Serious Game Symposium
Serious Games are video games that have a practical purpose in addition to entertainment. These games are becoming a strong focus of study in academic circles, and are being developed in commercial settings for teaching and training, medical applications, and communications. Canada is well positioned to become an important location for analysis and development of Serious Games.
The first annual Serious Games Canada symposium will be held in Montreal in conjunction with the Montreal International Games Summit in November, 2007. Concurrently, there will be a workshop designed to organize a national group, Serious Games Canada, for the promotion of serious game development and research in Canada.
It is our hope, and that of the sponsors, that the Serious Games Canada Symposium will become a fixture in the international scene, and that more specialized subgroups will be spawned and will organize themed national and local events. Academics, developers, clients, and students are welcomed to this initial meeting.
Read the 2007 program of the Serious Game Symposium
Content Coordinator
Jim Parker
Professor of Digital Media
University of Calgary
Jim Parker is currently Full Professor of computer science at the University of Calgary working in the Faculty of Fine Arts. He now works on the use of multimedia and artificial intelligence in very practical ways to remove artificial interaction methods from the user’s view and replace them with natural interfaces. This is to be done especially in games and game-style software, which has the property of containing aspects of almost all modern software technologies. Gamelike software is also very easily understood by the typical user - a lot of care has gone into building game systems that almost anyone can play. He received his B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and M.Sc. in Computer Science in Calgary, and his Ph.D. (Doctor in de Wetenschappen) in Informatics (Informatica) from the State University of Gent (Universiteit Gent) with greatest distinction (met de grootste onderscheiding) or, in Latin, Magna Cum Laude.
He works with Kinesiology, connected with the Sport Technology Laboratory, on kinetic games, which are games that use the physical activity of the player as control input to a game. He is the director of the Digital Media Laboratory at the University of Calgary. The lab is doing work on visual and auditory perception for interface development, animations and computer mediated games for teaching and training, and research in computer mediated theatre, music, and art.
Speakers
Katrin Becker
Educational Technology
University of Calgary - Game Ethology
Katrin Becker was a Senior Instructor in Computer Science at the University of Calgary from 1983 - 2006 and is currently completing her dissertation in Educational Technology at the same institution with a focus on instructional game design. She’s been using digital games to teach programming since 1998 and taught one of the first Digital Game Based Learning courses for an Education faculty. She has recently developed a new approach to the study of game design called Game Ethology that approaches the analysis of interactive software by combining reverse engineering and ethological techniques.
Biddle Robert
Professor
Carleton University
Robert Biddle is Professor of Human Computer Interaction and a member of the graduate faculty of both Psychology and Computer Science at Carleton University in Ottawa. He has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Applied Analysis and Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, a PhD from the University of Canterbury, and has diplomas in both childhood and adult education. His research focus is on software as media, and includes theoretical and empirical work on computer games, including issues of engagement, persuasion, humour, and affective learning.
Michael Gibson
President
Zapdramatic
Michael Gibson is president of Zapdramatic, which produces serious games and simulations for entertainment and life skills development. Zapdramatic is a winner of the Canadian New Media Award for Excellence in Learning and the Vortex prize at the McLuhan International Festival of the Future. Michael is a frequent invited speaker on serious games including The Serious Games Summit in Washington DC and The Game Developers Conference in Austin, Texas. Michael is a member of the elearning committee of Interactive Ontario.
Terry Lavender
Master’s Candidate
Simon Fraser University
Terry Lavender is a graduate student in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University in Surrey, B.C. His area of research is the development and the effectiveness of social advocacy videogames. Among the games he has developed are Homeless: It’s No Game, which has been featured at the Games for Change game expo in New York City, on uMTV, and used in elementary schools, and St. Paul’s Invaders, developed for a Vancouver hospital advocacy group.
Richard Levy
Professor
University of Calgary
Dr. Levy is a Professor of Planning and Urban Design at The University of Calgary, where he serves as the Planning Director (Chairman) for the Planning Program. Since 1996, Dr. Levy has also served as Director of Computing for the Faculty of EVDS. Dr. Levy is a founding member of the Virtual Reality Lab. Dr. Levy speaks at international and national conferences in the fields of virtual reality, 3D imaging, education, archaeology and planning. His published work appears in journals such as Internet Archaeology, IEEE MultiMedia, Journal of Visual Studies, and Plan Canada.
Luke Walker
Director of Education Programs
TakingITGlobal
Luke is the Director of Education Programs at TakingITGlobal, a non-profit organization focused on empowering young people through technology to learn about and take action on global social issues. Since Luke joined TakingITGlobal in 2004, he has been responsible for developing programs and tools to help teachers and students leverage the vibrant TakingITGlobal.org community to support interactive and highly engaging e-learning experiences. TakingITGlobal for Education (TIGed.org) works with thousands of educators and students in 45 countries to introduce safe and meaningful online social networking to the learning experience, and help students develop much-needed 21st century skills. Luke, with Kate Raynes-Goldie, is a contributor the the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media & Learning.
