The following individuals participated in Serious Issues, Serious Games.
(more information available at /archives/2004/10/nonprofit_games.html)

Carole Artigiani is Founder and Executive Director of Global Kids, Inc., a NYC-based educational organization dedicated to empowering young people with knowledge, skills, experiences, and values to become global citizens and community leaders. GK offers programs for students and educators (9,000 last year) with a focus on global education, leadership development, academic achievement, and participatory citizenship, and it actively promotes public discussion of international affairs. She received the "Spirit of Anne Frank Outstanding Educator Award" from the Anne Frank Foundation and, at the United Nations, the Gandhi-King Award for Nonviolence.

Jesse Ausubel, Program Director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, led the development of the first games about global warming in 1980-1981.  His 1988 book "Cities and Their Vital Systems" was a source for the first release of SimCity.  In 1995 Mr. Ausubel teamed with Bill Massy to develop a university simulator, which was released in 2000 as Virtual U. (www.virtual-u.org), now considered one of the prototype serious games.

Ian Bogost (presenter) is a game designer, academic game researcher, and educational publisher. Currently, Dr. Bogost is Assistant Professor in the Information Design & Technology program at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he teaches and researches videogame criticism and videogame rhetoric.   Bogost is editor at Water Cooler Games, the online resource about games with an agenda. He has published and presented internationally on game criticism and game rhetoric. Bogost is also the founder of two companies, Persuasive Games, a game studio that designs, builds, and distributes electronic games for persuasion, instruction, and activism; and Open Texture, a publisher of cross-media education and enrichment materials for families. The former CTO of one of LA's top interactive marketing companies, Bogost has nearly a decade of experience in digital media production for film, music, games, advertising, and business..

Scott Bowling has over 20 years of experience in the computer industry, including training, software and database development, multimedia CD-ROM production, web site design/development, technology consulting, strategic planning and knowledge/experience management. Scott is the CEO of Designed Xperiences, a digital media company specializing in experience management and computer/human interaction. He has taught at Marymount Manhattan College and currently serves as president of the World Wide Web Artists' Consortium (WWWAC) Board of Directors.

Ria Burghardt -- Director of Development at NetAid.  As an accountant and public interest attorney, Ria has over twenty-five years’ experience working in the legal, financial, fundraising, and program areas of the nonprofit sector. During her tenure at Global Rights, she managed an international staff of over 75 employees around the world and provided expertise to that organization on US government regulations and compliance.  Prior to her eight years at the Law Group, Ria was in-house counsel for SeniorNet in San Francisco, an online network for seniors with over 80 technology learning centers around the country and over 100,000 online members.

Andy Darrell, is the New York regional director of the Environmental Defense Fund, which is fighting to protect human health, restore our oceans and ecosystems, and curb global warming.

Kedar Deshpande has held positions in the film industry ranging from second assistant director to gaffer/grip.  He has worked on five professional shorts, one in HD, two shot in 16mm, two in DV and a music video.  He is currently enrolled in the film production program at NYU.

Anna Edwin is an intern for the Office of corporate responsibility at Time Warner. She attends The University of Pennsylvania and is planning to major in Communications and Political Science. This summer she is in charge of Time Warner's Summer Grant program and is researching ways for Time Warner to best use its vast resources.

Carl Goodman (presenter) is Curator of Digital Media and Director of New Media Projects at the American Museum of the Moving Image, where he oversees the Museum's use and study of computer-based media and technology.  The Museum is devoted to the art, history, and technology of film, television, and digital media.  Carl has organized exhibitions such as Expanded Entertainment, which examines the interweaving histories of arcade, video, and computer games, and <ALT> DigitalMedia, a gallery of interactive software-based art. He produced all computer-based elements in Behind the Screen, an 8,000 square-foot exhibition exploring the craft and technology of motion picture and television production. Other digital/online projects include The Living Room Candidate, an online exhibition and video archive focusing on the fifty-year history of presidential campaign commercials; eDocent, a portable, wireless information prototype for use in the Museum's galleries; and Pinewood Dialogues Online, a searchable online audio database consisting of presentations made at the Museum by important filmmakers. Carl is also on the Board of Directors of arts organizations Creative Time and Harvestworks.

