Speaker Bios
Jeff Bell is corporate vice president of Global Marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft Corp., responsible for worldwide marketing strategies and plans for the Xbox and Games for Windows businesses. His team serves Microsoft Game Studios games, the Xbox and Games for Windows platforms and brands, global marketing promotions for Xbox Live, and customer relationship management. Since joining Microsoft in June 2006 following his position at DaimlerChrysler, Bell’s team has produced the launch campaigns for “Gears of War” and “Viva Piñata,” and implemented the first global and vertically integrated marketing campaign for Xbox, Next Generation Now. Bell brings a consumer experience and innovation to the Interactive Entertainment Business from his most recent experience at the Chrysler Group, where he was largely credited with helping revitalize the Jeep and Chrysler brands. Bell’s work in games led to Chrysler being named Interactive Marketer of the Year in 2005 by Advertising Age. He also received the MediaPost Online All-Star Award in 2005 and was recently named one of the 21 Most Intriguing People in Marketing by min Magazine. Bell graduated from Kenyon College and holds a master’s degree in international economics from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Lucy Bernholz is the Founder and President of Blueprint Research & Design, Inc., a strategy consulting firm specializing in program research and design for philanthropic foundations. She has worked as a program officer and consultant to foundations since 1990. Bernholz founded Blueprint Research & Design, Inc in 1997 as a means of pursuing a lifelong interest in the shifting relationships between society’s definitions of public and private and to help grant makers make better use of applied research. As a community foundation program officer, Bernholz was responsible for developing and managing grant programs in the arts and humanities, community development, education, environment, health, historic preservation, and human services. She also supervised the implementation of special initiatives focused on neighborhood development, lesbian and gay community issues, management assistance, citizenship, and early adolescence. As a consultant, Bernholz has developed grant strategies on a wide range of social issues for foundations, individuals, and corporations. Dr. Bernholz is a noted analyst of the philanthropic industry and has published numerous 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 by John Wiley & Sons in 2004. She has been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. She serves as a Special Fellow to the Synergos Institute and as Member of the International Network on Strategic Philanthropy. Bernholz is on the Advisory Boards of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equality, YouthGive, Social Venture Partners Bay Area, the National Philanthropic Trust, and The Grantmaking School. In addition, she is an Advisory Fellow of the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, on the Market Steering Committee of Impact Manager, and serves on the Board of Directors of CompuMentor. She earned her B.A. from Yale University where she captained the lacrosse team and played field hockey. She holds a M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
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.
Edward Castronova (PhD, Economics, Wisconsin, 1991) is an Associate Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is an expert on the economies of large-scale online games and has numerous publications on that topic, including a book entitled Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games.
Heather Chaplin is the author of Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution, a narratively told exploration of the modern videogame industry. (Algonquin Books 2005) The book was a New York Times' editor's pick and a Booksense Pick for 2005. Heather has written for the New York Times, LA Times, Fortune, New York, Details, GQ, as well as been a commentator for All Things Considered, a columnist for Salon, and a senior writer for Fortune Small Business. Smartbomb has been cited in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Talk of the Nation, CBS Sunday Morning, Slate, Newsweek, and Business Week. Heather has also moderated or participated in panels for Sundance, The Independent Film Festival, Games for Change, and the Wall Street Transcript as well as spoken on the topic for corporations and universities around the country.
