Social enterprises could make millions of pounds through social apps, online games and challenges, and other cash-generating ventures in the digital economy, according to serial health sector social entrepreneur and web developer Dave Dawes.

Speaking at a session at OxfordJam, a three day social enterprise fringe event running alongside the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, Mr Dawes said: "I'm asking if social enterprises could be using this space? I haven't seen any social enterprise activity in this space,"

"You've all heard of casual games like Farmville and Cityville," said Dawes, who has founded several education social enterprises for nurses, and who runs the PrepOnline social enterprise. "There are 56 million adults who play these games in the US. Many people don't realise that 10 percent of these people pay money for digital goods within these games, like apples, for example.

"It's a very big market worth billions of dollars. The company who launched these games, called Zynga, got £29 million venture capital cash in 2008 and is now worth $1.5 billion dollars.

"I play World of Warcraft, and will spend hours working to acquire various armour, but there are lots of people who will just log on and pay real money for a sword.

"I found out that 28 billion apps have been downloaded on Google and we seem to be the first social enterprise selling apps," Dawes told participants. He said the app was aligned to the business but was very much launched with a view to making a decent amount of money, and that it was delivering. "You can teach yourself how to do apps. It's not hard," he added.

The session also explored how social enterprises could create meaningful apps that didn't encourage mindless or addictive activities. Participants discussed out whether apps and games should be aligned with the social enterprise or whether they could simply make money for the social enterprises. Others wondered whether venture capitalists would be happy to invest in social enterprise apps, in the way they have with commercial apps.

Dawes concluded: "I just wanted to plant the seed. I can't help thinking there's more that social enterprises could do in this space."

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the social enterprise network, click here.