Nick Grossman: Web design/database manager for Project for Public Spaces.  PPS creates and manages resource center sites for all sectors of public space management; Parks, Markets, Buildings, and Transportation; as well as Local Online Resource Centers--websites that accompany planning initiatives in municipalities around the country.  Nick liaises between content, design, and programming teams to plan and implement new sites and new features on existing sites.

Jessica Irish (presenter) is an Assistant Professor of Art at Wellesley College, where she is co-Director of the Media Arts and Sciences program.  Irish was one of  the founding principals of OnRamp Arts, a digital arts non-profit in central Los Angeles that produces innovative new media projects in collaboration with local communities and artists.   Jessica Irish is an inter-media artist, working in multimedia, video, installation, print and online spaces.  Her current work is an investigation into the relationships between information technology, landscape and ideology.

Jim Jasper serves as Creative Director for Jasper Design and leads the team on planning and content strategy.  Jasper Design has been designing for new media, focusing on web content and graphic identity development, since 1996. We have taken a special interest in designing educational games since the success of one of our early projects for National Audubon Society, Wild Wings: Heading North. We have also designed educational games for World Wildlife Fund, Liberty Science Center, Mad Dogs and Englishmen Advertising, Girl Scouts of the USA, and New York University's School of Education on subjects as divergent as tobacco farming, biodiversity, and asthma.  Before founding Jasper Design, Jim Jasper worked for Frankfurt Balkind in New York and Xyvision in London and Northern Europe and consulted for EDS and Interview, People, and InStyle magazines on design and publishing technology projects. He holds a B.A. in art and design from Yale.

Barry Joseph (steering committee, presenter) directs the Online Leadership Program (OLP) of Global Kids (GK), a NYC-based educational organization that support urban youth to become global citizens and community leaders. The OLP integrates the use of the Internet into GK's youth development, leadership, media literacy, and civic engagement programming using social impact games, online dialogues, and social action. Two years of work with Global Kids' high school leaders has led to the development of three social impact gaming initiatives: an online "casual" game about airport profiling (The Profiler), a massively-multiplayer online game (MMOG) about youth activists and public policy (The Public Policy Slam), and a "social space" in an existing for-profit youth-oriented MMOG where GK will develop and administer a youth civic education curriculum (U.S. Habbo Hotel). Barry has been an active member of the Serious Games community since December, 2003, and played a key role initiating and coordinating today's event. More information can be found at <globalkids.org/olp>.

Jee Kim (presenter) has been active in various racial justice, immigrant rights, and Hip Hop activism efforts for over a decade. His media experience includes working at Pseudo.com, 360hiphop.com, BET.com, and Community Connect (AsianAvenue.com & BlackPlanet.com). Jee edited the 9/11 anthology, “Another World is Possible” and “The Future 500,” a youth organizing directory and currently works at the Surdna Foundation.

Alexander Kopelman (presenter) has served as Director of Communications of Girls Incorporated--a national nonprofit organization that inspires all girls to be strong, smart, and bold--for the past six years.  In that capacity, Mr. Kopelman oversees the organization's public education and advocacy efforts, including its technology initiatives to reach more girls and advance its mission.

Ever since his first programmed game, an Eliza clone written in Basic at the age of 9, Kevin Lahoda (presenter) has been interested technology. Today, Kevin designs and produces participatory new media by looking into ways that information technology can be combined with more traditional forms of authorship to help bring about new arrangements in communication. Working with the Gotham Gazette allows him an opportunity to do just that. He holds MFA from Parsons School of Design and a BA in Anthropology from Binghamton University.

Jenny Lai (presenter) is the Founder and Executive Director of the ESA Foundation, the foundation of the computer and video games industry. She oversees the operations and activities of the Foundation and produces "A Nite to Unite for Kids", an annual fund-raiser hosted by the industry, which has raised more than more than $5.7 million in the last five years and has become one of the most important events in the industry.

During his 18 years in the new media industry, Brian Loube (presenter) has produced virtually every type of media there is, from TV to feature film animation, from games to websites.  Brian started his career shooting special effects animation on film, and in 1989, he helped usher in the desktop media revolution by producing the first TV commercial ever created on a Macintosh computer.  He went on to found R/GA Interactive and run it for several years, and later worked entrepreneurially on his own interactive character company. Along the way, Brian also built the online groups at Sesame Street & Imaginary Forces.  Today, Brian is Experience Director of Games at America Online.

