** IMMERSION ** eCRM ** TRANSFORMATION ** COMMUNICATIONS ** GAMIFICATION ** ONLINE GAMES ** SERIOUS GAMES ** SOCIAL MEDIA ** APPS ** VIRTUAL WORLDS ** MMO ** AUGMENTED REALITY ** GEOSPATIAL ** IPHONE ** SMARTPHONE ** VIRTUAL GOODS ** MICROTRANSACTIONS ** ADVERTISING ** USER INTERFACE ** SOCIAL COMMERCE ** TRANSFORMATION ** LEARNING ** 4 July - 6th Annual Conference & Expo Show-Casing & Leading the Debate, London

CONFERENCE CHAIR & SPEAKER

Prof Richard Bartle - Essex University

Bartle received a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, where he created MUD with Roy Trubshaw, in 1978. He lectured at Essex until 1987, when he left to work full time on MUD (known as MUD2 in its present version). Recently he has returned to the university as a part-time professor and principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, supervising courses on computer game design as part of the department's degree course on computer game development.

In 2003, he wrote Designing Virtual Worlds, a book about the history, ethics, structure, and technology of massively multiplayer games. Bartle did research on player personality types in massively-multiplayer online games. In Bartle's analysis, players of massively multiplayer online games can be divided into four types: achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. This idea has been adapted into a popular online test generally referred to as the Bartle Test. The test is very popular and scores are often exchanged on MMORPG forums and networking sites.

WORK SMARTER MORNING KEYNOTES

Joe Little - BP, CTO

Joe will discuss how the decision to focus on Virtual Worlds came about, what business issues are being addressed via the technology, what challenges he has faced in implementing solutions and what results he has seen from pilots.

Joe is a senior executive in the Chief Technology Office of the BP Group. The group looks at new and emerging technologies and seeks to accelerate adoption of those technologies within the group where there is real business value. His specialization is in Immersive Training and Collaboration and social networking. Over the past 5 years Joe and the rest of the CTO team have experimented with virtual worlds in a number of scenarios from IT strategy planning, training, collaboration, online events and consumer education

PLAY SMARTER AFTERNOON KEYNOTES

Raf Keustermans

Raf is an independent consultant, advisor, speaker & columnist. He was until recently the Global Marketing Director at top Facebook games developer Playfish, who he joined after the $300mm acquisition by EA in November 2009. Before that he was European Marketing Director at EA's Pogo.com Raf is pleased to have been leading the team that was instrumental in achieving 50m+ monthly active players on Facebook and 15m+ monthly unique visitors on pogo.com EA's Club Pogo is one of the most successful gaming subscription services on the planet.

His career started with marketing at Unibet.com, one of the leading online gaming brands in Europe: 4.2m registered users and managing agency and partner relationships with Liverpool FC & Netlog.com amongst others.

Raf consults on Social/Casual/Mobile Games Strategy, Marketing & Monetization & Gamification
He is a columnist, guest-blogger for eGaming Review Magazine, Blueberry Jam and MyCustomer.com.

IMMERSION: Work Smarter

Stuart Newland - Marketing Manager, BP-Castrol

Stuart is an experienced marketing manager at BP who is accountable for global product launches across many Industrial categories. He takes a business lead on digital solutions customer insight and innovation. He is currently working on a number of sales force solutions which help deliver compelling marketing claims using novel technology to enables sales teams to pro-actively value sell and provide additional confidence to their end customers.

Tim Ringo - Maxxim Consulting

Tim Ringo is a Partner in Maxxim Consulting. His main focus is helping clients develop engaged, high performing workforces aligned to corporate centre strategy and business objectives. Previously he was Vice President and Global Leader of IBM's Human Capital Management consulting practice, based in London. He led a team of more than 1500 Human Capital consulting professionals around the world. He has over 20 years experience in helping clients create organisation and workforce performance through effective talent management strategy, processes and technologies.

Tim will share his knowledge of the 'Rise of the CIO' in determining adoption of innovation.