Alex Chisholm is founder of [ICE]^3 Studios, a media research and development consultancy that creates transmedia entertainment and educational properties, and is currently developing several projects with NBC News, NBC Olympics-Beijing 2008, and The Chilren's Hospital Trust. As Co-Director of the Education Arcade at MIT, Chisholm manages a variety of "games in education" projects, coordinates university-industry partnerships, and produces MIT's Games in Education conferences. Previously, he organized the NBC Olympics Presents the Visa Championships-Torino 2006, an "Olympics for the rest of us" experience that ran alongside NBC's coverage from Italy. As part of his ongoing work with MIT Comparative Media Studies and as a contributor to The Expression Lab, a research partnership with Interpublic Group's Consumer Experience Practice, Chisholm co-authored the third in a series of papers on the "expression," a new research model to better define consumer engagement with content across today's multiple media channels; this work was presented in Shanghai at ESOMAR's Wordwide Multi-Media Measurement Conference and was awarded Best Paper honors (June 2006). Over the past seven years, he has collaborated on research, product, and program development with Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Interpublic Group, LeapFrog, NBC Universal, Children's Hospital Boston, and the MacArthur Foundation. While Director of External Relations and Special Projects for MIT Comparative Media Studies between 1999-2003, Chisholm oversaw creative development efforts and research with the Royal Shakespeare Company, producing a computer game concept inspired by The Tempest, and managed research with Initiative Media around American Idol; as part of this work, he co-authored the first two papers on the "expression," which were presented at the ESOMAR/ARF Audience Measurement Conferences in 2002 (Cannes, France) and 2003 (Los Angeles, California). Chisholm is the author and producer of Earthen Vessels, an independent storytelling project that emerges from a novel, film, and web site. He is currently working with Sarah Smith, author of Chasing Shakespeares, to adapt her novel to the stage. Chisholm earned his B.S. in General Studies from Cornell University.
Greg Costikyan is CEO of Manifesto Games, a start-up devoted to creating a viable path to market for independently developed games. Prior to founding Manifesto, he was a games researcher for Nokia; and prior to that co-founder of Unplugged Games, one of the first mobile game start-ups in North America. He has designed more than 30 commercially published board, roleplaying, computer, online, and mobile games, including five Origins Awards winners; is an inductee into the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame; and at the most recent Game Developers Conference, received the Maverick Award for his tireless promotion of independent games. His essay, "I Have No Words and I Must Design" is used across the globe in game studies classes, and he has written on games, game design, and game industry business issues for publications including Wall Street Journal Interactive, the New York Times, and The Escapist, as well as chapters to books including Second Person and Business and Legal Primer for Game Development. He is also the author of four published science fiction novels.
Jeska Dzwigalski (aka: Jeska Linden) has worked for Linden Lab, the creators of the virtual world Second Life, since the summer of 2004. Previously she worked as the Web Integrator for Borders.com. Her work at Linden has focused on the new user experience, product development, volunteer management and Second Life Community advocacy. Jeska received her Masters in Digital Media from the University of Denver, where she worked with the cable news channel C-SPAN on an innovative distance learning program. Jeska also previously worked at the San Jose Museum of Art, where she helped to bring more technological interaction to the exhibitions. She’s on the advisory board for the Second Life Community Convention and presented at their 2005 convention. She’s also presented at the 2006 Make Fest during the O'Reilly eTech Conference, the 2006 NetSquared Conference and the 2007 Virtual Worlds Conference.
Allison Fine is a successful social entrepreneur and writer dedicated to helping grassroots organizations and activists successfully implement social change efforts. Wiley & Sons published her first book, Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age, in 2006. As a senior fellow on the Democracy Team at Demo: A Network for Change and Action in New York City, Allison researches and writes about the future of social change and politics in this new digital age. Allison’s articles have been published in the Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. She is also a frequent contributor to Huffington Post, Personal Democracy Forum, Alternet and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Allison is a frequent speaker and commentator on social change in the Connected Age. She has spoken at numerous philanthropic events and conferences including Independent Sector, Council on Foundations, the Ad Council, the National Technology Conference, and the Annenberg School on Global Communications. She has authored and co-authored dozens of studies on the efficacy of social change efforts for nonprofit and philanthropic organizations including the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Allison served as the C.E.O. of The E-Volve Foundation in 2004-2005, and was the Founder and Executive Director of Innovation Network, Inc. from 1992-2004.