Thomas Lowenhaupt (steering committee) has been a developer of interactive technologies for 25 years and public official for 12. His focus is on opening effective new channels into the governance process. In 2003, after introducing a community website ( http://www.cb3qn.nyc.gov ) he expected residents to flock to the new venue. Finding interest restrained, he devised The Great Tree Hunt Game as a method to attract and involve residents in creating society's future. 

Jessica Ludwig is an Editor at PBS Interactive—home of comprehensive companion Web sites for PBS television programs as well as original content and real time learning adventures—where she oversees the development of companion sites. Prior to joining PBS, she wrote about issues in information technology and distance education at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Jane A. McIntosh is the Deputy Director for Development at the American Museum of the Moving Image.  Prior to this position, she was the Director of Development at the National Academy of Design/Museum and School of Fine Arts where she oversaw all fundraising activities. Before joining the Academy in 2002, Jane was the Assistant Director of the American Folk Art Museum's $34,500,000 capital campaign for a new building and endowment. 

David Miller is a Games Producer and UI designer who has developed games and game-related websites for Kesmai, Delphi and AOL. Currently, he works at AOL quietly plotting to make the world a better place, by enhancing the way that people play together.

Beth Simone Noveck (presenter) is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy and the Democracy Design Workshop at New York Law School.  Prof. Noveck teaches in the areas of intellectual property, technology and constitutional law.  Her research focuses on the intersection between technology and civil liberties.  She is co-editor of the new book series "Ex Machina: Law, Technology and Society" published by NYU Press and is also the organizer of the annual conference, "The State of Play: Law, Games and Virtual Worlds" (Oct 29-31, 2004).

Ken Perlin is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University. He is the Director of the Media Research Laboratory and the co-Director of the NYU Center for Advanced Technology. His research interests include graphics, animation, and multimedia. In January 2004 he was the featured artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2002 he received the NYC Mayor's award for excellence in Science and Technology and the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU. In 1997 he won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television. In 1991 he received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation.

Marc Prensky is a speaker, writer, consultant, and designer in the critical areas of education and learning.  He is the author of Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2001), the founder of Games2train, whose clients include IBM, Nokia and the US Department of Defense; and creator of www.socialimpactgames.com.  Marc has created over 50 software games, including  the world's first fast-action videogame-based training tools and world-wide, multi-player, multi-team on-line competitions. He has also taught at all levels.  Marc has been featured in articles in The NY Times and The Wall Street Journal, has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS and the BBC, and was named as one of training’s top 10 “visionaries” by Training magazine. He holds graduate degrees from Harvard and Yale.

Dave Rejeski (steering committee, conference leader) is the Director of the Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a non-partisan policy research institute in Washington, DC.  The Project launched the Serious Games initiative two years ago to stimulate the application of computer game technologies to public policy and social issues.  He has been an affiliated adjunct staff member at RAND, visiting fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and spent six years at the White House (Office of Science and Technology Policy and Council for Environmental Quality).

Theresa Riley (presenter) is the Director of P.O.V. Interactive. She is an award-winning web producer whose work has been featured on PBS Online, onmagazine.com and time.com. In 1998, she joined PBS Online as the editor for news, history and documentary film websites. She co-produced a number of companion sites for PBS programs including the award-winning Ken Burns' Frank Lloyd Wright website. Other notable sites she produced for PBS Online include Wonders of the African World with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Conquistadors with Michael Wood, and Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure. After PBS, Theresa spent a couple of months in the U.K. at the ill-fated British start-up Boo.com before landing on her feet back in the U.S. as producer of the TIME Digital magazine website in 2000.

Steve Rossi When he's not dressed as Peter Packet, Stephen works in Cisco's Creative Learning Studio where his focus is on new technology development.  He has been key to projects such as Cisco's IP Phone prototype and e-game initiatives.