Tony Sheehan - Ashridge

Tony is Director of Learning Services at Ashridge Business School, leaing a team responsible for delivering rich learning before, during and after our programmes. He also leads the virtual learning products business which continues to build revenue from direct corporate sales year on year and teaches, facilitates and coaches in the areas of knowledge management and innovation.

I have a particular interest in helping organisations to manage knowledge in an age of information overload and to understand current trends in technology strategy, elearning and effective working practice. Previously, I was Group Knowledge Manager and Associate Director of Arup, where I was responsible for the development and implementation of a global Knowledge Management strategy supported by award winning people, process and technology solutions.

I present frequently at conferences and have taught programmes at Ashridge, LBS, Cass Business School, Henley Management College, and Imperial College Business School, where I am a visiting Fellow.

Jim Piggot - TPLD

Jim is Chief Executive Officer of TPLD, a world leading company that creates Virtual World and Serious Games solutions for the corporate sector. He is also a leading business consultant helping companies to develop strategic and operational plans in the IT sector; including SOA based network and systems management, serious games, mobile applications and virtual worlds.

Justin Bovington - Rivers Run Red

Justin Bovington has been instrumental in developing some of the world's major virtual brand launches. His company, Rivers Run Red, is one of the most sought-after creative marketing agencies in Europe, with clients including Adidas, Disney, vodafone, EMI, BBC and Carat. The virtual development division of Rivers Run Red was the first agency to create an in-world presence within the virtual world platform Second Life.

David Burden - Daden Ltd

David Burden started his career in army communications managing a range of mobile and wireless systems in a variety of challenging situations. After being "demobbed" in 1990, David joined Ascom, the Swiss telecoms company, and then Aseriti, the 70m turnover IT arm of Severn Trent plc. During the Dot Com boom David founded a wireless data company developing both WAP and Voice XML systems. David founded Daden, an Information 2.0 Consultancy in 1994.

David has been in Second Life since its inception where his real-life and SL business Daden Limited helps businesses and organisations explore the social and commercial potential of virtual worlds. David also has a keen interest in artificial intelligence and Daden have an AI platform for use both in SL and on the web.

IMMERSION: Play Smarter

Alice Taylor - MakieWorld

Alice Taylor is founder of Makieworld, an "'entertainment playspace for young people' that will invite users to download and print 3D dolls and accessories."

She is former Commissioning Editor, Education for Channel 4, where she developed a number of informal learning projects involving ARGs, casual gaming and other interactive entertainment formats. Before this, she was the Vice President of Digital Content for BBC Worldwide. In September 2006 she was named one of the Game Industry's 100 Most Influential Women by Next Generation Magazine Online. She founded and edits the blog Wonderland.

Tom Reding - BBC

As part of my role I'm the Product Owner for Games Grid, a suite of tools and services that supports and drives the BBC's games portfolio.

Over the past year I have taken Games Grid from one line concept to fully functional platform with features that include a connected games database grounded in a newly devised ontology, simplified login and state storage, high scores and leader-boards, achievements, social tools & analytics.

In my wider role I lead an editorial team responsible for strategic input on commissioning, delivering and syndicating games from all of the BBC's production areas. I work closely with UK games industry talent and commercial colleagues in BBC Worldwide.

I also advise teams on the integration of games mechanics into functional software with the aim of increasing engagement and loyalty. I am currently working with the Knowledge & Learning team to define the new product as part of the recent reorganisation of digital services.

Ian Hughes – Feeding Edge

A former IBM Consulting IT Specialist who has worked on leading edge emerging technologies for the past 17 years, he is a Metaverse specialist having led IBM into the metaverse for the past few years understanding the social, business and technical implications.

Manfred Bortenschlager - Samsung Research Institute

Manfred Bortenschlager is Senior Engineering Manager at the Samsung Electronics Research Institute in Staines, UK. He is responsible for a team of software engineers, technical writers, and marketer and aligns and coordinates the activities to position and promote Samsung’s new mobile phone platform and ecosystem bada within the relevant developer communities.

Before that, Manfred Bortenschlager has been working in the domain of Pervasive Computing where he focussed on Coordination in Pervasive Environments. He published 40 scientific papers. Manfred Bortenschlager holds a PhD in Computer Science and a MSc in Telecommunications Engineering.

