web and multimedia solutions to the likes of Fortune 500 companies. Her work has been incredibly influential for the creative technology space, with a focus on diversity and representation in STEM fields.
Even with her thriving corporate career, Anderson still had the itch to return to entrepreneurship. “Corporate life didn’t fit me. I felt a pull back toward entrepreneurship,” she explains. This yearning to return to her roots ran parallel with her desire to push the frontiers of game design. Through her work, she hopes to gamify civic engagement by designing more immersive, emotional experiences that inspire people to take action.
Anderson’s mission with Nabo is to leverage a gamified mobile platform to introduce a little more joy into Humanity’s everyday experiences. What we’re truly aiming for with gamification is just a small poke of happiness into your daily routine. And then something that makes you want to come back,” she adds. Her vision is focused on building high feedback loops that motivate users to better connect with their communities and one another.
Reflecting on the challenges of the digital divide, Anderson states, “We used to think the divide was all about access.” She agrees with her colleagues that authentic engagement isn’t just about access to tech. It requires great experiences that really make an emotional connection to your users. Her book focuses heavily on making the experience of being online worthwhile. “If you want to close the digital divide, you have to make people want to engage,” she asserts.
Anderson’s philosophy of game design is about creating experiences that encourage people to engage deeply. “Gamification is about creating positive feedback loops,” she explains. When you can create an intrinsic value in digital experiences, even in the most minor context, suddenly you’re launching into a positive cycle. More awareness creates more engagement, which creates more public input, and in turn, meaningful output. That’s the flywheel we’re trying to create.
Her dedication to enriching civic participation through play is in many ways a testament to a growing movement within the tech sector. A new crop of developers are using games’ unique power to deliver unvarnished truth and social good. Anderson’s work is a remarkable and inspiring testament to how creativity can fuel impactful change.