Katie Salen currently wears the hat of Director of Graduate Studies, Design and Technology Program, Parsons School of Design. Co-author (with Eric Zimmerman) of "Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals," and the forthcoming "Rules of Play Reader" (MIT Press, 2005) she is a former core team member of gameLab, and current member of Playground, a design team focused on large-scale, experimental, real-world games.

Suzanne Seggerman (steering committee, moderator) has been with Web Lab since its inception in 1997; Web Lab is a NY-based think tank that explores and encourages the innovative use of media to address social issues.  As Director of Special Projects, she has managed various projects across various media platforms: web, tv, film and digital games.   Her interest in the "crossover" of games and social issues has led her to the GDC since 1997, and she was thrilled to find Serious Games in early 2003.  Since then she has been actively involved in the Serious Games movement and has been an integral part of organizing this conference and its subsequent activities.  She moderates the SIGSIG listserv which will serve as a place of ongoing conversation and community after the conference.

Pete Sikora is the Organizing Director for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG).  A graduate of Cornell University, Sikora helps shape NYPIRG's campaign work and oversee individual issue campaigns.  Most recently, Sikora played a key role in passage of New York City's new lead poisoning prevention law.  He is currently directing NYPIRG's campaign to raise New York State's minimum wage, as well as the organization's voter mobilization effort, including a drive to register and turnout 100,000 New Yorkers to vote.

Benjamin G. Stokes (steering committee, presenter) is Program Manager at NetAid.  As an educator inspired by the emerging digital context, Benjamin heads up NetAid’s online game initiative.  He recently launched the Peter Packet Challenge, and before that designed the VolunteerGuru – an online guidance counselor for volunteers.  At Bigchalk, Benjamin produced and edited virtual fieldtrips for more than 43,000 K-12 schools.  As a researcher at CREA, Benjamin helped develop a living wage standard for the US-Mexico border region. Benjamin has taught middle school students at the Explo Summer Program, and during college he studied at the Université Gaston-Berger in Senegal.

Wade Tinney has worked as a game designer and producer since 1997. He holds and MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design. Wade co-founded Large Animal Games with Partner Josh Welber in January of 2001. Large Animal is currently working on a game for the non-profit Girls Inc. and developed the New York Philharmonic's education website. Wade has taught game design at Parsons School of Design and New York University.

Drew Ann Wake (presenter) spent ten years of her career developing exhibitions for museums and science centers in Canada, the United States and Europe. She has developed twenty computer games to help people explore complex social and environmental issues. The best known is Missing, a mystery which shows children the tactics used by sexual predators on-line. The URL is www.livewwwires.com

Marc Weiss, Executive Producer of Web Lab, spent a lot of time in old media -- a lot of time -- before new media came along to make life interesting again. As a kid, he was addicted to TV and he started making experimental films in college. Beginning in 1969 -- and well into the 90's -- Marc was pretty much consumed with the production, distribution, programming and promotion of independent documentaries. He was also a freelance writer, with articles in Rolling Stone, Variety and Mother Jones. He created P.O.V., the award-winning public TV series, in 1987 and was its executive producer through 1995, when he founded P.O.V. Interactive. 

Josh Welber has worked as a programmer and game developer since 1997. He has developed both 2D and 3D game engines; server side applications (for games and tools). He has a long and abiding interest in game AI programming. Prior to 1997 he developed digital and analog art installations, taught math and designed and built furniture. He has a BA from New York University's Gallatin School and an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design.

Connie Yowell (presenter) is Senior Program Officer at the MacArthur Foundation, which is dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. Through the support it provides, the MacArthur Foundation fosters the development of knowledge, nurtures individual creativity, helps strengthen institutions, participates in the formation of effective policy, and provides information to the public, primarily through support for public interest media.

Eric Zimmerman (presenter) has worked in the game industry for more than 10 years. He is Co-Founder and CEO of gameLab, a New York-based online game developer (www.gamelab.com). gameLab's award-winning work includes commercial games for companies like LEGO, HBO, and Microsoft, and educational games for companies including Ragdoll, Sesame Workshop, and PBS. Eric has taught at MIT's Comparative Media Studies program, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, and the Digital Design MFA program at Parsons School of Design and recently published two books on games design, Rules of Play (co-authored with Katie Salen) and RE:PLAY (co-edited with Amy Scholder).


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