Sommet international du jeu de Montréal 2008

Oleg Alexander is the lead rigger for Image Metrics and has consulted with many of the top game studios to help them design rigs for their game characters. He is a contributor to two books – “The Art of Rigging, Vol. 2 and 3” - and has taught both rigging and animation. Image Metrics has developed realistic facial animation for over 40 game titles with the majority of the world’s top game developers, including EA, Capcom, Epic Games, Rockstar Games and Sony Computer Entertainment. One of the most recent titles they’ve worked on is GTA IV. More on Image Metrics can be found at www.image-metrics.com.

Marc Alloul, Mobitween’s General Manager, spent the last sixteen years working with both large publicly traded as well as smaller private equity funded companies where he developed and brought to market advanced mobile solutions to some of the world’s leading mobile operators. Marc has extensive knowledge of telecommunications and many years of experience in the dynamic and fast moving international mobile entertainment industry. Marc was in charge of Mobitween’s Financing, Business & Corporate strategy, leading to it’s acquisition by Zed Group in September 2008. Prior to joining Mobitween, Marc was VP International and M&A at Airborne Entertainment where he was instrumental in both acquisition and integration of targeted companies before Airborne itself was sold to Cybird of Japan. He was also General Manager of Indiqu Inc., then a pioneer in the mobile entertainment industry (sold to MForma now Hands-on Mobile). Prior to that, he was with Schlumberger’s Mobile Communications (now Gemalto) for more than 5 years in a variety of countries & senior leadership roles across products and sales. He worked as well for IBM’s Silicon Gate line. Marc has a M.Sc. in Quantum Physics from McGill University, Canada, a M.Sc. in Mobile Communications from the EURECOM Institute, Sophia Antipolis, France, and graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST), Paris, the leading French telecommunications Engineering School.

Luis Alonso is a Technical Artist that began in the television computer animation industry. After making the switch to videogames, he ripened his skills in game pipelines, special effects and tool creation. He currently works for Electronic Arts building tools and solutions to help make tight deadlines a possibility.

Currently a senior animator at A2M working on Indiana Jones for the Wii. I have been working in the Montreal games industry for the past 9 years, eight of which were at Ubisoft Entertainment where I worked on 16 titles including Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and The Two Thrones as well as FarCry: Instincts and Surf's Up. Over the years I have become interested in the design of games and passionate about developing games for the mainstream audience aimed at positive social impact.

Along with business partner Florent de Grissac, Laurent Auneau founded Succubus Interactive in 2002 at the age of 24. At the time, he was still a graduate student, and received his master's the following year. Since then, he has devoted himself to developing the company and has focused his creative team on the advergame and Serious Game sectors, using technologies such as Flash or Real Time 3D with their proprietary technology, Rubytech. Laurent is involved mainly with initiating and managing high value-added projects such as digital imaging, ergonomics and custom design. He is also a consultant to the video game industry on real time 3D technologies

As Director, Interactive for Astral Television Networks, Barbara Bailie is responsible for the strategic direction and production of interactive properties for Family, Disney Playhouse Canada, The Movie Network, HBO Canada, Mpix, Viewers Choice, Super Écran, and Cinépop. Ms. Bailie was responsible for launching Astral Media’s first website, family.ca, in May 1997. Under her guidance, family.ca has now grown to become one of the most popular Canadian kids’ web sites. According to Comscore, family.ca consistently ranks as the #1 kids entertainment site against its key Canadian competitors. All of the websites under her direction have won numerous awards including a 2007 Gemini Award for family.ca’s Life with Derek mini-site and 17 Gold, Silver and Bronze BDA/Promax Awards. She has also been one of the driving forces behind a number of innovative online projects such as two seasons of the ReGenesis Extended Reality Game which have won a Gemini Award, a Banff Rocky Award, and an International Emmy Award.

Since joining Image Metrics in 2001, David Barton has delivered cutting edge facial animation to many video game and feature film projects for clients such as Rockstar Games, Sony Computer Entertainment and Digital Domain. In January 2006, he opened Image Metrics Inc. in Santa Monica, CA and is now responsible for all production based in the US. He is the leading expert in the application of Image Metrics' proprietary animation solutions in the entertainment industries. Before joining Image Metrics, he completed a BSc in Physics at Leeds University and a two-year Graduate Management with a FTSE 100 company.

Christian Beauclair is with the MSDN team and based out of Ottawa. He's been with Microsoft for over 14 years and has a passion for software development and it's different facet. He has coded in Modula-2, xBase, VB, VB.NET and now C#. He’s also been involved in some major software applications both at Microsoft and his prior employer. His passion also extends to games and various collectibles. He was also one of the major contributor to the creation of the Ottawa.NET user community and still sits on its steering committee.

Joseph Biglin is the founder of TrainingPort Strategies, LLC and works with corporations and organizations to help them better understand the opportunities, and challenges, associated with the utilization of "gaming" technology, "virtual worlds" and other technology-driven learning methods to educate their associates. Prior to founding TrainingPort Strategies, LLC, he was a founding partner of BreakAway, Ltd. BreakAway is a leading developer of entertainment games and business simulations that use virtual worlds and game technology to build solutions for real-world problems and deliver game-based tools and experiences to educate and change the way people explore ideas, make decisions and communicate more effectively. Prior to BreakAway, Biglin has spent his career working for major corporations in the Finance, Retail and Transportation industries, in various roles within Training, Organizational Development, Human Resources and Operations Management. Biglin earned a BS from Towson University and a MBA in Finance from Loyola College.

Jonathan Blow is an independent game maker living in San Francisco, California, USA. His most recent game, Braid, was released in August on the Xbox 360.

Award-winning David Braben and his Cambridge based studio, Frontier Developments is recognised worldwide as one of the leading innovators in videogame development technology and design. Frontier's most recent title LostWinds was a US and European launch title for Nintendo's innovative WiiWare service. Rapidly becoming a huge critical hit and the most popular title on the service. Frontier also published Thrillville (LucasArts ) which was the best-selling original children's/family title in North America for 2006. Frontier's work on The Outsider promises to deliver yet another ground-breaking title and a number of gameplay firsts. David is directing the development of several titles which all utilise the studio's sophisticated in-house toolchain. David is particularly well-known for co-writing the seminal game Elite, the first true 3D game and is an outspoken and active supporter of the UK games industry.

Jennifer Burkitt began her career in Interactive at the Canadian Film Centre as Manager New Media Programmes at Media Linx Habitat. There she was able to guide resident new media projects, help build a professional development series of workshops and programme the Interactive Arena (a lecture series with the AGO). Jennifer went on to produce many online initiatives, including Heritage Minute activities for kids, the Canadian Television Fund site and Gentle Subversion – The Canadian Psyche on Film. As Lead Producer for Medium One Productions for over 3 years, she developed several online projects for PBS and Cinar, including the Mobius award-winning website Caillou and Zaboomafoo, as well as CD-ROMS for PBS and The Learning Company such as Jay Jay Jet Plane, Ken Burn's Jazz for Kids, Napoleon and Islam – A People's History. During this time, she also taught Project Management for New Media at Centennial College and helped to develop the curriculum for their certificate program. Her focus became children and youth exclusively for 5 years while she worked at TVOntario, as Manager of TVOKids.com. Her work has been recognized with a Japan Prize, as well as several Gemini, Canadian New Media Award and FlashintheCan nominations. Currently Jennifer is the Executive in Charge of Interactive Programming for Children’s and Youth at CBC where she provides strategic development and oversees interactive production for the preschool, school age and youth sites. She works closely with the broadcast team to deliver work that fluidly blends interactive and on-air initiatives as well as those that are stand alone interactive projects. Jennifer genuinely enjoys working for and with kids; believes in their ability to teach and learn and attempts to build work that enlightens, entertains and gratifies whether they are on the building end, playing or both. Jennifer has a Media Arts degree from Ryerson Polytechnic University and a Psychology degree from the University of Guelph. Currently, she is working toward her Master of Education with an emphasis in children’s interactive and converged media at Brock University.

