At the age of 17, Massimo was excited about the idea of becoming a game designer. He didn't know exactly why. Naively, he maybe thought that designing a game is as fun as playing it.

One year later, it was time to choose a college. Massimo did not join a game design program. Instead, he enrolled in a BSc. degree in Development Economics. He liked (most of) it.

One question fuelled his interest: "Why are some countries poorer than others?". He looked for answers in political economy, sociology, micro and macro-economics, demography, and many other disciplines. That's when he first heard of the term "Homo Economicus" the figurative hyper-rational human being created by economists. Only several years later he realised the persistence of this idea is in fact, part of the problem.

But one quote by Winston Churchill caught his attention and steered his career choices: 

“We shape our buildings and afterwards they shape us.”.

As simple as it sounds, Massimo realised Churchill was not just talking about buildings, but our environment, the whole world around us. He decided he wanted to learn how to shape our environment, and continued his higher education in international urban development, planning and design in the U.K and Australia.

After gaining experience at the United Nations in New York, life events take Massimo to Thailand. Here he gets an opportunity to teach human-centred design in one of the leading Universities in the country. While looking for solutions to capture his students' attention, engage them, and inspire them, he learns about the term "Gamification". The promise is clear: game designers have perfected the art of engagement, and anybody in the business of influencing others can apply the same design principles and techniques.

He falls in love with it.

He feels he has an excuse to play games again. Soon after, he joins one of the world leading Gamification consulting agencies and gets to work with global clients.

Massimo continues researching and applying behavioural science. He is convinced that the only way to change the world, is to change behaviour. And to change behaviour at scale, anyone should have the tools to redesign their lives and influence that of people around them.

With the intent of bridging academia and practice, Massimo distilled all he has learned in one comprehensive toolkit that combines the core component to change: ability, motivation, attention and memory.

Since then, he has trained over 2000 people - university students, lecturers, UX designers and CEOs - in the banking, hospitality, e-commerce, health and social innovation sectors.
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Massimo still plays games, with her two daughters, Lea and Mia.