Games for Change (G4C) provides support, visibility and shared resources to organizations and individuals using digital games for social change. This is the primary community of practice for those interested in making digital games about the most pressing issues of our day, from poverty to race and the environment.



BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Lucy Bernholz is the Founder and President of Blueprint Research & Design, Inc. a strategy consulting firm that helps philanthropic individuals and institutions achieve their missions. Bernholz is also the publisher of Philanthropy2173, an award winning blog about the business of giving, and she serves as Executive Producer of The Giving Channel on Fora.tv. Dr. Bernholz is a noted analyst of the philanthropic industry and has published articles in the trade and general press, edited collections, and scholarly journals. Her most recent book, Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets: The Deliberate Evolution, was published in 2004. Bernholz has a BA from Yale University and a MA and PhD from Stanford University.

Alan Gershenfeld has spent the last 20 years at the intersection of entertainment, technology and social entrepreneurship. He is currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of E-Line Ventures, a ‘double bottom line’ early-stage venture fund focused on empowering individuals, small businesses and underserved communities to better compete in a global marketplace and popular media which engages people in the critical issues of the day. Prior to E-Line, Alan spent seven years as CEO and Co-Founder of netomat, a leader in mobile-web community solutions. As CEO, Alan helped to transform a network-based art project into a pioneering software company. netomat was selected as a Technology Pioneer at the 2007 World Economic Forum at Davos. Before co-founding netomat, Alan spent six years at Activision, a global leader in entertainment software. He was a member of the executive management team which rebuilt Activision from bankruptcy into a profitable, multi-billion dollar industry leader. At Activision, Alan served as Senior Vice President of Activision Studios where he supervised all product development at the company's Los Angeles studios. Titles released under Alan's leadership include Civilization: Call to Power, Asteroids, Muppet Treasure Island, Spycraft, Pitfall, Zork, and Tony Hawk Skateboarding. Alan currently serves on the Board of Directors of FilmAid International, Games for Change, Sustainable South Bronx, and on the Advisory Boards of Scenarios USA, Personal Technology Solutions, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center For Educational Media and Research (Sesame Workshop).

Franklin Madison As Technology Program Director for the Industrial and Technology Assistance Corporation of New York he is responsible for the strategic development and implementation of new programs to assist growing high-technology firms in NYC.  Franklin works one-on-one with CEOs of high tech companies, providing technical assistance in the areas of business plan development, access to capital from private and public sources, R&D assistance, technology transfer commercialization opportunities and strategic partnerships.  Mr. Madison works with many associations and groups including: SJF Advisory Services Board a non-profit organization which provides entrepreneurial, workforce, sustainability assistance services to SJF Ventures Fund prospect and portfolio companies; Board of Directors for the Institute of Play a new Middle School devoted to technology that is scheduled to open in Fall 2009; Member of the MIT Enterprise Forum NYC Chapter; Secy/Treasurer of Games 4Change, Inc., the NYC Chapter of the Serious Games Initiative whose charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy. In 2001 Madison was named one of Crain’s Tech 100, a listing of the Top 100 individuals in technology in New York City as chosen by Crain’s NY Business.  And he has served on Mayor Bloombergs Telecommunications Policy Advisory Group administered by the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Dave Rejeski works at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, where he is the Director of the Foresight and Governance Project and the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a partnership between the Wilson Center and the Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2002, he helped launch the Serious Games Initiative and in 2003, Games for Change > > He has been a Visiting Fellow at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and an adjunct affiliated staff member at RAND. From 1994 to 2000, he worked at White House Council on Environmental Quality and the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) on a variety of technology and R&D issues. Before moving to OSTP, he was head of the Future Studies Unit at the Environmental Protection Agency. He sits on the advisory boards of a number of organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board; the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Environmental Research and Education; the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); the National Council of Advisors of the Center for the Study of the Presidency; the Journal of Industrial Ecology, the Greening of Industry Network, and the University of Michigan’s Corporate Environmental Management Program. He has graduate degrees in public administration and environmental design from Harvard and Yale and a degree in Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Suzanne Seggerman is President and Co-Founder of Games for Change. Before G4C, Suzanne was a Director at NYC-based think tank Web Lab, where she oversaw a variety of cross-media projects. At Web Lab, she co-curated the show "Provocations" for the 2002 Florida Film Festival, the first national exhibition featuring digital games about social-issues. Her background in online media includes community-oriented interactive environments and the design of non-traditional games, which earned her awards from New Voices New Visions and Communications Arts. Before her involvement with new media technologies, she worked as a documentary film producer for PBS, including on Ken Burns/Stephen Ives PBS series The West and as Co-producer of Race For Life, a humanitarian aid and documentary film about Eastern Europe. Suzanne received a BA from Kenyon College and a MS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Alex Quinn is the Executive Director for Games for Change. Before joining Games for Change, Alex was Executive Director of the Adult Literacy Media Alliance (ALMA), a project of Education Development Center. ALMA produces the Emmy Award-winning television series, TV411, accompanying website and workbook series, and a range of multimedia literacy and life skills curricula on such topics as health, finance, and family literacy. Alex served as the principal investigator for a multi-year National Science Foundation funded project to develop, promote, and broadly distribute a television-based basic math curriculum for adults. Alex has a background in instructional design, video production, and telecommunications policy, and was the executive director for community media centers in Oregon and New York City. He holds a BA degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts and an MA in Broadcast Communication Arts from San Francisco State University.


ADVISORY GROUP

Ian Bogost is a videogame designer and researcher. He is Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. Bogost is author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism (MIT Press 2006) and of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (MIT Press 2007), and numerous articles on videogame culture and criticism. His videogames about topics as varied as airport security, disaffected employees, the petroleum industry, and tort reform have been played by millions of people and exhibited internationally. He is currently working on a book about the Atari 2600, and a game about the politics of nutrition.