Tom Buscaglia, The Game Attorney, is a principal in the law firm Thomas H. Buscaglia, P.A. and President of Dev-Biz, Inc., with offices in the Seattle, Washington, area and Miami, Florida. Tom is admitted to practice in Washington State, Florida and the District of Columbia, as well as U.S. Federal Courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Since 1991, Tom has assisted game developers in all aspects of business and legal matters. Tom is a Director of the International Game Developers Association, Chairs the IGDA charitable Foundation and heads the IGDA Employment Contract Quality of Life Certification task force. Tom wrote the chapter entitled Effective Developer Agreements for the book, The Secrets of the Game Business and has written numerous articles, including the Game Law series of articles on Gamasutra.com, and frequently speaks on the game industry business and legal matters. Tom is listed in the prestigious Legal 500 as one of a select group of attorneys dedicated to representing companies that create video games. As FaTe[F8S] Tom is founder and Supreme Warlord of FaTe?s Minions, an online gaming "clan" since January, 1998. As a "hard-core" gamer, Tom has a gamer's appreciation and understanding of the game industry.

Vander Caballero has been the Design Director of EA Montreal since its opening in 2004. While his main focus has been to introduce innovation by changing the game design process, he has also worked in collaboration with Alain Tascan and Reid Schneider in the development of Army of Two. He has also conceived the original concept for the Boogie franchise and he is presently working on the development of new intellectual property. Before joining the Montreal Studio, Vander worked as an Art Director for the FIFA franchise at EA Vancouver. Vander studied Industrial Design at the Instituto Europeo de Design in Italy. Upon his arrival in Montreal, in 1998, he began to work in Virtual Reality & Architectural Visualization. In 1999, along with Daniel Langlois (Softimage founder), Vander co-founded the Montréal Studio ?4-Elements?, where he dedicated himself to the development of games, including 3DO's Army Men and Southpeak's Dukes of Hazzard franchises. Since joining EA Montreal, Vander has been a Chapter Adviser in the IGDA Montréal.

Dr. Caisse believes that great concept art is one of the better finds lurking beneath the misty waters of the Uncreated. He is currently navigator aboard the Volta, an exploration vessel manned by determined individuals armed with sharp tools and powerful man machine interfaces. Dr. Caisse is intent on taking the Volta ever farther to satisfy its sponsors, its crew, as well as his own curiosity.

During his eight years in the game industry, freelance game writer Rafael Chandler has worked for Zipper Interactive, Slant Six Games, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and SouthPeak Games. He's contributed to titles like MAG (Massive Action Game), SOCOM: Confrontation, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, Ghost Recon 2, and numerous unannounced projects currently in development. Chandler is the author of The Game Writing Handbook (which was nom inated for the 2007 Game Developer Front Line Awards), and also writes Screen/Play, a column at Gamasutra.com. He has been a speaker at the Game Writers Conference, and he taught the six-hour master class at the 2007 Russian Game Developers Conference in Moscow. Chandler wrote the script for Monster Madness, a comic book published by Dark Horse. He is also the writer/designer of Dread: The First Book of Pandemonium, a role-playing game of modern horror-action.

Eric Chartrand has been working as a Game Designer for 9 years now. These last four years he was Lead Designer at Electronic Arts on Skate It (Wii), SSX Blur (Wii), NHL 07 (PS2, Xbox, PC, PSP), SSX OnTour (PSP) and Medal of Honor: European Assault (Ps2, Xbox, Gamecube). Prior to that, he worked at A2M as level designer on Scooby-Doo and Carmen San-Diego games. He completed master degrees in interactive media and in philosophy. For the last 4 years he has been teaching game design and level design at l’INIS.

Rob Chase is a MD specialist in Community Medicine and assistant professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba since 1997. His medical practice is in occupational health and musculoskeletal injuries. His teaching focuses on health care in developing countries. Dr. Chase's international health research interests include the health impact of war on community and environment, with a focus on the mental health of children. In the 1990s he began research work with war affected children in Iraq and Sri Lanka. His research focuses interactive games for children and adults with pictorial recording methods called the 'Life Story Board'.

Carey Chico has been in the game Industry for over 11 years and is currently Executive Art Director at Pandemic Studios. He got his start in 1996 as a Lead Animator on Planetfall at Activision. From there, he rose through the ranks to arrive in his current role. He has worked as the Executive Art Director at Pandemic for five years and is focused on overall production management across the 6 teams at his studio. Titles to his credit include Battlezone 1 & 2, and Star Wars: The Clones Wars. Titles under his supervision include: Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Full Spectrum Warrior 1 & 2, Mercenaries 1 & 2 and Destroy All Humans 1 & 2. Additionally, Carey remains active as a music composer for games, theater and film. With over 9 titles to his credit, some of his projects include the games: X-men: Mutant Academy, Civilization: Call to Power, and Battlezone 2, the recent horror film Boo and two recent theater projects: The Seventh Monarch and Twelve Angry Men.

As vice president of product development at Konami Digital Entertainment Inc., Brian Christian oversees all aspects of product management, product planning and studio acquisition. Christian supervises the growing internal production team, as well as relationships with the external development community. His long-standing relationships with top development studios, worldwide, will allow Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. to develop quality interactive entertainment. Christian's leadership is extremely important as the company builds an internal studio network to develop its key franchises. Christian joined Konami Digitial Entertainment in 2007, after more than 13 years' experience in operations, product, and revenue management at leading developers and publishers of interactive entertainment software including THQ Inc., Take-Two Interactive, D3Publisher of America and Interplay Productions. Prior to enterting the video games industry, Christian worked as a producer and engineer in the music industry. He has received 15 platinum and 22 gold records for his work on various albums including The Wall by Pink Floyd

Brett Close is known for consistently delivering highly successful products by building exceptionally effective teams and organizations across a variety of industries, including: Video games and entertainment products, scientific/business software, and pharmaceutical/bio-tech products. Brett joins 38 Studios from Midway Games, where he served as head of the Austin studio on BlackSite: Area51, and as Global Director of Midway Production. Brett was a driving force behind the renowned Medal of Honor franchise, operating as the Senior Director of Development of the Electronic Arts, Los Angeles studio. At VR-1/Jaleco Entertainment in Boulder, Colorado, Brett was the Studio General Manager, Senior Producer, and Engineering Director leading the delivery of a variety of products including Nightcaster, a Microsoft Xbox launch title. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science, and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Kansas and studied philosophy and chemistry at Universität Dortmund in Germany. An avid athlete, musician, and environmentalist, Brett is a respected industry leader in encouraging and establishing real work-life balance in the game development environment.

Heather Conover is a Champlain College sophomore, native to the Boston area and studying Video Game Design. Conover works as a designer on the United Nation’s Game to End Gender Violence project at Champlain College’s Emergent Media Center, as well as a virtual business application with IBM.

Chris has worked on A, AA and AAA since 1994 at EA, Maxis, Ubisoft and A2M. He is currently developing online games concept while subversively injecting socially positive content and games rules. He is also serving on the Board of Directors for the IGDA. In his spare time, he opines loudly about the many facets of the universe that could use a good game designer’s touch, which delights absolutely everyone in earshot.

With over 15 years in the technology sector. Stéphane D’Astous has made a name for himself in the gaming industry with his expertise in strategic and operational management, recruitment and mentoring. His management skills have contributed to the growth of several companies. Stéphane began his career in project management in the aeronautics industry, working for companies like Bombardier and CAE. Over the last few years, he held important positions at Montreal video game companies, allowing him to combine his passion for video games with his career. As the director of operations for Ubisoft Montreal, Stéphane skilfully managed the rapid growth of the company, which grew from 450 to 1,450 employees in three years. He also worked as a chief executive officer for Babel Games Services, an important subcontractor in the gaming industry that was recently established in Quebec. Born in Montreal, Stéphane graduated from the University of Montreal in Industrial Design and holds a Master degree in Business Management from École des hautes études commerciales, and a Certificate in Project Management from the Project Management Institute. He is the father of three teenagers, Tamara, Antoine and Vincent, with whom he shares his passion for video games.