Kraig Mentor
Developer
Concurrent Technologies Corporation
Kraig Mentor is a developer at Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC). He works in the areas of simulations, gaming, SCORM and learning. His career path has taken him from electronic robotic and machine design to software and gaming. Prior to joining CTC, Kraig served as a developer on the Director product line at Macromedia and was responsible for capabilities such as Text to Speech, DVD support, Behavior libraries and more. Education: AAS Electronic Technology, Master Electronic Technician Certification, BS Computer Information Systems, MS Semiotics and Computer Science.
John Nordlinger
Program Manager
Microsoft Research
John Nordlinger got his start with computers earning money to pay for his Philosophy degree at Northeastern University. He was then hired by Digital Equipment Corporation to troubleshoot VAX/VMS and then work on VMS and DEC OSF/1 as a Principal engineer. John then went to at Oracle as Technical Director and then to Microsoft to lead the Microsoft SQL Server enterprise effort including Scalability Day and launch Terraserver.microsoft.com with Jim Gray. John returned to Microsoft to promote CS curriculum enhancement including using gaming themes and technologies. John produces The MSR gaming kit and has been running the MSR gaming RFP. John has presented internationally (US, Holland, Mexico, Chile and China) for the last few years on the potential of gaming to enhance CS and the ethics of game design. John’s focus now includes games for learning and hopes to collaborate with others on developing a game to help young kids with algebra and geometry.John recently was credited for the idea behind using Everquest 2 to teach French - as discussed in recent ACM SIGGRAPH paper - Playing for Keeps: Gaming as a Language Learning Tool. Yolanda Rankin, Rachel Gold, and Bruce Gooch. Evaluating Interactive Gaming as a Language Learning Tool. ACM Siggraph Educators Program, 2006.
Khal Shariff
CEO
Project Whitecard
The CEO of Winnipeg’s Project Whitecard, Khal has over 10 years experience in implementing national online web applications and currently has clients in cultural and scientific Web and 3D visualization, including cafesonique.com, the Banff 3D Aboriginal Virtual Museum Installation: “Northern Lights,” and Project Moonwalk, a simulation of the Nasa Apollo missions. Most recently, Khal was an invited Web 2.0 participant at Nasa CoLab Participatory Exploration Summit, Nasa Ames Research Center, June 2007. He presented on opportunities in “Moon Missions and Web 2.0,” including a webcam rover.
Kenton White
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Distil Interactive
Kenton White is a developer of serious games for standards training. In this role, Kenton applies models of complex human and organizational interactions to game design to make learning material intuitively understandable to learners at all levels. Prior to DISTIL, Kenton led product development teams designing modeling tools and simulations for organizations like Nortel, Bookham, and the Department of Defense. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in academic journals and is regularly invited to speak at industry conferences. Kenton received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1999.
Ben Sawyer
Co-founder
Digitalmill
Mr. Ben Sawyer got his first taste of serious games when he was drafted to work on Virtual U a Sloan Foundation effort to build a game-based sim of university management. That project, and a collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. led to the co-founding of the Serious Games Initiative. Ben founded the Games for Health Project in 2004. When not working on serious games Ben works on his own games & issues involving game innovation. Ben and his wife Olivia live with sons in Freeport, Maine.
Kevin McNulty
Partner
Terris-Hill Productions
Kevin McNulty, a founding partner of Terris-Hill Productions, comes from a background which included over 20 years in process engineering, video and audio production, and industrial training. Kevin identified a need for computer-based int eractive instructional material that would serve a growing market of safety- and litigation-conscious industries; as well, resource-based industries, recognizing the need for continuous training, require training material to meet the needs of an ever-more knowledgeable and sophisticated workforce.
Michel Carignan
Senior Software Engineer
CMLabs
Mr. Carignan has worked in research and in software development in both public and private laboratories throughout his career. He spent nearly three years at Miralab working on a physical simulator for deformable surfaces, and one year at CITI working on a direct access user interface for blind persons based on a force feedback device. From 1995, he spent four years at SoftImage working on the animation and constraint module. Then from 2000 to 2002, he worked at Radical Entertainment on the development of real time physics-based simulations for rigid, articulated and soft bodies. These modules were specifically designed and optimized to be used in video game consoles. He holds a first degree in physics and a master in nuclear physics. At CMLabs he is responsible for the Vortex Toolkit.
