The Learning Lounge was founded in 2022 by Alex Sommer, Dan Burgess-Milne, Jasmine Donald, and Peter Bullen.

The Learning Lounge originally operated as a a community drop-in lounge that provided a ‘third space’ for people to build community around shared inquiry.

With the support of Life In Vacant Spaces we ran the lounge for 4 months before deciding that the process of supporting community needed to be bigger than a single geographic location. For this reason, The Learning Lounge closed its doors in the CBD

In 2023 we focused on various teaching and tutoring pathways, teaching meditation and rap in the community.

During this time, the value of gamified learning and the power of game theory as a tool for teaching deep frameworks of understanding became primary, and we began to develop games as tools for education with support and mentorship from Richard Durham.

In 2024 The Learning Lounge partnered with Meepleopolis, welcoming Dean Holden and Richard Durham onto the board. Our focus shifted into game theory and gamified learning.
We collaborated with the Climate Action Campus, Ao Tawhiti, Mind Plus, and many other education providers to facilitate a range of gamified learning experiences.