In his role as Studio General Manager, Edoardo De Martin is responsible for people, culture and operational excellence at Vancouver-based, third party developer, Next Level Games (NLG). A 12-year veteran of the video game and technology industries he previously worked in leadership positions at Rogers Telecommunications, Black Box Games and Electronic Arts where he developed, managed, and coached award winning teams. With a double major in Economics & Geography - with a focus urban planning - from Simon Fraser University in BC, Edoardo understands what it takes to build a community. This philosophy has been his guiding principle at NLG where the culture is based on forging authentic relationships with individuals and where personal development, learning and constructive conflict shape the work environment. Under De Martin’s influence, NLG developed an organizational approach that goes against the industry grain to create an environment that promotes stability, exceptional products and engaged people. The studio has won two awards from WorkLife BC, is on Canada’s Top 100 companies list and was recently named the Best Company to Work for in BC. NLG attracts and retains key talent into a company that invests in its people, itself and the world around it.

Jason is the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a professional organization committed to advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game developers. Jason and the IGDA focus on connecting developers with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community - such as quality of life, creative freedoms, workforce diversity and credit standards. As the spokesperson for the IGDA, Jason has appeared in countless news outlets and has spoken at conferences around the world.

DeMarle created and directs Champlain's Emergent Media Center dedicated to student technology innovation and is former founding director of the Multimedia & Graphic Design and Game Development baccalaureate programs. DeMarle was a 2004 Apple Computer Distinguished Educator and this month was elected to the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors.

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Linda Diffey is a Research Associate at the Centre for Aboriginal Health Research in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba. Her research interests include the use of media and gaming technologies to deliver health information to the Canadian Aboriginal populations. Most recently she has collaborated with Dr. Robert Chase to explore the development of a computer interface for facilitating life story interviews with refugee and war affected individuals.

George Dolbier is in the position of CTO for IBM's team focusing Games and Digital Entertainment As a technical executive with global responsibilities George works with both Entertainment Industry Giants, as well independent and startup studios to meet the challenges of growing demand, convergence of media types, and growing requirements for more and higher quality content. Companies who are building virtual worlds, Massively Multiplayer Games (MMOG) Interactive Entertainment, Computer Animation for Television, Film, Advertising, or Enterprises looking to reap the benefits from simulation and immersive technologies seek the guidance of Mr. Dolbier. His unique and insightful perspective was gained through from diverse 20+ year professional carrier. The diversity comes from a career that includes notable technical and management roles. Mr. Dolbier technical diversity was gained through roles at Oracle, Informix and Sequent Computer Systems. Just prior to joining IBM Mr. Dolbier was Director of Engineering for a small .COM, where he lead the development of Game software, Game Devices and web enhanced consumer electronics. George has also been key in several IBM emerging markets initiatives such as service providers, Linux and Open Source. Mr. Dolbier is a sought after speaker and panelist most notably at the Game Developers Conference, FMX, AGC, MIGS to name a few.

Chris Doran is Founder and COO of Geomerics. He founded Geomerics in 2005 after 15 years at Cambridge University as an Advanced Research Fellow in applied mathematics. Chris is a regular speaker at major international conferences, and is the author of a major book on geometry and of over 50 papers spanning a wide range of subjects. In 2003 he was a finalist in the Joint Research Council Business Plan competition, and was made a Royal Society of E dinburgh Enterprise Fellow in 2004. In 2008 Chris was named one of the 25 people reshaping game development by Develop Magazine.

Jean-Sébastien “Dub” Duberger has a fascination with guns and digital brushes. His favourite approach is creative self-destruction: styles bastardized or transformed, habits crushed or retooled, artistic ego shot or whipped into submission. Dub is merciless regarding his work, and aspires to be a very different and much stronger artist next year. And the next. And the next.

Quinn has been making games for 25 years, the last 15 of which have been professional. She is currently a Senior Engineer at Pandemic Studios, working on the exciting new open-world title Saboteur. In her spare time, she writes indie games, races cars, and berates her friends with sarcasm.

Johan Eile currently works as Director of ICT at Montreal International, a corporate and economic development organization mandated to help foreign owned corporations to grow and prosper in Montreal. With a global mandate, Johan works with video game companies from all corners of the world to maximize all aspects of their operations in the greater Montreal area. Further, as a minority owner of a number of local and international content companies, Johan adds a successful track record in business development and operations. A bonafide small wave surfer and accomplished Wii bowler, Johan spends his downtime searching for higher scores and what will most likely be even smaller waves.

Geoff Evans is a Senior Tools Programmer at Insomniac Games in Burbank, CA. In his 5 years at Insomniac he has been a part of developing the core tools infrastructure for Insomniac's Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 titles. Geoff has implemented many critical systems in Insomniac's world editor and content pipeline. Key works include: * Launching and maintaining Insomniac's open source project 'Nocturnal Initiative'. * Insomniac's recently open sourced C++ Reflection system which provides automated serialization, object introspection, and data driven user interfaces. * Insomniac's C++ delegate/event system, undo/redo methodology, world editor scene graph development, and tools release methodology. Prior to Insomniac Games, Geoff Evans was a programmer for Motion Analysis Corporation in charge of developing plugins to integrate graphics software with Motion Analysis' motion capture software pipeline.

As President of Nerd Corps, Ken Faier is responsible for the management and growth of the company's roster of intellectual properties, including financing, distribution, licensing and merchandising strategy as well as spearheading the expansion of the company's infrastructure in order to become a full service global player in the children's market. Before joining Nerd Corps, Faier was Vice President of Production and Distribution for the children's division at Alliance Atlantis. During his five years with the company, Faier executive produced a number of children's series including Henry's World, Ace Lightning, Dragon Booster and Lunar Jim. Nerd Corps Entertainment is a full service intellectual property development and digital animation and interactive studio based out of Vancouver, Canada. Formed in 2002, the company's primary objective is to break free from the preconceived boundaries of 3-D animation in order to produce stylistically innovative animated franchises 'from concept all the way to final delivery' based on a solid foundation of great storytelling. Working in a state of the art studio with more than 120 highly skilled artists and production staff, the company is well equipped to provide creative input, expertise and execution on all aspects of the development and production of film, television and interactive properties, including promotional materials and creative services for merchandising and licensing partners.

Dr. Fergenbaum is a tenured professor at Sheridan College where he teaches health/exercise courses. He completed an undergraduate and master’s degree in Kinesiology and a Ph.D. in physical rehabilitation (Queen’s university). Dr. Fergenbaum’s current research interests involve the advancement of interactive computer game technology for rehabilitation applications in hospitals and private medical clinics. His research has a strong emphasis on commercial applications of newly invented rehabilitation technologies. As a result, his research team is a collaboration involving university/college researchers as well as private industry. Dr. Fergenbaum also has a strong interest in the application of serious games for home care rehabilitation and he is the co-owner of Freedom Home Health Services, a company providing medical and non-medical home care serving the Oakville, Mississauga, Halton Hills and surrounding Guelph areas in Ontario.

Business Manager of Project Whitecard Inc.. Following an early start in outdoor leadership at the YMCA, a few years operating Rock Hard Wear, instructing rock climbing and whitewater kayaking, Fraser has spent the past 12 years in General Management, Marketing and Operations in the medical device and software industry. Project Whitecard is an award winning producer of 3D immersive virtual environments, games, and 2.0 social networking applications. Managing finances and projects at Project Whitecard has given Don a deep appreciation for collaboration and the great industry partners and network that we have.