Dominic Mason - AtomFire Productions

Dominic has been making games since you had to build your own computer to make games on. He nows runs full service agency, AtomFire, and has worked with Nintendo, KFC, Pepsico, COI, Mattel and Hasbro on their interactive entertainment strategy. He also works with b2b and b2c brands on their mobile, search, social, video and ARM (acquire, retain, monetise) digital strategy.

Richard Adams - FreeForm London

For over 20 years, Richard has worked with businesses to equip them with realistic communications models and sound business models based on emerging communications technologies.

Recent projects have included developing a premium content/pay strategy for one of Britain's best known magazines, a strategy for a TV company related to how to deal with the oncoming changes to the business of broadcast and production in the new emerging comms landscape and building an e-commerce site.

Richard has also held senior academic positions, including founding a digital arts department and holding a Visiting Professorship. He is a published author on interactive advertising and media - and a regular speaker at conferences worldwide.

Oscar Clark - Papaya Mobile & Rocket Lolly Games

Oscar has a passion for online entertainment and community and has spent much of the last 12 years on the bleeding edge of this technology. As a product and business strategist with more than a decade's experience in this relatively young industry Oscar has a keen insight into what works for businesses trying to engage communities and how to turn that into revenue.

Oscar has a substantial senior executive background in telco, mobile and games having recently been Architect for the Sony Computer Entertainment Home world where he was custodian of the requirements and long term vision for this social gaming platform on PlayStation3.

Prior to that he was in charge of Mobile Operator Strategy EMEA for nVidia looking at how to bring next generation 3D accellerated gaming to mobile phones and was delivering content for 3G at THREE. He started his career with BT and Real Networks.

Patrick O'Luanaigh - nDreams

I am CEO of nDreams Ltd, a fast-growing independent game publisher/developer based in Farnborough, Hampshire in the UK. nDreams is a self-funded studio focused on creating and selling innovative games and virtual items. We have a particular interest in storytelling and creating immersion and emotion. We're one of the leading independent publishers in the world in PlayStation Home and one of the leading creators of Alternate Reality Games.

Previously I was Creative Director of Eidos/SCi, responsible for game design, gameplay and overall quality on all the titles there including Tomb Raider Legend, Hitman Blood Money, Just Cause and Conflict: Desert Storm.

Before that I was head of external development and acquisitions at Codemasters where I signed and produced titles such as the Music/MTV series and Operation Flashpoint. I also worked on some great titles like TOCA, Colin McRae (briefly) and Micro Machines, originally as a programmer.

I am author of 'Game Design Complete' by Paraglyph Press which has never won any awards, hasn't sold millions of copies, but looks good on my bookcase. I'm also an amateur film director in my spare time.

Past speakers include:

Peter Bazalgette - New Baz

Peter Bazalgette is a media consultant specialising in television and digital entertainment. He is non-Executive Chairman of two of Sony’s television divisions in the UK, a non-executive director of MyVideoRights and a member of BBH’s Advisory Board. From 2004-2007 he was Chief Creative Officer of Endemol.

He has personally devised several internationally successful TV formats, such as Ready Steady Cook and Changing Rooms. He also brought Big Brother to the UK.

He is also a non-executive director of YouGov and a former Board member of Channel 4. He serves as Deputy Chairman of the National Film and Television School and on the Board of English National Opera.

Ian Livingstone - Square Enix

Ian Livingstone is Life President of Eidos and one of the UK’s founding fathers of interactive games and fiction. In 1975 he founded Games Workshop with Steve Jackson and launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe. In 1977 he launched White Dwarf, the UK’s first interactive games magazine. In 1982, again with Steve Jackson, he wrote The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first in the Fighting Fantasy series of interactive gamebooks that sold over 16 million copies in 23 languages. He wrote more than 20 books in the series. He served as Executive Chairman of Eidos plc from 1995 until 2002. At Eidos he helped to secure many of the company's major franchises including Lara Croft:Tomb Raider and Hitman.