Mary Flanagan directs the Tiltfactor Laboratory, the first academic center to focus on social activist games. As the first game research lab in New York City, we create games for change, educational games, artwork, and social software. We hope to make effective interventions in thinking about how games, and software in general, can evolve to take into account social activist principles. Our work is research driven: for example, how can one design for multiple learners and multiple play styles? Can games improve the self-efficacy of underrepresented groups? Can games teach equity, diversity, creativity? What are the design solutions which highlight collaboration, yet also satisfy competitive urges? http://www.tiltfactor.org
Stephen K. Friedman is General Manager and Executive Vice President of mtvU, MTV Networks’ channel solely dedicated to college students and college life on-air, online, on mobile phones and on campus. In this position, he oversees all aspects of the college-based network, as well as all operations of mtvU’s two owned-and-operated divisions: College Publisher, the largest interactive network of online college newspapers in the US, and RateMyProfessors.com, the Internet’s largest listing of collegiate professor ratings. Taken together, mtvU’s platforms make it the largest and most comprehensive media network for college students, with mtvU reaching over 7.2 million students on 750 campuses, College Publisher reaching over 5.5 million students via 500 online campus papers, and approximately 10 million college students logging on to RateMyProfessors.com each year. During Mr. Friedman’s tenure as head of mtvU, the network’s distribution has grown more than 40%, advertisers have quintupled, the College Publisher and RateMyProfessors businesses have been acquired and mtvU’s Sudan Campaign to fight the genocide in Darfur has been honored with two Emmy awards, including the 2006 Governors Award – the highest honor bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Mr. Friedman joined MTV in 1998 when he was hired by Judy McGrath – now CEO of MTV Networks – to found MTV’s department of Strategic Partnerships and Public Affairs, with the charge of “using MTV’s superpowers for good.” The campaigns he pioneered in this role won three Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, and he served as Vice President of the group until being selected in April 2003 to head up and preside over the launch of mtvU. Before joining MTV, Mr. Friedman was a Vice President at Robinson, Lerer & Montgomery, a strategic consulting firm in New York, where his clients included Microsoft and NBC. He also served as a Director for the PEN American Center (the international writers’ human rights organization) and has contributed articles to Entertainment Weekly and Details magazine as a freelance writer. Mr. Friedman currently serves on the Advisory Board of Viacom’s KNOW HIV/AIDS campaign and the Advisory Board of Hollywood, Health and Society (Partnering Entertainment, Education and the CDC). He holds a B.A. with Honors from Wesleyan University.
Tracy Fullerton, M.F.A., is a game designer, educator and writer with fifteen years of professional experience. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Interactive Media Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she serves as Co-Director of the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab. Tracy is the author of Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping and Playtesting Games, a design textbook in use at game programs worldwide. Recent credits include faculty advisor for the award-winning student games Cloud and flOw, and game designer for The Night Journey a unique game/art project with media artist Bill Viola. Prior to joining the USC faculty, she was president and founder of the interactive television game developer, Spiderdance, Inc. Spiderdance’s games included NBC’s Weakest Link, MTV’s webRIOT, The WB’s No Boundaries, History Channel’s History IQ, Sony Game Show Network’s Inquizition and TBS’s Cyber Bond. Before starting Spiderdance, Tracy was a founding member of the New York design firm R/GA Interactive. As a producer and creative director she created games and interactive products for clients including Sony, Intel, Microsoft, AdAge, Ticketmaster, Compaq, and Warner Bros. among many others. Notable projects include Sony’s Multiplayer Jeopardy! and Multiplayer Wheel of Fortune and MSN’s NetWits, the first multiplayer casual game. Additionally, Tracy was Creative Director at the interactive film studio Interfilm, where she wrote and co-directed the “cinematic game” Ride for Your Life, starring Adam West and Matthew Lillard. She began her career as a designer at Bob Abel’s company Synapse, where she worked on the interactive documentary Columbus: Encounter, Discovery and Beyond and other early interactive projects. Tracy’s work has received numerous industry honors including an Emmy nomination for interactive television, best Family/Board Game from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, ID Magazine’s Interactive Design Review, Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual, several New Media Invision awards, iMix Best of Show, the Digital Coast Innovation Award, IBC’s Nombre D’Or, Time Magazine’s Best of the Web and the Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Power 100. More info and project screenshots at www.tracyfullerton.com.