As Executive Producer for Microsoft Games Studios, Laura Fryer is responsible for shipping great games for the Xbox and Windows platforms. Most recently she was the Executive Producer on Gears of War and she's currently focused on the sequel, Gears of War 2. An industry veteran, Laura was one of the first members of Microsoft Game Studios (MGS) in 1995. As a producer, she shipped several games, including the classic Crimson Skies, and Fighter Ace, Microsoft's first massively multiplayer game. She also conceived and produced Microsoft's first release of Zone.com. Prior to her return to MGS in 2004, Laura was the Director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, and a founding member of the Xbox project, which she joined in May 2000. During her tenure, she cultivated worldwide Xbox Developer Support, created the Xbox Advisory Board, and ran Xbox game developer events around the globe. Named one of The Hollywood Reporter's "Top 12 Most Influential Women in Gaming" and one of Next Generation's "Game Industry's 100 Most Influential Women", Laura is dedicated to fostering diversity in the games industry. An avid gamer, Laura enjoys taking "video game vacations" to play video games in marathon all-day sessions. Her other hobbies include reading, gardening, juggling, and playing with her dog Jazz.

As the VP Marketing and Content for Cinetik Studio, Eric is focused on delivering highly efficient game-based training and simulation systems to companies in the Health and Defense industries worldwide. Between 2003 and 2007, Eric was the Marketing and Communications Director for Sarbakan, one of North America’s largest casual game development studios. As a former video game journalist, he also covered most aspects of the video game industry between 1997 and 2003. Eric’s credentials on the academic side are a Master’s degree in Linguistics and a B.A. in French Studies. He taught linguistics at the undergraduate level and published many articles on cognitive semantics in scientific papers. Eric is a founding member of the Quebec City Chapter of the IGDA. He is also a founding member of the Canadian-American Alliance for Simulation, Training, and Education (CAASTLE). Eric has been a speaker in the MODSIM conference as well as in the Montreal Game Summit. His areas of expertise include serious games design, game criticism, and marketing.

Thomas Gaudy studied at the National School of Video Game and Interactive Media (ENJMIN – France) in order to become a game usability specialist. He starts to work in the field of mainstream game with Elsewhere Entertainment and Neko Entertainment then he considerate more experimental games and start to works with laboratories (IRCAM, CEDRIC CNAM). He has more than five years of experience in the field of game usability and focuses his work on game accessibility. Accessibility can be useful for casual gamers, sighted gamers, blind gamers and motor impaired gamers. Thomas Gaudy now has a PhD entitled “Video Games for visually impaired people”, under the direction of Stéphane Natkin (director of ENJMIN) and Dominique Archambault (researcher specialised in the field of web and game accessibility for visually impaired users). During this thesis, he has been a teacher in the ENJMIN and the ITIN schools to increase students’ awareness of accessibility topics. He has been developing five commercial audio games which he is testing with users: three musical maze games, another one which is playable with a mouse, while the last one combines accessibility for visually impaired people and for people with motor impairment.

Brian George is a senior year Electronic Game Design student at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. George also works for the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College as a designer on an Information Literacy game and as lead designer on one of UNPFA funded games to end gender violence.

Dean Giberson was a tool developer for 4 years working on several Star Wars game titles. After a short period teaching and contracting he returned to professional game development working on Sports titles for 3 years. He is currently employed at Slant Six Games working on "SOCOM: Confrontation" developing the next generation of workflow tools.

Chief partner, Intellectual property, information technologies and entertainment law groups at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin since 1986. Renowned expertise in these sectors in Canada (Lexpert), the USA (Best Lawyers in Canada) and Internationally (Martindale-Hubble) for several years (including 2008).Currently acts as expert council for federal government on implementation of international treaties in copyright, culture and communication law and for Phase II revision of copyright law (1997). From 1997 to 2000: National director for Technology and New Media Law group for BCE/Bell (including Sympatico). Regular speaker in Canada and abroad (Washington, Miami, Paris, Munich, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Geneva, etc.), most notably for the Computer Law Association, iTechLaw, and International Literary and Artistic Association for Intellectual Property, Information Technology and Entertainment. Professional training in these domains at INIS, ADISQ and HEC. Practice: legal council, representation, contract and negotiation. Clientele: all sectors of IT and entertainment law (including major customers in the video game industry, circus broadcasting, and music).

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In his role, he is responsible for the Development and Execution of compelling and engaging Marketing Campaigns, creating and developing games brands that appeal to a broad range of consumers including the iconic Nokia mobile game Snakes. Kay has also B2B Marketing responsibility managing partnerships with organizations like the IMGA and others, and represents Nokia as a member of the board of Governors at MI6, the only games marketer organization. Kay joined Nokia in 2004 as a Producer for the European Games Publishing, where he was responsible for the production and management of external development teams. In 2005 he joined the Developer Relations team and took over Global Industry Marketing for N-Gage in 2006 as the interface to the mobile games development community. With a broad background in the games industry for more then 14 years that includes Marketing, Product Marketing, Sales, Design and Development positions on multiple platforms, Kay brings a breadth of experience to his role. He has been working on more then 20 titles successfully positioned in markets around the globe. Kay also gained extensive experience in project management and new product development working for General Electrics Industrial Systems in Europe and North America. He co-filed a marketing patent that got introduced into a wide range of industrial products. Kay is a member of IGDA and a regular speaker on topics of games, marketing and media convergence at events around the world like GDC, GC, XML and others.

For the past three years, Dominic has held the position of technical director at Ubisoft, Montreal. He has worked in the gaming industry for the past 8 years in various programming and technical management roles. He is currently leading the development of a production pipeline and directing the technical aspects of Far Cry 2.

Chris focuses on solving hard game design and technical problems found at the intersection of gameplay, aesthetics, and engineering. He is an outspoken advocate for pushing the current boundaries of design and interactivity, in the hope that games will achieve their full potential as an art and entertainment form. To this end he helps organize the yearly Indie Game Jam and the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and his recent work at Maxis has centered around using advanced proceduralism to enhance player creativity and agency. Chris has been on the advisory board for the Game Developers Conference for many years and is a regular speaker at the GDC, Siggraph, and other conferences.

Mr. Jerry Heneghan is the founder and CEO of Virtual Heroes Inc. Most recently, Jerry served as an Executive Producer for the America's Army Game Project (www.americasarmy.com). Prior to starting Virtual Heroes, Jerry was a Program Manager in the Technology Assisted Learning Division of the Research Triangle Institute (RTI). Before his work at RTI, Jerry was a Game Producer at Tom Clancy's Red Storm Entertainment. Prior to work in the interactive entertainment industry, Jerry served as a U.S. Army Aviator (AH-64 pilot) in assignments all over the world. Jerry holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and a BS in Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy. Jerry is the President and Co-Founder of the North Carolina Advanced Learning Technology Association and Advanced Learning Technology Summit.

Clint has been working for Ubisoft in Montreal for six years as a writer, designer and Creative Director. Before games he worked in the web industry and experimented with independent filmmaking while earning a masters degree in Creative Writing from the Univers ity of British Columbia. He lives happily in Montreal with his fiance and his dog.

Raymond Hutchins, entrepreneur, deal-maker, mentor, video game consultant/recruiter, and investor shares his many years of experience regarding what it takes to get deals done when money is tight. “It’s relatively easy to get deals done when money is flowing and people don’t take the time to really understand what they are investing in. It’s a completely different matter when times are tough. Deals have to be creative, professionally constructed, and positioned with the right players in place before anyone will write a check.” Ray has founded and funded numerous companies in multiple industries. Over the course of his career he has been on both sides of the fence—as entrepreneur and investor. He has raised over $75M for and from VCs, private equity funds, angels, companies, and institutional investors. He has started and operated multiple companies in multiple industries and has sold three companies. He has been an avid gamer for years and is the founder and president of the Interactive Gaming and Simulations Alliance, an interactive media trade group based in Denver, CO. He is also the chairman and chief architect for the award winning Mentoring Program of TiE-Rockies. TiE-Global is the largest organization in the world focused on supporting entrepreneurs and the TiE-Rockies’ Mentoring Program was just awarded the honor of Best Mentoring Program out of 64 global chapters. Ray strongly believes that great opportunities exist for using interactive technologies to improve business performance via training and is seeking new ventures and partners in this area.