He is the Non-Executive Chairman of Bright Things plc, Non-Executive Director of ELSPA, Chair of Skillset’s Computer Games Skills Council, Vice Chair of the BAFTA Games Committee and an advisor to the British Council.
He was awarded an OBE, a BAFTA Special Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Technology for his contribution to the UK computer games industry.

Adam Singer - Chair BSAC

Adam has launched or managed over a dozen television channels, and as Chairman and CEO helped take Flextech PLC from a value of £60 million pounds to its eventual sale price of £2.4 billion.

He has dealt extensively with international broadcasters in France, Scandinavia and Argentina. In Japan he created the partnership between TCI and Sumitomo that created Japan’s largest cable operator and programmer. In the US he worked for John Malone at TCI, and as Chief Operating Officer for TCI International helped take that company public on NASDEQ.

He created and launched 24-hour coverage of Parliament in the UK (subsequently taken over by the BBC) and launched and ran the Discovery Channel in the UK and Europe. He was the architect of UKTV (the Flextech joint venture with the BBC) and chaired it.

He has run telecommunications companies with staff of over 10,000, and with revenues of over £1 billion p.a., and been a non-executive director of the Scottish Media Group. Among other activities he currently sits on the Ofcom content board.

Adam is one of few people to have been involved in all aspects of communications at CEO level. He has made TV programmes, created TV channels for cable and satellite and run a telecommunications and broadband business. He has dealt extensively with government at ministerial level and with regulated businesses. He regularly writes for UK press, radio, and television, on digital issues.

Peter Edward - Sony Playstation Home

Peter Edward is HOME Platform Director. He has worked in production for SCE for nearly ten years, running projects in the Camden and London Studios. Starting on single player titles, Peter has built up extensive experience of working in the online console space, and is currently Director of the PlayStation Home online gaming platform on PS3. Peter's softography includes titles on PS2 (Dropship, Hardware: Online Arena, The Getaway: Black Monday), PSP (Fired Up, Gangs Of London) and PS3 (Eight Days, PlayStation Home).

Ben Keen - Screen Digest

As Chief Analyst, Mr Keen directs all the company's research and consultancy activities. He has overall responsibility for the 100-plus major research reports published by the company since 1997 and the ongoing continuous strategic Intelligence services that Screen Digest supplies to hundreds of major clients, including Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Time Warner, 20th Century Fox, BBC, Cisco, Electronic Arts, MTV, Discovery Networks, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Walt Disney, NBC Universal, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, BT.

Under Mr Keen's management, Screen Digest has grown rapidly from 13 specialist analysts in 2003 to over 40 in 2008. Mr Keen also leads Screen Digest's Intelligence for Investors service, which is exclusively marketed by Merrill Lynch to some of the largest institutional investment groups in the world.

Renowned for his insight and vision, Mr Keen is one of the most sought-after speakers on the international conference circuit.

James Bamford - Microsoft Bing

James is Business Development Manager - EMEA for Bing Maps at Microsoft.
He was previously with Multimap for over 10 years, developing new business with Yell.com and Thomson Directories, Govt websites such as the Inland Rev and a real time traffic application for the Highways Agency. Mobile applications included maps for Vodafone UK.

Developed revenue streams for the B2C public website www.multimap.com including: E-commerce through car hire, hotel, flight booking engines as well as Paper map and travel guide purchasing agreements.

Matthew Jeffrey - Electronic Arts

Director of Talent Brand for world's leading Number 1 Publisher and Developer of computer games, (Electronic Arts). Global role focused on raising employment brand awareness to facilitate an increase in perception of EA amongst key recruiting populations and hence increase both quantity and quality of pipeline of talent applying to work for EA. e-brand activity contributed to doubling of job applications received year on year via jobs.ea.com

Voted 'RECRUITMENT PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR' in the 2010 Recruiter Awards.

Michael Rawlinson - ELSPA

Mike is Director General of ELSPA Ltd. Leading the trade association for the publishers of videogames.

Tim Harrison - The Mobile Consultancy

Tim Harrison is founder of The Mobile Consultancy, an advisory business working in the next generation mobile products and services space, with a particular focus on games and applications.