Alan Gershenfeld has spent the last twenty years at the intersection of entertainment, technology and social entrepreneurship. Alan is currently CEO of netomat, a software company committed to breaking down barriers to communication by enabling people to be connected to the information and people they care about regardless of network, device or location. Before co-founding netomat, Alan spent six years at Activision, a worldwide leader in entertainment software. He was a member of the executive management team which rebuilt Activision from a fledgling business, recently emerged from bankruptcy, into a profitable industry powerhouse with more than a billion dollars in revenue. As Senior Vice President of Activision Studios, Alan supervised all product development at the company's Los Angeles studios as well as all of the studio functions, including product development, technology, quality assurance and customer support. Titles released under Alan's leadership include Civilization: Call to Power, Asteroids, Spycraft, Muppet Treasure Island, Pitfall, Zork and Tony Hawk Skateboarding. Before joining Activision, Alan spent nearly ten years in the film industry where he worked in a variety of development, production and post-production positions with credits on such films as Waiting for the Light, To Sleep With Anger, Reversal of Fortune and Homicide. He has also directed the award-winning documentary The Expatriates and was a film critic for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Alan is also co-author of Game Plan, a book about the computer and video game business for St. Martin's Press and serves on the Board of Directors of FilmAid International, a nonprofit that screens films for refugees and displaced people throughout the world as well as the Fab Foundation, a nonprofit focused on education, empowerment and enterprise creation through personal fabrication.
Carl Goodman is deputy director and director of Digital Media at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York, where he oversees all public programmatic aspects of the Museum and supervises its use and study of computer-based media and technologies. For the Museum of Moving Image, Carl produced many online projects intended for audiences with broadband internet connections, including The Living Room Candidate (2004), which presents and interprets hundreds presidential campaign television commercials from 1952-2004; and Sloan Science Cinematheque (2005), which is devoted to uses of science & mathematics-related themes in film and television narrative entertainment, and made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Adam Green is a pro bono
philosopher. A native of New Jersey, he attended law school at the University of Virginia and did his undergraduate work at
The George Washington University in Washington DC, where he studied political
communications and economics. He
currently serves as Civic Communications Director for MoveOn.org Civic Action, where he leads MoveOn’s ongoing campaign for Net
Neutrality, a cause of importance to
gamers. He worked with Prof. Larry Lessig
to assemble a bipartisan alliance urging both
major political parties to protect online political speech by
putting video of presidential debates into the public domain. He also led MoveOn’s recent campaign –with bloggers and film director Robert Greenwald – against Fox hosting a
Democratic presidential campaign.
Previously, he served as the DNC’s Press
Secretary in Oregon during the 2004 presidential
campaign, Communications Director for the New Jersey Democratic Party from 2003
to 2004, and Press Secretary for Sen. Tim Johnson’s (D-SD) successful
re-election in 2002.
Evonne Heyning worked as a teacher, nonprofit organizer, curator, chaplain, writer and media producer before launching Amoration in 2004. She leads a team of interactive developers specializing in award-winning installations, virtual world development and machinima for film, television and web. AMO studio artists in Los Angeles provide nonprofit bridgebuilding connections and vital design service while cultivating new networks for change around the world.
Barry Joseph, Director of the Online Leadership Program, 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 virtual worlds like Second Life, combining youth development practices with the development of high profile digital media projects that develop 21st Century Skills. He has also worked with GK's development program to secure funding from the Time-Warner Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Microsoft Corporation. Barry serves on the steering committee of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative and his writing will appear in the Foundation's Ecology of Games volume in 2007. Barry has been invited to present at the University of Wisconsin's Games, Learning and Society Conference, M.I.T.'s Educational Arcade, the annual Games For Change conference, at the United Nations, and at Microsoft's Wide World Summit. His projects and views have appeared in the New York Times, CNN, Marie Claire, BusinessWeek, The Voice of America, and through press in Russia and Japan. During his time at Global Kids, Barry has also found time to successfully launch two non-profits, Games For Change and a second working for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Joseph Kahne is the Abbie Valley Professor of Education and is Dean of the School of Education at Mills College. He writes about the democratic purposes of education and on urban school reform. Joseph Kahne is currently conducting a longitudinal study of the civic implications of young people’s engagement with digital media. He can be reached at jkahne@mills.edu. Also see: www.civicsurvey.org
Beth Kanter is a trainer, coach, and consultant to nonprofits and individuals in effective use of technology. She has worked on projects that include: training, curriculum development, research, and evaluation. Her expertise is how to use new web tools (blogging, tagging, wikis, photo sharing, video blogging, screencasting, social networking sites, and virtual worlds, etc) to support nonprofit. She is an experienced coach to "digital immigrants" in the personal mastery of these tools. She is a professional blogger and writes about the use of social media tools in the nonprofit sector for social change.