Katherine Isbister received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is an Associate Professor at NYU-Poly, and also maintains an affiliation with the IT University of Copenhagen's Center for Computer Games Research. Dr. Isbister's research interests include emotion and gesture in games, supple interactions, design of game characters, and games usability. Her book (Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach) was nominated for a Game Developer Magazine Frontline award in 2006.

Jonathan is known by his peers as being particularly passionate and dedicated to the video game medium. Trained in commercial arts, he started in the animation industry and was a freelance illustrator for several years. He jumped on his first opportunity to work in the games industry in 1999 as a concept artist at a small start-up that eventually became JamDat; he then joined A2M as a Lead Artist and Assistant Art Director, w orking there for over five years on many different projects including Scaler and the game that would ultimately become Wet. He was then hired by Ubisoft as an Art Director, where he worked on the Farcry, Assassins' Creed and Prince of Persia series, as well as many new IP concepts, including one that landed them the James Cameron's Avatar license. Jonathan is now working at Eidos Montréal, where he is creating the visual direction of Deus Ex 3.

Over the course of 20 years, Clinton has gone from programming avionics for advanced fighter jets and underwater robots to overseeing programming for hit video game titles such as Midtown Madness and Midnight Club. He introduced the video game industry to agile development and is now an agile coach teaching teams how to adopt Scrum.

Wesley Knee, originally from New Hampshire, is a senior in Champlain College’s E-Game Art and Animation program. Since starting with the Emergent Media Center, Wesley has worked on Multiplayer Maps for America’s Army, an Emergency Response Sim for CIMIT, and now a game tackling Violence Against Women.

Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D. is co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and co-author of the breakthrough book Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. That book is based on a $1.5-million study funded by the US Department of Justice that looked at why, where, how and with whom young teenagers play video games, and shattered many of the myths surrounding this field. Dr. Kutner is the former internationally syndicated "Parent & Child" columnist for the New York Times and "Ask The Expert" columnist for Parents magazine. He is on the psychiatry faculty at Harvard Medical School and is the author of five other books on child development and parent-child communication. He has an 18-year-old son who's an avid gamer.

Denis Lacasse has an MBA in Project Management from HEC Montréal. He is Executive Producer at A2M, Canada’s largest independent video game developer. Denis has some 20 years of management experience and joined ATM in 1998, where he has directed more than 24 titles for 11 different platforms. Prior to joining A2M, he was Project Manager for person-computer interaction projects at the Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montréal. Denis is currently Executive Producer of A2M’s WET, an action game with a gun-slinging, sword-wielding heroine as its star. He leads a team of some 200 talented individuals focussed on quality and creativity. He is also responsible for building strong relationships with the firm’s clients, who are among the largest publishers and licensors of interactive content in the world, including Activision Blizzard, Disney, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, Sony and Warner Bros. An intense video game aficionado, Denis is always willing to take on challengers, on any game and any platform!

David is a lead engineer at Illuminate Labs, the company behind Turtle and Beast. He has been with the company for 4 years and he's involved in most technical aspects of the products. While David was getting his MSc from Chalmers University of Technology he worked part time as game developer for Mindark. His current non work related projects are Beer Brewing and automatically predicting soccer game scores.

Marc has been involved in the computing and communications industries since 1982, including postings in product design for software and hardware, product management and marketing. He joined Ericsson in 1998 and has since become a key advocate for the evolution of the Service Layer business. Marc is a member of the Ericsson Developer Support Program within Ericsson’s Multimedia Business Unit, has published numerous articles on the telecoms business and is a frequent speaker at industry events. Currently he manages the Mobility World Global IMS Expert Centre at Ericsson Canada, Inc., providing Ericsson’s third party developer partners assistance to create and bring to market IMS applications. Education: McGill

David Lightbown has been working professionally in computer graphics for over 11 years, the last seven in the video games industry. During that time, he has been involved in the creation of numerous video games across all major platforms, with the main responsibility of implementing and supporting the artistic pipeline. He has been a speaker many times at the Game Developer Conference (Paris, San Jose and San Francisco) as well as the Montreal International Game Summit, and has presented a Masterclass at Siggraph. Outside of work hours, David teaches classes at various schools such as the NAD Centre and Champlain College du Vermont. He has worked as a freelance writer for CG Channel, and most recently produced an eDVD entitled "Modeling with Math in Maya" and authored the official post-secondary Maya training manual for Autodesk.

With a programming background complemented by a Mc Gill MBA (IT, International business), Geneviève was an IT consultant, manager and director for 11 years, while living in 5 different countries (Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Trinidad and Spain). She then became a game producer and senior game director for Ubisoft and A2M in Montréal. Since the fall of 2007 she has been industry liaison, student coach and now Montreal campus Director for the Burlington Champlain College. Geneviève’ special interests are coaching, the optimization of managerial methods, and all applications of new media. When not working she can be found on a good book (history, fantasy, science fiction, literature and European comics) or playing games (RPG, MMOS, platform, strategy and casual). Geneviève is committed to helping people reach their full potential by harnessing the positive effects of new technologies and in helping games reach their full potential as a new media.

Having been working in the game industry as game or level designer since 1995, Pascal has worked for major studios including SCEE, Ubisoft, DICE or VU Games. In particular he was Lead Level Designer on the “versus” multiplayer versions of both Splinter Cell – Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory. He also set up and managed the playtest structure of the Annecy Ubisoft studio where the “versus” multiplayer versions of Splinter Cell were developed. He has also designed the CTF-Tornado multiplayer map for the UT3 Extreme PhysX mod. Besides writing full game and level designs, Pascal is called in by studios or publishers as a consultant to audit game and level designs, to work on game concepts and level design architectures or to coach playtests. Pascal has also worked on mobile platforms. His first game, a RPG called The One Hope, was published in July 2006 by the Irish publishers Gmedia. Pascal is a regular contributor to Gamasutra. He has also attended several international conferences as a speaker (MIGS 2005, GDC). He is currently Creative Director at the Barcelona studio of the Swedish game developer Grin and is working on Wanted, the action title based on the Universal blockbuster.

Captain Jeremy MacDonald is an Armoured Reconnaissance Officer with the Canadian Forces. He joined the Forces in 1994 and completed training in 1995. At that time he was assigned as a Leopard tank troop leader in the Royal Canadian Dragoons, one of Canada’s armoured regiments. After being employed as a tank troop leader, Capt MacDonald then served as a troop leader in a Cougar reconnaissance troop. In 1998, Capt Macdonald transferred from the Regular army to the Reserve force, to complete his post grad diploma in Applied Information Technology. During that time, he was appointed as the Officer Commanding ‘A’ Squadron of the 8th Canadian Hussars, one of Canada’s reserve reconnaissance units. In 2001 he was posted to the Combat Training Center to the Training Technologies cell. This organization was created to investigate the use of technology, including simulation, web based and distributed learning, for training soldiers within the Combat Training Center’s schools. Capt MacDonald completed the Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College in 2007. Capt MacDonald was awarded the Formation Commanders commendation in 2007 for his work in developing new simulations for training Army, Police and Security organizations.

Graham brings more than a decade of digital media experience to the Halifax Film, having developed and managed extensive digital media properties at the CBC's Regional New Media team and PBS Interactive in Washington D.C. Graham specializes in convergence media, creative development, cross-platform content and digital marketing. As Director of Digital Media at Halifax Film, he focuses on digital media direction and strategy, and conceiving, planning and executing digital media projects, including developing interactive games based on Halifax Film's television properties. Graham has also been an avid gamer throughout his life, and still plays his Atari 2600 occasionally.