Widely recognized as one of the industry's foremost thought leaders, Tim has unrivalled experience in the mobile games space, having held senior positions on both the carrier and publishing side of the business. Before setting up The Mobile Consultancy, Tim was EMEA Marketing Director at EA Mobile where he oversaw marketing strategy and operations for EA's mobile games business across Europe. Previously as Head of Games & Applications at Vodafone Group, he was part of the team that launched the groundbreaking Vodafone live! service and was responsible for all commercial and content relationships driving Vodafone's Games and Applications proposition. Tim has also served as Chief Marketing Officer at OMTP, the mobile operator industry organization driving the BONDI mobile interoperability and standards project.

Oisin Lunny - Sulake (Habbo)

As UK Country Manager of Habbo UK, Oisin Lunny combines 19 years of experience in the media, music and technology industries to lead the growth of the UK site. In addition to the day-to-day running of Habbo UK Oisin oversees the deployment of strategic marketing and integrated advertising campaigns to encourage site visitors and user activity.

Prior to Habbo Oisin was Global Product Manager, Online Distribution and Media Services for Interoute Communications Limited, owners and operators of Europe's most advanced voice and data network. Oisin is a successful musician in his own right, having toured with U2 and Depeche Mode, and enjoying a top 30 hit in the UK. Having worked as a professional DJ and producer, Oisin continues to explore his passion for music in his spare time writing music for film and TV as Lifeblood Productions.

Andy Taite - Pembridge Partners

Before joining Pembridge Andy co-founded Superscape Group plc (subsequently acquired by Glu) where he held roles as; executive director and vice president of sales, business development and strategic relationships. He was instrumental in the rapid growth from small game developer and publisher to fully listed plc operating in consumer and commercial sectors across the globe. Andy has a track record of building business through market development and asset exploitation in the UK, Europe, USA and Asia Pacific. Much of his experience lies in licensing IP to some of the world’s greatest IT companies such as Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Nokia and ARM plus consumer products to companies such as; LEGO, Taito, THQ and Eidos. He has also played integral roles in fundraising of over £60m from high net worth individuals, corporate and financial institutions.

In 2005 Andy co-founded and secured launch funding for Mobstar Media, a mobile marketing and TV production company. He helped build the business winning global distribution contracts and concluding ground breaking deals with ITV and Endemol. He also has experience in publishing with the Virgin Group and was the first ever external manager hire at HMV introducing computer games to the chain.

Gina Fegan - South East Media Network

Bio to follow

Kim Bayley - ERA

Bio to follow

Justin Bovington - Rivers Run Red

Richard Bartle - Essex University

Bartle received a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, where he created MUD with Roy Trubshaw, in 1978.

He lectured at Essex until 1987, when he left to work full time on MUD (known as MUD2 in its present version). Recently he has returned to the university as a part-time professor and principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, supervising courses on computer game design as part of the department's degree course on computer game development.

In 2003, he wrote Designing Virtual Worlds, a book about the history, ethics, structure, and technology of massively multiplayer games.

Bartle is also a contributing editor to Terra Nova, a collaborative blog that deals with virtual world issues.

Bartle did research on player personality types in massively-multiplayer online games. In Bartle's analysis, players of massively multiplayer online games can be divided into four types: achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. This idea has been adapted into a popular online test generally referred to as the Bartle Test. The test is very popular and scores are often exchanged on MMORPG forums and networking sites.

Toby Beresford - Nudge Social Media

Toby runs Nudge Social Media in Soho, London. Nudge specialises in creating entertaining marketing campaigns to consumers on social networks including Facebook and Twitter. His specific area of expertise is Facebook marketing.

David Burden - Daden Ltd

David Burden started his career in army communications managing a range of mobile and wireless systems in a variety of challenging situations. After being "demobbed" in 1990, David joined Ascom, the Swiss telecoms company, and then Aseriti, the 70m turnover IT arm of Severn Trent plc. During the Dot Com boom David founded a wireless data company developing both WAP and Voice XML systems, as well as founding the Midlands chapter of the First Tuesday Networking organisation. David founded Daden, an Information 2.0 Consultancy in 1994.

