Ezequiel Santos
iOS Developer & Creative Technologist
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Ezequiel França dos Santos

Ezequiel França dos Santos
Portrait of Ezequiel França dos Santos
Born 1988; São Paulo, Brazil
NationalityBrazilian
Education PUC-SP (MSc, 2022); ICMC-USP (postgraduate specialization, 2025); FIAP (B.Tech., 2018); Escola SENAI Anchieta (Tech., 2009)
OccupationsSoftware developer; researcher
Employer Miniclip (2023–present)
Fields iOS & watchOS development; digital games; serious games
Websiteezefranca.com

Ezequiel França dos Santos (born 1988) is a Brazilian software developer and researcher specializing in mobile software, digital games, and serious games for behavior change. He is a Senior iOS Developer at Miniclip and a PhD candidate in the IADE–IPCA Joint PhD Programme in Digital Games Development, conducting research at the 2Ai – Applied Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave (IPCA) , Portugal.

Early life and education

Ezequiel França dos Santos was born in 1988 in São Paulo, Brazil, and grew up in Embu Guaçu, a rural area outside the city. From a modest background, he showed an early curiosity about how things worked, including dismantling the family television as a child. He received an honorable mention in the Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad for Public Schools (OBMEP) in 2005 [1].

He trained as a mechatronics technician at Escola SENAI Anchieta (2007–2009). Without a computer at home until 2008, he stayed late at the SENAI library studying C and assembly. He began professional work in mechatronics, data acquisition, and metrology at the Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas (IPT) in São Paulo [2]. In 2013, he joined the inaugural cohort of the Apple Developer Academy at Senac São Paulo [3], a turning point from mechatronics toward iOS development. He married and moved to Portugal in 2022 [4].

While working in industry, Santos completed a Bachelor of Technology in Systems Analysis and Development at FIAP (2018) and earned a Master of Science in Digital Game Development from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) in 2022, with a thesis on wearable-based game interfaces [5]. He also completed a postgraduate specialization in Computer Science Applied to Education and Educational Technology at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Sciences (ICMC) of the University of São Paulo (USP) in 2025.

He subsequently began doctoral studies in Digital Games Development at the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave (IPCA) , within the 2Ai – Applied Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, as part of a joint doctoral programme with IADE – Universidade Europeia [6].

Continuing education includes the AI and Games Summer School hosted by the University of Malta (2024) [7], a PhD-level course on Sustainability and Digital Transformation at Aalborg University (2024) [8], and “Introdução ao TensorFlow Lite para dispositivos Android” at IME-USP (2024) [9].

Career

Santos has worked as a mechatronics technician and later as an iOS engineer across Brazilian and international companies, including Webmotors, BTG Pactual, Serasa Experian (DataLab), FARFETCH (Lisbon), and Sky (Lisbon), before joining Miniclip’s SDK engineering team in 2023.

Publications

Santos has published in international journals and conferences in the areas of serious games, mobile software engineering, and human–computer interaction. Selected peer-reviewed publications include Managing Food Waste Through Gamification and Serious Games: A Systematic Literature Review (Information, 2025), Dependency Management in iOS Development: A Developer Survey Perspective (IEEE/ACM MOBILESoft, 2024), Gamified Interventions for Composting Behavior: A Case Study Using the Gamiflow Framework in a Workplace Setting (IEEE SeGAH, 2025), Serious Games and Health: Bibliometric Trends from SeGAH (2011–2024) (IEEE SeGAH, 2025), and Experimental Shake Gesture Detection API for Apple Watch (ICECCME, 2024) [21]. A consolidated publication identity page is available at /publications/.

Projects

Across academia and industry, Santos focuses on exploratory prototyping and applied research. Notable projects include FSK-Arduino-iOS, an educational prototype for acoustic-modem style signaling between microcontrollers and iOS, later cited in a doctoral dissertation at the MIT Media Lab [10] [11]; WatchShaker, an open-source shake-gesture detector for Apple Watch that was formalized into an academic contribution on watchOS interaction [12] [13]; and NFCPlay, a mobile library for NFC usage in mobile VR games, which won “Best XR Experience” at the Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality (SVR) in 2020 [14]. Other projects include wearable game interaction prototypes, IoT board games, and playful applications for sustainability and behavior change. His work spans open-source libraries, App Store and Mac App Store apps, peer-reviewed publications, and conference presentations.

Talks and outreach

Santos frequently presents on iOS, game development, and playful interaction design at conferences and meetups in Brazil and Europe. Selected slide decks are archived on Speaker Deck [15]. He also participates in game jams, academic events, conferences, hackathons, and university visits, reflecting a practical interest in the intersection of playful design and everyday sustainability.

Recognition

His projects and collaborations have received recognition in industry and academia, including an OBMEP honorable mention (2005) [1], selection as an Intel Student Expert in Brazil (2014) [16], a winning team at Hackathon Globo (2016) [17], the FIAP Startup One award (2018) [18], and “Best XR Experience” at the Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality (2020) [19], internal engineering recognition at Miniclip (2024), and placements in game jams, hackathons, and tech-for-good challenges.

References

  1. OBMEP 2005 — SP Honorable Mentions: premiacao.obmep.org.br
  2. IPT public service exam — final result (archived PDF): web.archive.org
  3. Apple Developer Academy (Senac SP program doc): web.archive.org
  4. Personal news timeline: ezefranca.com
  5. PUC-SP MSc thesis (PDF): tede.pucsp.br
  6. CiênciaVitae doctoral profile: cienciavitae.pt
  7. AI and Games Summer School 2024: school.gameaibook.org
  8. Aalborg University course (2024): linkedin.com
  9. IME-USP TensorFlow Lite course: uspdigital.usp.br
  10. FSK-Arduino-iOS GitHub issues: github.com
  11. Tseng, T. (2016). MIT PhD thesis: hdl.handle.net
  12. WatchShaker preprint: arxiv.org
  13. This Week in Swift #118: web.archive.org
  14. NFCPlay project: https://sol.sbc.org.br
  15. Speaker Deck: speakerdeck.com
  16. Intel Student Experts 2014: web.archive.org
  17. Hackathon Globo 2016: saocarlos.usp.br
  18. FIAP Startup One 2018: fiap.com.br
  19. SVR 2020 award: ezefranca.com
  20. ORCID identifier: orcid.org
  21. Google Scholar profile: scholar.google.com
  22. IEEE Xplore author profile: ieeexplore.ieee.org
  23. Lattes curriculum: lattes.cnpq.br
  24. Scopus author profile: scopus.com
  25. Web of Science author record: webofscience.com
  26. OpenAlex author profile: openalex.org
  27. DBLP author profile: dblp.org
  28. Researchr MOBILESoft profile: conf.researchr.org
  29. MEC MEcred profile: mecred.mec.gov.br
  30. A3ES expert profile: a3es.pt
  31. Frontiers Loop profile: loop.frontiersin.org
  32. Plataforma Acacia academic genealogy profile: plataforma-acacia.org
  33. iMasters author profile: imasters.com.br
  34. TheDevConf speaker profile: thedevconf.com
  35. DEV Community profile: dev.to
  36. GitHub profile: github.com
  37. LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com
  38. Escavador profile: ezefranca.escavador.com
  39. Devpost profile: devpost.com
  40. 2Ai research profile: 2ai.ipca.pt

External links

Personal website · GitHub · Google Scholar · ORCID · LinkedIn · Speaker Deck · 2Ai Research Profile

Last updated: June 2026