As the founder at Cinetik Studio, a company that improves individual performance through the strategic use of simulation training, Ricardo is responsible for helping clients in the Health, Defense, and Training industries achieve their training goals through the use of highly efficient game-based training and simulation systems. Before founding Cinetik in 2005, Ricardo first company's was Atomikwave, a studio specialized in the design of high-end 2D/3D models to be used in-game for a variety of big budgeted MMOs. In the past Rick was a VP Business Development for various high tech companies which enabled him to capture new and emerging markets in the Serious Games space. Rick has also spearheaded the IGDA Chapter in Quebec City and currently sits on the Board of Directors. He is also a founding member of the Canadian-American Alliance for Simulation, Training, and Education (CAASTLE). Ricardo holds a Master's degree in International Finances from Concordia University (Montreal).

Paul Martin has been writing code for videogames since 1996 and is currently a technical director at Slant Six games. His specialist development areas are in low-level graphics rendering, special effects and data build pipelines. Professional interests are in technical management with an emphasis on process and work flow. Recreational interests include mountain biking, snowboarding, rock climbing and squash. Paul cordially invites anyone else in the industry to join him in any of the above.

Ben Mattes is a Producer at Ubisoft Montreal Studios, one of the largest development studios in the world. Over the last three years, Ben has been working hard leading the creative team behind the upcoming and highly anticipated Prince of Persia title to be released in December 2008 on the current generation of consoles. Ben is not new to the Prince of Persia license since he has also overseen the production of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones as well as the port to the PSP and the Wii versions, Rival Swords. Prior to joining Ubisoft Ben worked in the wireless gaming space in a variety of production management roles.

Soon

After eight years at ATI heading the 3D Application Research Group, Jason was finally seduced by the entertainment industry and has been working on rendering algorithms across all of Valve's products for the past three and a half years. Jason regularly publishes on a variety of topics in the area of real-time rendering and speaks at graphics and game development conferences around the world.

Stéphane is a professional Computer Engineer who started his career in the gaming industry in 1997 and has worked with leading companies such has THQ and Ubisoft. Upon graduating from Montréal's Ecole Polytechnique with a degree in Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Computer Engineering, Stéphane landed a job at Ubisoft Montreal. There he quickly rose through the ranks to become a Lead Programmer and soon after, the Engineering Studio Manager of Ubisoft's new Beijing office. After a one year assignment in China, he came back to Montreal as a Lead Programmer to finish Ubisoft's multiple cross platform title, Batman Vengeance for Playstation®2, GamecubeTM and XboxTM. Looking for exiting new challenges, Stéphane chose the west coast as his next destination and was fortunate to join Relic Entertainment in Vancouver, BC. As a Lead Programmer for Relic, Stéphane worked on a number of undisclosed projects, shipped Homeworld2, as well as Relic's and THQ's first console title for the Xbox360TM, The Outfit. In his position as Director of Product Development, Stéphane is charged with ensuring that each team has the tools necessary to succeed, as well as instilling a high-quality standard for the development of all our software products.

Hugo Morin founded Humagade in April 2003. In the years that followed, the company experienced a staggering growth rate, with an 84% increase in sales each year, and a rapid growth in size to over 40 employees. And, having produced over 100 games in J2ME/BREW and Flashlite, it rapidly became a key player in the area of mobile-platform games. Because of Humagade's distinctive experience, it has had the opportunity to work with world-class licenses such as Star Wars, Mickey Mouse and the Olympic Games. In February 2008, Mr. Morin became a shareholder in Frima Studio, which acquired Humagade. Today, Frima has over 210 employees and is the second-largest independent studio in Quebec. Mr. Morin has over 15 years' experience as a manager in the high-tech sector, and is actively involved in the Quebec industry. He sits on the Board of Directors of the provincial association for IT entrepreneurs (Voix des Entrepreneurs en Technologie de l’Information de Québec (VETIQ)), participates in VETIQ's "Presidents' Circle," and gives seminars on his business experience. In 2007–2008, he was selected by the government of Quebec to participate in a training program on IT-business management, given by MIT, Boston.

Gilbert M. Muniz, Ph. D. is the Deputy Director of the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU). As the chief operating officer, he is directly responsible for daily operations, marketing and strategic planning. Dr. Muniz is a recognized authority in military medicine, medical education and in medical simulation technology. In his military career, Dr. Muniz managed over $2 billion of DOD medical facilities projects. He also served as the Assistant Commandant of the School of Medicine at USU. More recently, he was the key planner and architect who established the world-class, USU military medical simulation center. Currently he is managing over $2.5 million of research projects. Key amongst these is a project to establish a Wide Area Virtual Environment (WAVE). The WAVE is a 1,000SF, 3-D immersive environment designed to run training scenarios for large numbers of medical personnel so they can practice, for example, mass casualty training for victims of weapons of mass destruction and/or other disasters. Dr. Muniz is also working on an initiative to establish a framework for medical simulation training throughout DOD.

Brendan Nagle is an educator, business owner, and software designer. His career spans almost 20 years of teaching, writing, speaking about and creating innovative workplace learning solutions. As CEO of Technologies for Learning Group, Brendan focuses his day-to-day energy on increasing access to educational opportunities through the purposeful use of technology. In addition to his business pursuits, Brendan has been a lecturer at colleges and universities, has co-authored a highly successful textbook and is a regular contributor at conferences and in publications on the role learning systems play in workforce and community development.

Peter Lykke Nielsen started his career in the interactive entertainment industry back in early 1995, when he was part of the trio setting up and running the independent game developer Scavenger. In the late nineties he joined Activision as a Producer and in 2004 he relocated to Canada, where he worked as a Producer for EA. Subsequently he joined Nokia to become part of the team that will launch the next generation of the N-Gage platform. In his current role as Product Manager for the N-Gage SDK, Peter Lykke Nielsen is responsible for researching, defining and communicating the feature set required to create cutting edge N-Gage titles.

Caitlin O'Donovan is an expert in multiplatform entertainment, with over a decade of experience in new media. She is currently the Director of Kids Interactive at Corus Entertainment where she leads the online strategic direction and operation of sites for YTV, Treehouse and Discovery Kids. Previously, she oversaw the development and operations of Corus' Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games, which attracted over 350,000 monthly users in beta and won an Octas award for Best Game and Animation. Caitlin has supervised dozens of major new media productions for the Canadian Film Centre, oversaw the incubation of new media companies as Producer of the Interactive Project Lab, and lead the design of the TELUS Innovation Fund which continues to invest in emerging forms of entertainment. She frequently speaks about multiplatform development, most recently at the Law & Society Association, NFB-DocAgora, Canadian Screen Training Centre, and the Banff Centre's Interactive Screen. Caitlin has participated in numerous juries, including the Geminis, the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, OMDC, and the United Nations World Summit Awards. Caitlin is currently writing her Master's thesis on the political economy of massively multiplayer games at York University's Communication & Culture program.

2003- to Present, Developer Relations, Havok. 2. Worked from Havok's Dublin - Ireland, and San Francisco - USA, offices with Havok product users from teams and publishers worldwide, including Activision, 2K Games, Microsoft, Midway, Pandemic, SCEA, Sega, THQ and Ubisoft. 3. 2001, Dublin University (Trinity College), Dublin, Ireland. BA (Mod) in Computer Science.

Cheryl K. Olson, Sc.D. is a public health researcher, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and co-author of the breakthrough book Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. She also consults to corporations, foundations and academic institutions on effective use of media and on ways to change health-related attitudes and behaviors. Dr. Olson is on the psychiatry faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

David Oswald is a Designer and Environmental Scientist with a career that has been built on design, innovation, and science. He has worked internationally and nationally as a producer and director on several cross-media design projects, including the Sultan bin Abdulaziz Science and Technology Center and Expo 2000. David has conducted research in the Brazilian Amazon and developed models for Ecological Resilience using satellite remote sensing. His research focus is Earth System science and regional response to disturbances such as climate change. He combines his experience and interest in environmental science with design by focusing on creative projects in serious gaming, communications, and environmental process analysis for business. Educated at the University of Waterloo, Royal Roads University, and McGill University, he holds a B.Sc with distinction (RRU) and an M.Sc (McGill -Physical Geography). David is actively engaged in international and applied research projects and international relations projects in association with organizations such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development in addition to the creative media production projects. As the founder and President of DE Design and Environment, he pursues the company mission to solve problems using design and environmental science?