David has been involved in virtual worlds since the mid 1990s, having created early spaces using VRML and played in several early 3D communal worlds. David's first virtual home was at Retsmah Crossing in Alpha World and he spent much of the early naughties hoverboarding off the slopes of There's giant Volcano. David has been in Second Life since its inception where his real-life and SL business Daden Limited helps businesses and organisations explore the social and commercial potential of virtual worlds. David also has a keen interest in artificial intelligence and Daden have an AI platform for use both in SL and on the web.

Dave Taylor —Imperial College, London

Dave is a Virtual Worlds Project Leader for the Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology at Imperial College, London. He previously initiated and ran the UK National Physical Laboratory's Virtual Worlds business, and is a founder of the SciLands, a Second Life continent for Science and Technology. His new media projects include 'Second Health', a virtual hospital to engage clinician and patient communities (http://www.secondhealth.org.uk) In previous lives Dave has been Vice President of Global Web for a leading multinational and managed Letraset's European Software business, working with Adobe Systems, Pixar and Apple Computer in the 80's and 90's. Dave has a BSc in Mathematics and an MSc in Experimental Psychology.

Rob Edmonds - SRI Consulting

Rob Edmonds has worked as a writer, analyst and consultant at SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI) for over 10 years. He is joint founder of the Virtual Worlds@Work Consortium that SRIC-BI launched in 2007 to help companies explore and exploit new virtual worlds opportunities and now writes many of the Consortium’s publications. Rob has presented at virtual worlds and eLearning workshops and conferences around the world and written numerous reports on topics including eLearning, artificial intelligence, Web services, handheld devices and pervasive computing. Before joining SRIC-BI, Rob worked at IBM Global Services.

Ian Hughes – Feeding Edge

Ron Edwards, MD Ambient Performance

Ron Edwards is the Co-founder and CEO of Ambient Performance, a UK based firm specializing in 3D mobile and enterprise virtual world applications. Ron is a pioneer and thought leader in helping organizations apply emerging technologies for better communication, collaboration and learning with over 18 years experience. He is especially excited about the nascent Metaverse and is developing projects in core areas of mobile augmented reality, virtual worlds, mirror worlds and mobile social media for a variety of clients in industry, government, consumer brands and education. Ambient’s latest publicly available mobile AR production is The Iron Age Experience developed for Hampshire County Council, UK which can be accessed at http://vizit.mobi.

Focus of Presentation - I will focus on vertical virtual world businesses, using the established InWorld Solutions in the USA as an example of VW use for behavioural therapy, making the OLIVE platform available and supported for clinicians besides their own professional practice, http://www.inworldsolutions.com/index.html and the emerging vSIM (Virtual Strategic Incident Management) training system we’re building with partners for senior emergency responders in the UK to practice procedures. I’ll discuss related business models and contrast with a ‘build it (in a public platform) and hope they might come’ approach we’ve seen recently.

Mike Dicks - Bleedin' Edge

Bio to follow

Jeremiah Alexander - Ideonic

Bio to follow

Modwenna Rees-Mogg - Angel News

Bio to follow

KEYNOTE - Lord Puttnam of Queensgate

Lord David Puttnam worked for ten years in the advertising industry and spent thirty years as an independent film producer. His films include Local Hero, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone. He was Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Columbia Pictures from 1986 to 1988, was Vice President and Chair of Trustees at BAFTA from 1994 to 2004 and served as a nonexecutive of Anglia Television for 17 years.

Lord Puttnam retired from film production in 1998 and now focuses on his work in education. In July 2002, he was appointed President of UNICEF UK, and has since played a role in promoting UNICEF's advocacy, awareness and fundraising objectives. He is a non-executive Director of Channel 4, and was awarded a CBE in 1982, received a Knighthood in 1995 and was appointed to the House of Lords in 1997.