Bob Kerrey is president of The New School in New York City. For twelve years prior to becoming president of The New School, Bob Kerrey represented the State of Nebraska in the United States Senate. Before that he served as Nebraska's governor for four years.
Frank Lantz, Creative Director and co-Founder of area/code is a game designer based in New York City. He has worked in the field of game development for the past 20 years. Before starting area/code, Frank was the
Director of Game Design at gameLab, a developer of online and downloadable games. Frank has also worked as a game designer for the developer POP, where he created games for Cartoon Network, Lifetime TV, and VH1. Between 1988 and 1998, he was Creative Director at R/GA Interactive, a New York digital design company. For over 10 years, Frank has taught game design at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, the School of Visual Arts, and the New School. His writings on games, technology and culture have appeared in a variety of publications.
Chris Melissinos is Sun Microsystems' CTO of Web 2.0 and Chief Gaming Officer and a self-proclaimed video game addict. His responsibilities include the development of Sun Microsystems programs, offerings, and vision targeting the electronic entertainment industry. He is responsible for driving an industry-wide movement toward Java technology-based game development and building infrastructure programs for massively connected game play. Melissinos' speaking resume includes high profile conferences such as the Consumer Electronics Show, Electronic Entertainment Expo, Game Developers Conference, Harvard's Cyberposium, Java Conference in Milan, Italy, and Ziff-Davis's Electronic Gaming Summit.
David Rejeski is the Director, Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Rejeski was appointed the first Flum Scholar at the Wilson Center in July 2000. He heads The Serious Games Initiative which is housed at the Wilson Center. Prior to his work at Wilson Rejeski worked at the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Policy (EPA), and in 1994 was assigned to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Rejeski's focus at the Wilson center concerns long-term challenges facing the United States as well as finding ways to make policymakers and government leaders think more insightfully about long term decision making. He feels that games are one tool that may help immensely in building long-term thinking skills among not only government officials but the general public at-large.
Katie Salen is the Executive Director of the Gamelab Institute of Play, as well as an Associate Professor in the Design and Technology program, Parsons The New School for Design. The Insititute of Play has partnered with New Visions for Public Schools to design a new public high school themed around games. She is co-author of two books: Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals and the Game Design Reader, as well as the forthcoming volume The Ecology of Games, for which she served as editor. Katie recently co-developed “Karaoke Ice,” an ice-cream truck turned mobile karaoke unit deployed to collect and curate idiosyncratic performances of tinkle-pop songs as well as One Nature, a project on sustainability and water consumption in Las Vegas. She designs big games, slow games, and game-like experiences for audiences of all types and is currently working on a multiplayer online game to teach kids game design through Gamelab. Katie spends much of her time gaming on trains and planes in lieu of single serving meals.
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.
Suzanne Seggerman is Co-founder and President of Games for Change (G4C), a non-profit dedicated to supporting the use of video game technology in addressing social issues. 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 Masters from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Karen Sideman is an interactive designer specializing in educational play. She is the creative director for Sally Ride Science, an organization that supports and extends girls interest in science, math and technology. She is also adjunct faculty at the Parsons School of Design MFA Design & Technology Program. Most of her games and activities available online these days are created for preschoolers who dont read yet (or even know what a game is.) She was creative director at Sesame Street Online during the tech boom.
Benjamin Stokes is a Program Officer at the MacArthur Foundation. His focus is on the five-year, $50 million "digital media and learning" initiative launched in 2006 to help determine how digital media is changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Previously, Benjamin co-founded Games for Change (G4C), the central organization advancing games media for positive social change. Before G4C, Benjamin served as E-Learning Architect at NetAid, training high school students to reach 150,000 of their peers in the fight on global poverty. For middle school students, Benjamin produced the Peter Packet Challenge, the first online game application of real-world service learning. Benjamin has also studied and managed the United Nations online volunteering service.