Marek Teichmann
CTO
CMLabs
Dr. Teichmann has a Ph.D. in computer science from the Courant Institute, NYU in the field of Computational Geometry and Robotics, working on theoretical and practical aspects of grasping and fixturing - a patent being granted on some of his work there. He has done post-doctoral research at MIT, and was the geometry and visualization group leader at Lateral Logic. He designed and implemented the collision and geometrical algorithms for MathEngine’s Karma product. He is a frequent speaker at SIGGRAPH, and has published many papers in geometry and robotics. He brings his software, geometry and management experience to CMLabs, where he is now CTO.
Huan Wei
Senior Simulation Engineer
CMLabs
Wei Huang received his Ph.D. in 1996 in Mechanical Engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University, China and was awarded Siemens Prize upon graduation from Siemens AG, Munich, Germany for the project he worked there.
He worked in Southwest Jiaotong University between 1996 and 1998. In 1998, he was exceptionally promoted to Associate Professor and received National Science-Technology Achievement award. From 1998 to 2001, he worked as a researcher in Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, USA. From 2001 to 2006, he worked as a Simulation Engineer in Vehicle Systems Development Corporation, Ottawa, Canada. He joined CMLabs in February 2006 as a Simulation Engineer. Dr. Huang has published many papers in vehicle dynamics and simulation research and is leading the CMLabs efforts in wheeled and tracked vehicle simulation.
Hunter Tom
CEO
Glymetrix
Tom Hunter is the CEO of Glymetrix, a company which helps people with diabetes manage their disease and health care payors lower over all medical costs by building communities centered on games to create an interactive, educational program for intensive diabetes management. Prior to starting Glymetrix Mr. Hunter was a consultant at Qittitut Consulting, where his clients included medical, game and financial companies. Before joining Qittitut Mr. Hunter held marketing and strategy positions at several software and telecom firms including Sprint and Comverse Network Systems. Tom has been published on Gamasutra on games and pricing, and has spoken at Games 2006 in Portugal, and the 2006 Serious Games Summit in Washington D.C. Tom is co-inventor of US Patent 6758746 method for providing customized interactive entertainment over a communications network. His current work is patent pending.
Kevin Kee
Associate Professor
Brock University
Kevin is Canada Research Chair of Digital Humanities, Associate Professor, Brock University, and Adjunct Professor, McGill University. He was a Director and Project Director at the National Film Board of Canada from 1999-2002, where he lead various productions, one of which received Honor able Mention at the 2002 International New Media Awards. As a university-based researcher and developer, he has lead numerous productions, including: A Journey to the Past: A Quebec Village in 1890.
Samuelle Ducrocq-Henry
Professor
Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
Samuelle Ducrocq-Henry is a professor at UQAT; she manages a campus in Longueuil offering programs in 3D creation. She presently writes a thesis at the Joint PhD Program in Communication (UQAM, University of Montreal and Concordia), on the questions of lan parties. She is specialized on the question of serious video games (interactivity and interactive storytelling), network, games and society, that she observes as communicational agents announcing the birth of a new entertainement mass media, just between sports and spectacles.
Peter Yang
Game Designer
Ubisoft
Peter joined the industry in 2002, by designing casual games for mobiles and PCs, and has been diligently absorbing knowledge like Bounty ever since. He has been with Ubisoft for the last 3 years, working on titles such as Battles of Prince of Persia and Open Season GBA. Peter got to do some mental somersaulting with My Word Coach in the newly formed Games For Everyone division. He is still seeking a philosophical apology for the divine nature of late-night poutine.
Shawn Graham
Research Associate
Brock University’s
Dr. Graham is an independent academic, a Registered Professional Archaeologist in North America, and a Member of the Institute of Field Archaeologists in the UK. Currently he is a research associate on Brock University’s ‘Simulating History - Best Practices for History Simulations Project’, as well as a staff member for a number of online educational institutions, both as a designer and as a teacher. His research interests, as a ‘digital humanist’, are in on-line media and games for teaching, learning, and research in history and archaeology. He has published some agent-based models using the Netlogo platform of simulations of Roman historical processes, and is experimenting with scenario-building in Civilization IV for his distance education teaching.
Mark Baldwin
Psychology Professor
McGill University
Dr. Graham Mark Baldwin is a psychology professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University, in Montreal Canada, and is the Lead Inventor of the software licensed to MindHabits Inc. He studied Psychology at the University of Toronto (BA.) and the University of Waterloo (MA and PhD, 1984).
He then held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan and the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto. For several years he wrote and performed in children’s television, co-creating the 65-episode series Camp Cariboo. Then he taught at the University of Winnipeg for 8 years before beginning his current position at McGill University in 1998.
Dr. Badlwin has served as the Chair of the Social and Personality Psychology section of the Canadian Psychological Association, and as Associate Editor of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