CONFERENCE CHAIR - Simon Le Jeune – Red Carpet Consulting

A multi award winning commercial development and marketing expert Simon has been a speaker at various conferences on games and education and building Britain’s brainpower as well as serving on various steering groups he was also the founder of the Governments award winning “Computer Club for Girls” project finally attracting £8.5 Million in Government funding. He is currently developing a new Education concept for the developing world as well as an Olympic legacy project. He has recently been appointed as an e-learning, games and education advisor to the National Association of Gifted Children.

Steve Prentice - VP & Gartner Fellow

Stephen Prentice is a distinguished analyst and chief of research for cross-research projects and special research themes at Gartner. He takes a specific interest in the long-term future of technology - looking at the intersection of technology, business and society. Current research interests include the consumerization of IT and the growth of virtual worlds and social networking and their impact on businesses.

Kevin Corti - PIXELearning

Kevin has been working in the technology-based learning space for over a decade. He established Netucate Online, an eLearning development studio, in 1997 which later became part of the Einstein Group Plc (a digital TV broadcaster & video-based CPD provider) whereupon he was employed to run the group’s eLearning division; Einstein Learning. He has been a gamer since the late 70s and it was in the late 90s that he first started to experiment with using computer games to enhance eLearning. In 2002 he co-founded PIXELearning which specialises in applying games and simulations for business education and corporate training. PIXELearning has since turned over close to £1million, has several blue chip clients, including Coca Cola, a major US retail banking chain and a US ‘Big 4’ accountancy firm, and has invested over £400k in the development of LearningBeans® the company’s proprietary online business simulation engine.

Dylan Nagel - Paladin Studios

Dylan is Vice President of Business Development. His responsibilities include consultancy, account management, product management and sales. He is the conduit between clients and the production team, ensuring optimal understanding.

With a Master's Degree in Archeology, Dylan is trained in examining human behavior from many different perspectives.

As a true digital native, Dylan has been playing and creating computer games from a young age. His expert knowledge in the fields of entertainment games, virtual worlds and serious games are put to good use during consultancy sessions as well as public presentations at seminars and conventions.

Derk de Geus - Paladin Studios

Derk blends creativity with strategic thinking and entrepreneurship. In his current position as CEO, he makes sure that the core values and commercial health of Paladin are preserved and developed.

Derk has been an entrepreneur nearly all his life. At art school he fell in love with 3D animation and programming. This set the stage for several freelance projects and a job as 3D developer. In this phase he met Dylan, with whom he picked up several freelance projects and later founded Paladin Studios.

In his day-to-day work, Derk works with clients, stakeholders, partners, as well as the marketing, sales, operations and development teams. He is responsible for forging and maintaining strategic partnerships, and is the public face of the company together with Dylan. Derk has given several keynote presentations on serious games, technology and trends of the games industry.

Margaret Robertson

A historian by training, Margaret Robertson has written for many specialist magazines, mainstream publications like FHM, T3 and the BBC, and four years wrote for, and ultimately edited, Edge, the world’s most respected videogame magazine. She has also helped programme both the Edinburgh and GameCity games festivals, and is a regular conference speaker. Now, as a consultant, she advises companies like EA, Sony and Channel 4 on game design and industry trends

Lizzie Jackson - University of Westminster

After a long career in radio production at the BBC and as Managing Director of Soundbite Productions Limited, Lizzie returned to the BBC to launch and manage the Corporation's social media on www.bbc.co.uk. She then worked across the BBC overseeing their internet safety initiatives. Producers in her teams were nominated for the Guardian Unlimited 'Race in the Media Award' and The Internet Service Provider's Association award for safety on the internet. Lizzie is now a researcher at the University of Westminster, specialising in participatory and social media. Her current project examines public service virtual environments for children and adults (funded by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council); she is also completing doctoral research on the facilitation of public service participatory media. Lizzie was named 'One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade' by NOP World and e-consultancy.com in October, 2004. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in 2007.

Dan Clapson - Incredible Sims

Dan Clapson has a unique career path spanning more than 25 years in technology. His first commercial venture in 1983, at the tender age of 13, was programming a video game for Atari. He continued in the 1980's and 90's to develop many popular video games, including Back to the Future II and Cool Spot.