Chris Swain is a game designer, entrepreneur, and co-author of the textbook Game Design Workshop. Chris co-founded and directs the EA Game Innovation Lab at USC. His lab projects include: Immune Attack – funded by National Science Foundation and created in collaboration with Brown University, the USC Gamepipe Lab, and the Federation of American Scientists, The New New Deal – funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and produced in collaboration with the LA Times, ELECT-BiLat – funded by the US Army and produced for USC Institute for Creative Technologies, and The Redistricting Game – funded by the Annenberg Center for Communication. Prior to coming to USC Chris was a founding member of the New York design firm R/GA Interactive. At R/GA he lead over 150 interactive products for clients that include Microsoft, Sony, Disney, Activision, America Online, Warner Brothers, PBS, Intel, IBM, Kodak, Ticketmaster, Children’s Television Workshop, and many others. Chris was a co-founder of the technology start-up Spiderdance, Inc. He served on the Board of Directors of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmy’s) from 2000-2004. He started his career at the pioneering interactive firm Synapse Technologies.
Susan Tenby has been with TechSoup.org since
its launch, in 2000. She manages the TechSoup
community forums and occasionally works with the editorial team. Most recently,
she launched a community of nonprofit organizations in Second Life. This
community has a shared community blog:
http://secondlife.techsoup.org; and it has open meetings, weekly in-world every
Friday from
Douglas Thomas is Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and a fellow at the USC Annenberg Center. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Minnesota in Communication in 1992 and specializes in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies of Technology. His current research, supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the Lounsbery Foundation, and the Annenberg Center at USC, focuses on the uses of virtual worlds for education and global civic engagement. He is founding editor of Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, a quarterly international journal that aims to publish innovative theoretical and empirical research about games and culture within the context of interactive media. His books include: Hacking Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2002), a study of the cultural, social, and political dimensions of computer hacking, Reading Nietzsche Rhetorically (Guilford Press, 1998), an examination of the role of representation in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technologies (with Marita Sturken and Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Temple UP, 2004) and Cybercrime: Law Enforcement, Security and Surveillance in the Information Age (with Brian D. Loader; Routledge, 2000. His current projects include Power, Play and Performance: Studying Virtual Worlds and Play and Politics: Games, Civic Engagement, and Social Activism (with Josh Fouts). Professor Thomas is a founding member of the Critical and Cultural Studies division of the National Communication Association and has served as Chair of the division, serves on the advisory board for the Research Center for Cyberculture Studies at the University of Washington and is currently Vice-President of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and Program Chair for the ACM/SIGGRAPH Video Game Symposium. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on issues of computer hacking, cyberterrorism, and critical infrastructure protection.
Clive Thompson is a science and technology journalist and a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, Wired, and Fast Company. He writes a video-game column for Wired News, contributes frequently to New York magazine, and regularly comments on the cultural impact of science and technology for NPR, the CBC, and local radio nationwide. He publishes the blog Collision Detection, and his work has been widely anthologized. He is a former Knight Science Journalism fellow.
McKenzie Wark is the author of Gamer Theory, published by Harvard University Press, and as a 'networked book' by The Institute for the Future of the Book. His previous books include A Hacker Manifesto, also published by Harvard, and translated into 8 languages. He teaches media studies at Eugene Lang College and sociology at the New School for Social Research. His website can be found here.
Eric Zimmerman has been working in the game industry for more than twelve years. He is the co-founder and CEO of Gamelab (www.gamelab.com), a game development company based in New York City that focuses on experimental and innovative games. Gamelab creates and self-publishes award-winning singleplayer and multiplayer games that are distributed online, on mobile phones, and through retail, including the hit downloadable game Diner Dash. Pre-Gamelab titles include SiSSYFiGHT 2000 (www.sissyfight.com) and the PC title Gearheads. Eric has taught courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, and Parsons School of Design. He has lectured and published extensively about game design and game culture 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 with Amy Scholder of RE:PLAY: Game Design and Game Culture (Peter Lang Press, 2004).