As CEO and co-founder of Hansoft, Patric discusses project management and QA best practices on a daily basis with clients in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. Hansoft is a production management tool used for collaborative scheduling, tracking, instant communication, Agile, QA, resource usage, portfolio and document management used in game development and publishing as well as within IT, telecom and the space industry. Patric also serves as member of the jury of business plan compe tition Venture Cup. Patric serves as board member on a number of non-profit organizations and is an instructor within the Swedish Air Force.

Louis-Pierre (LP), joined Ubisoft Montreal in 2005 to take FarCry 2's Producer position. Prior to Ubisoft, LP held the position of Development Director at EA on the Medal of Honor, James Bond and Army of Two franchises. Before joining the games industry, he occupied the Production Manager position on the CG animated movie P3K Pinocchio 3000 at CineGroupe. At Cinegroupe he also occupied a management position on 2D projects (Heavy Metal FAKK2 & TV series). In 2003 LP and a partner were one of the winners of the SODEC Young Creators Subsidy for an unnamed children movie script. In another life... prior to games and movies, Louis-Pierre was a TV Sports Journalist for a major French station in Montreal (TQS).

Holder of an MSc in computer science, Éric Plante worked as a graphics programmer at Taarna Studios and then at discreet before joining EA Montreal almost four years ago. He has contributed to 7 titles, including Medal of Honor: European Assault, SSX On Tour and NHL 07. In recent year, his attention has shifted from graphics and machines to people and projects, and he is currently pursuing an MBA from HEC Montréal while directing game projects and teams.

Petri Purho is an independent game developer and is best known as the guy who made Crayon Physics Deluxe. He has also made over 20 prototypes as a part of his monthly prototyping project: Kloonigames.

Patrick is a game designer at the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal studio, where he has spent the last four years focusing on story design, narrative systems and scripted events production for the latest generation of console titles. Previously, he was creative director at Vancouver-based Blast Radius where he produced web and video for clients such as Nintendo, Sony, EA and Activision. Patrick's career encompasses 15 years of graphic design, creative direction in interactive media and traditional advertising as well as commercial directing and independent filmmaking. He received his B.S. in physics from the University of British Columbia.

Aucune description

René Saint-Pierre has been developing and applying a research/design methodology involving digital technologies for more than twenty years. His early explorations involved computer-assisted musical orchestration (MIDI), theatre, performance and other multimedia events. He then offered his services to the cultural and corporate sectors by participating in the design and production of audiovisual documents, media arts installations, interactive terminals, CD-ROMs and websites. In 1999, he completed his Masters in Communications at UQAM with an interactive multimedia project on the life and work of sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. In 2007, he obtained a Doctorate in Art Studies and Practices from the UQAM School of Visual and Media Arts. His thesis proposed a research/design methodology for the design and writing of educational video games. René Saint-Pierre has also taught design and multimedia development and production techniques at the college and university level for 8 years. He is currently involved in post-doctoral studies to further develop and share his research hypotheses with the international community of researchers and practitioners working in the emerging field of serious games.

Louise Sauvé has a Ph.D. in Educational Technology from Université de Montréal and has been a professor in her field at TÉLUQ, UQAM’s distance education university, since 1982. As President and Scientific Director of the Centre d’expertise et de recherche sur l’apprentissage à vie (SAVIE, Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning), she manages the centre’s multidisciplinary and inter-institutional teams, for which she has secured major research grants and contracts. She has given more than 250 presentations and workshops nationally and internationally, written some twenty distance university courses, published more than 150 reviews and articles in major publications and in six languages, produced some sixty research reports and contributed to 12 joint publications. A recognized specialist in the field of educational online games, she supervises research on the conceptual foundations of games and simulations, the impacts of games on learning and the development of online game prototypes. Having developed more than ten online learning environments and six generic shells for online educational games, her team was honoured in 2008 with the CNIE Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Use of Learning Technology for the development of its ENJEUX advanced multimedia environments.

Sergei Savchenko is a Studio CTO for Electronic Arts Montreal. A graduate of Montreal's McGill University with B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Science he started coding shareware PC and NeXT games in the early 90s. He worked at The 3DO Company on Army Men and Might and Magic franchises and was later a founder of Skwork Studio that went on to release several mobile and PDA games. At EA Montreal, he worked on Medal Of Honor, SSX, NHL and Army of Two franchises. He is also the author of "3D Graphics Programming: Games and Beyond" as well as multiple articles on rendering and AI.

Ben Sawyer is the co-founder of Digitalmill, a games consulting firm in Portland, ME. Mr. Sawyer has worked on and been involved in game development for over 10 years. Sawyer is the co-founder of the Serious Games Initiative (www.seriousgames.org) with the U.S. Government's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. Founded in 2002 the Initiative is one of the leading voices and organizers in the serious games field. In 2003 Sawyer started the first Serious Games Summit - a conference that now regularly attracts 300-500 attendees discussing latest best practices. In 2003 Sawyer Co-founded the Games for Health Project which is now sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is working to develop results in the health and healthcare field with games. In 2007 The Games for Health Project received close to $1M in support for four years from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Sawyer co-founded the Games for Health Conference, now the leading gathering of health professionals, researchers, and game developers focused on creating health games and game-simulations. Among the important work achieved by these efforts is the major establishment of the core social and professional networks that form the backbone of the serious games field.

Reid is a Game Industry Veteran of 10 years. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Wharton Business School. He is currently an Executive Producer at EA Montreal. Previous to EA he worked at Ubi Soft Montreal and was a Producer on the original Splinter Cell. At Ubi Soft he also worked on the Batman, and Myst franchises. Currently, at EA, he manages the Army of Two franchise. He has also worked on the Battlefield and Batman titles at EA. Prior to Ubi Soft he worked at both New Line Cinema and NBC Television.

As Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing for Electronic Arts, Steve Schnur is responsible for the pursuit, creation and continuous development of the global vision for music in EA games. Schnur’s unprecedented innovations in bringing together the worlds of music and gaming led The Washington Post to call him “The Clive Davis of the videogame industry.” He has brought established stars, breakthrough new artists and award-winning composers to such top-selling EA franchises as Madden NFL, FIFA, Need For Speed, The Sims and more, changing the industry’s perception of video games from simple licensing opportunities to a series of groundbreaking co-marketing partnerships, as well as EA’s now-essential role in launching artists’ careers. In 2005, he created EA Recordings, a digital record label focused on the distribution of EA’s enormous collection of scores and songs. In 2007, he formed Artwerk Music Group, a joint venture with Nettwerk Music, through which EA now directly signs, develops and launches artists for publishing, master recordings, sync deals, distribution and beyond. Steve Schnur is a board member of the Country Music Association, and currently serves as Chairman Emeritus of the Grammy Foundation.

Khal Shariff is the CEO of Project Whitecard Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. Khal has 12 years of experience in interactive media in Canada, moving in 2000 from Manitoba Telecom to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto, where he was the coding lead for the redesign of CBC.ca, and Hockey Night in Canada's Interactive Television project. Project Whitecard's first client in 2006, cafesonique.com, was the recipient of a Canadian New Media Award. Project Whitecard is focused on Serious Games for Space Exploration, and currently has two projects, one of which is for the Canadian Space Agency, and will be distributed to some 60,000 Canadian classrooms! The other "Project Moonwalk," features the Apollo missions. Khal was an invited speaker at NASA Ames Research Center in January 2008, as part of the Virtual Worlds Workshop, and delivered a paper: Opening the Universe: Virtual Space Exploration Begins!" A member of the executive of CAASTLE and a member of Serious Games Canada, Khal helped organize MIGS 2008, and is pleased to join in the exciting discussions and events this year.