Malika Dutt is the Founder and Executive Director of Breakthrough and oversees program and operations of both partner offices located in the U.S. and India. Until December 2000, Mallika was the Program Officer for the Human Rights & Social Justice Program at the Ford Foundation’s New Delhi office. She also served as the Associate Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, where she held the first US meeting to create links between human rights domestically and abroad. Mallika authored the widely-referenced With Liberty and Justice for All: Women's Human Rights in the United States. She was also the co- author of the globally utilized manual, Local Action Global Change: Learning About the Human Rights of Women and Girls. Mallika has served on several boards and committees, including the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project, Asia Watch, Sister Fund, Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Lt. Governor Committee on Public Police Relations, Committee on Sex and Law—the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and the US NGO Coordinating Committee for the UN World Conference Against Racism. She is currently on the Board of WITNESS.

Rafael Fajardo is the founder of SWEAT, a loose collaborative that makes socially conscious video games. SWEAT has published four video games, two that comment on the gamelike nature of (il)legal human traffic at the U.S./Mexico border, and two that explore the effects of (il)licit drug agriculture in Colombia. SWEAT’s games have been exhibited internationally. Fajardo also teaches at the University of Denver where he is an associate professor of Electronic Media Arts Design and the Director of Digital Media Studies. With his colleague, Scott Leutenegger, he has overseen the creation of Squeezed, a videogame, co-sponsored by mtvU that comments on the lives of(im)migrant farm workers in the U.S. With Dr. Leutenegger and with Dr. Debra Austin he has received a multiyear grant from the National Science Foundation to explore the teaching of videogames as a holistic pedagogy in high schools.

Barry JosephDirector of the Online Leadership Program, Global Kids, Inc., holds a BA from Northwestern University and an MA in American Studies from New York University. Barry came to Global Kids in 2000 through the New Voices Fellowship of the Academy for Educational Development, funded by the Ford Foundation. He has developed innovative programs in the areas of youth-led online dialogues, video games as a form of youth media, and the educational potential of both social networks and virtual worlds, combining youth development practices with the creation of high profile digital media projects to yield 21st Century Skills. He has also worked with GK's development program to secure funding from a number of foundations and corporations. Barry served on the steering committee of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative and his writing appeared in the Foundation's 2007 Ecology of Games volume. He has spoken at numerous conferences and published articles in a wide variety of publications. Barry is one of the cofounders of Games For Change and is a member of its National Advisory Group.

Katie Salen is the Executive Director of the Institute of Play, and Associate Professor in Design and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design. Co-author of several books: Rules of Play and the Game Design Reader, editor of Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Media, and Learning, she is co-editor of the International Journal of Learning and Media (all MIT Press). Katie was one of the lead designers on Gamestar Mechanic, a game about game design, and has designed big games, slow games, and gamelike experiences for audiences of all types.

Ben Sawyer is Co-director of the Serious Games Initiative and Co-founder of Digitalmill. At Digitallmill, Sawyer is in charge of strategy, technology, and business development. Sawyer has authored or co-authored more than 10 computer trade books as well as numerous articles on a wide range of technology areas including e-commerce, interactive game development, software marketing, and computer graphics. He is also a regular speaker on the topics of e-commerce and other emerging Internet trends. After graduating from New York's Bronx High School of Science and attending the City University of New York-Baruch, Sawyer worked on the campaign staff for Clinton/Gore '92. He also worked on political projects for several major campaigns, a legislative re-apportionment for the Maine State Legislature, and on the news analysis staff for then President-Elect Bill Clinton. In 1995, Sawyer settled in his home state of Maine and began a career as a high-tech freelance writer and technology consultant. That year Sawyer wrote his first book— The Ultimate Game Developer's Sourcebook—which was published in early 1996. In June 1997, Sawyer and Dave Greely founded Digitalmill.

Adrian Sexton is the Executive Vice President of Digital at Participant Productions. Sexton oversees digital media branding, advertising and global media content strategy in film, home entertainment and television. In 2006, he co-founded TAG Strategic, a media and entertainment solutions agency, with managing partner Ted Cohen, formerly with EMI. Previously, Sexton headed Digital Media as Vice President at Lions Gate Entertainment, a producer of motion picture, television and other filmed entertainment content worldwide. Sexton oversaw the day-to-day production, operations, programming, media planning and business development for all of Lionsgate’s online and mobile properties including such titles as American Psycho, Academy Award winner Monster's Ball, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, the interactive Clio-awarded Saw, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Academy Award-winning Crash, Saw II and Quentin Tarantino’s Hostel. Sexton also facilitated a $350 million credit facility with JP Morgan Chase, involving the acquisition of Artisan Entertainment. Working closely with senior management, since Sexton joined Lions Gate, the market capitalization of the company rose from $80 million to $1.2 billion dollars.

Eric Zimmerman has been working in the game industry for 14 years. He is the Co-founder & Chief Design Officer of Gamelab (www.gamelab.com), an independent game development company based in New York City. Gamelab creates and self-publishes innovative singleplayer and multiplayer games that are distributed online, on mobile phones, and through retail, including the hit downloadable games Diner Dash, Miss Management, and Jojo's Fashion Show. Pre-Gamelab titles include SiSSYFiGHT 2000 and the PC title Gearheads. Eric has taught courses at MIT, New York University, and Parsons School of Design. He has lectured and published extensively about game design and is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (MIT Press, 2004), and The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (MIT Press, 2006), as well as the co-editor of RE:PLAY (Peter Lang Press, 2004).

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November 20, 2008
NCTI Technology Innovators Conference

August 3, 2009
SIGGRAPH 2009