Scott is the Executive Producer of Playbrains (www.playbrains.com), an independent game publisher. He is also Studio Director of HeadGames (www.playheadgames.com), a behind-the-scenes partner to game studios and middleware companies to develop games and other software products. Playbrains is soon to release Babo: Invasion for PCs and consoles. Babo:Invasion is based on the original IP of the popular freeware multiplayer combat game Babo Violent 2 (www.rndla bs.ca), considered by tens of thousands of players worldwide as one of the most fun, fastest-paced games in the multiplayer top-down shooter category. Scott's company has been recently recognized as winner of the OCRI Service of the Year Award, a Top 100 Employer in Canada, and an OBJ Fastest-Growing Company. Scott has over 20 years of experience in general management, software and game development, security and telecommunications. In his leadership role, Scott oversees operations and is responsible for overall business strategy.

Randy Smith is a Creative Director at EA's LA studio and a columnist for Edge magazine. His current project is a collaboration with Steven Spielberg. Prior to that he was the Project Director of Thief: Deadly Shadows and a Designer on Thief and Thief 2. He has also consulted with studios such as Ubisoft Montreal and Arkane. He is a fun guy who tells jokes and likes music. Randy believes we work in an amazing medium and have been given the r are opportunity to craft it into something that will one day bring even more value to people's lives than it already does.

Warren Spector, veteran electronic game designer/producer, heads up videogame developer Junction Point Studios, a division of Disney Interactive Studios. Warren has worked in the game industry for 25 years! Six years in tabletop gaming, with Steve Jackson Games and TSR, 19 years in electronic games. His videogame career began with Origin Systems, where he produced games in the Ultima, Underworld and System Shock series, among others. A brief stint with LookingGlass Technologies was followed by a seven-year association with Ion Storm, where he founded an Austin development studio and directed the development of the award-winning Deus Ex. He later oversaw development of Ion’s Deus Ex: Invisible War, released in December 2003, and Thief: Deadly Shadows, released in June 2004. Warren left Ion Storm in November 2004 to found Junction Point Studios, Inc., where he and his team developed concepts for a variety of creative and publishing partners. In July 2007, Junction Point was acquired by The Walt Disney Company. He and his team are currently working on as yet unannounced projects.

John Sutyak has been an executive in the game industry for over fifteen years. He was one of the founding members of Hasbro Interactive (HI) the interactive gaming arm of Hasbro Corporation. Eventually serving as Chief Creative Officer, John was responsible for companywide acquisition and building relationships with major licensors in the entertainment industry. He led HI in the acquisition of Atari and was involved in the acquisition of Microprose, as well as other publishers, brands and development studios. Post Atari’s purchase by Infogrames John continued his role as Chief Creative Officer with the new Atari. Working directly to establish vision and new product direction, he sourced and created relationships with exceptional talent in the gaming industry. John held a position on the board of the AIAS and collaborated in the creation of the D.I.C.E. conference. John is presently with Digital Development Management (DDM) working in Business Development and Funding.

James has been interested in computers and programming since attending a summer workshop in 1983. Shortly after, he bought a Commodore 64 with his paper run money, wrote his first assembler game and started serious computer game playing. After graduating in fine arts and a few years in graphic design, he started a game development company. For the next 14 years, James went on to work across the continent as a programmer and lead doing pretty much everything from 3d and networ king, to AI, always with a focus on performance.

Steven has been a part of the video game industry since 2000. At the age of 17 and showing an intimate knowledge of programming, he was recruited by Midway Games in Chicago where he worked on multiple AAA titles such as MLB Slugfest and NFL Blitz. From 2003 to 2006 Steven was a part of the National Security Agency's Naval Security Group during which he filled the roles of software and network engineer. In 2006 he co-founded Geekay Soft, Inc. (Chicago) and Geekay Sof t Canada (Montreal) with other industry veterans, where he leads teams for 3rd-party outsourcing, title platform conversion & porting, and bug fire-fighting. Since its creation, Steven has been the CEO of Geekay Soft, Inc. and President of Geekay Soft Canada. His main hobbies include generating optimized assembler demos and marathon running.

Milena combines classical architecture training with new forms of technological media, focusing largely on spatial, technology and experiential design, as it applies to all facets of our lives. Her inspiration comes from the desire to leave an impression on a single person and/or community of people, and in turn, open up your senses to the wondrous things which design brings to the forefront of everyday life. In her present role at BMD, Milena provides creative and strategic direction on initiatives of cultural innovation and invention, with a pulse on designing ethical sustainable living. She is also responsible to help shape the company’s strategic direction and grow the Toronto studio. Her most recent success has been in leading a collaborative re-invention of MTV USA by re-asserting their cultural relevance through a process of constant reinvention and engagement across all areas of their business. For many years prior to joining BMD, Milena was involved in developing new 3D software technologies for the entertainment, consumer, education, military and financial industries, focusing on the way people experience multi-source digital information. Many of her projects have been showcased at the CES Show in Las Vegas and have won many awards.

Julia Walden, appointed Director of Sheridan's Visualization Design Institute in July 2007, is a specialist in interactive digital media. She has developed and executed strategic plans and brokered public/private partnerships for projects involving new technologies including 3 dimensional web content, digital television, video on demand and wireless cable. Her clients and collaboration partners have included public and private broadcasters as well as public policy and educational organizations. She has created and produced original programs with new formats. One of Ms. Walden's core strengths is to take groundbreaking, theoretical projects and use applied research techniques to create prototypes or new products. She is currently working with the Sheridan institute's research team to focus their work on two primary areas: new "touchless and clickless" user interfaces and low energy motion analysis technologies.

Multiple award-winning composer Duncan Watt is the founder and creative director of Fastestmanintheworld and has over 70 digital game, TV, film and music projects to his credit - as musician, composer, sound designer, engineer and/or producer. Following a successful history composing for TV and film, Watt founded Fastestmanintheworld in 2005 to focus on composing, voiceover and audio for digital games. His scoring work appears in many independent and AAA titles, including Brothers In Arms: Hell?s Highway (Ubisoft/Gearbox), Stargate Online TCG (Sony Online), Pirates CSG Online (Sony Online), and Brothers In Arms: DS (trailers, Ubisoft) and many others. His company, Fastestmanintheworld, provides custom scoring, sound design, voiceover and audio production, and recently provided remixes/audio services for international racing title Need For Speed: Pro Street (EA). Owner of recording studio Kanuba Digital and music publishing company Kanuba Music (BMI), Watt is currently working on a number of independent and AAA projects for release in 2008 and 2009.

As DISTIL's co-founder and CTO, Kenton White applies models of complex human and organizational interactions to game design to make material intuitively understandable for learners. Kenton has a background spanning traditional media like film as well as new media. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1999. Kenton considers games to be a tool for expressing ideas, just like the way we think of Powerpoint as a communication tool. He thinks that, of all places to test this theory, a gaming conference is the best place to present ideas using games. Kenton will share from his experience of making games for corporate customers. Getting the business world to accept games can be done by effectively conveying their value. The issue is that game makers and game buyers need to look at the many classifications of games in order to intelligently identify the kind of game that can solve particular business problems.

At Havok, Jeff Yates is responsible for product definition and new product strategies. Jeff brings over 15 years experience managing the development and release of commercial 3D animation and modeling tools for games, video, and film. Prior to joining Havok, Jeff served as Engineering Director for Autodesk Discreet, where he guided development of 3ds max and Character Studio for over 7 years. Jeff previously spent 8 years directing engineering, cu stomer relationships, and product strategies at both Alias | Wavefront and Electronic Arts. Jeff earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.