In 2006 Dan founded Incredible Box, a software development team that create cutting edge software. His team develop advanced software applications including video games, serious games, GPS systems, railway safety management and stock exchange screen dealing systems.

In 2007 Dan founded Incredible Sims, a serious games company that produce outstanding simulators using video game techniques. Incredible Sims specialise in the creation of realistic 3D environments, using their purpose built Incredible Sims Toolkit.

Gilbert Reveillon - Director Strategic Marketing, LaSer (Lafayette Services)

Gilbert was Managing Director Europe for EuropebyAir.com an online travel supplier based in Paris. He has worked for EVIAN (Danon Group); was Marketing Manager for the high speed train Eurostar and Virgin Executive Aviation. He created the 2008 IntraVerse awards. The awards ceremony took place in real-life and Second Life in 2007 in the presence of several blue chip company directors. Philip Rosedale, founder of Linden Labs, was Chairman of the ceremony. Google provided the Intraverse trophies.

Kam Star, PlayGen

Dubbed the "intrepid game developer", he works with cutting edge 3d interactive media, developing learning environments and applications. He has been involved in the development of projects for a host of blue chip and internationally renowned organisations such as the BBC, Cadburys, UNESCO, McKinsey, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, The Royal Air Force and US Air Force Europe.

Kevin Farrar - IBM UK & Ireland

In his role as Skills Leader for IBM in the UK & Ireland, Kevin Farrar has responsibility for IBM's skills collaboration programmes with universities and IT professionals already in industry: the IBM Academic Initiative and IBM developerWorks. Through these programmes IBM is working with thousands of academics, students and IT professionals around the world to help them develop the open-standards skills they’ll need to compete in the ever-changing technology workplace.

Jim Purbrick, Linden Lab
Clare Rees, Linden Lab

Kevin McNulty - President, Coole Immersive (formerly known as Terris-Hill Productions) & Founding Member of Serious Games Association Canada

Kevin is a founding partner of Coole Immersive, a recognized leader in the field of Serious Games, and has spoken at conferences in Canada, the U.S. and the Middle East. Coole Immersive, Inc develops serious games for the Oil & Gas and Mining industries.

Donald Clark

Donald Clark was CEO and one of the original founders of Epic Group plc, which established itself as the leading company in the UK e-learning market. It was floated on the Stock Market in 1996 and sold in 2005. Describing himself as ‘free from the tyranny of employment’, he is now a board member of Ufi (learndirect), LINE Communications, Caspian Learning, Brighton Festival, and a school governor. He has produced over 40 papers, dozens of book reviews and many articles on e-learning. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and has won Best Speaker awards at several conferences.

John Nordlinger - Program Manager, Microsoft Research

John has been a Principal Engineer with Digital Equipment Corporation and Technical Director at Oracle and lead the Microsoft SQL Server enterprise effort when joining Microsoft a number of years later.

Since joining Microsoft Research, John has worked with Academic Institutions in the Northeast and India. He produces The MSR gaming kit and, manages the MSR initiative on gaming in CS. John serves as co-chair for the annual GDCSE game cruise and the related Call for Papers. John's current focus is games for learning. He hopes to collaborate with others on developing a game to help younger students with algebra and geometry and older students with the GRE.

Professor Alan Hatcher - CEO, Homeland Security Group

Alan is a specialist in Global Security and Counter Terrorism. He has developed specialist skills across a wide range of security related areas. Alan has an exceptional ability to cross boundaries between cultural and political beliefs and has an established track record in the management of complex and dangerous tasks.

Claus Nehmzow - Method

Claus is MD of Method, a leading consultancy in training and visualisation digital content for major corporations. Previously he headed up PA Consulting's thinking in business applications of participatory media and virtual world like Second Life. He has almost twenty-five years experience in technology and strategy consulting as well as operational management experience.

Claus has broad international experience in global business development and consulting as well as from having lived for many years each in Germany, Switzerland, USA, and the UK. Claus was COO/ International Business Development director at mobile startup Shazam, Managing Director of Viant Germany, an Internet consultancy, Partner and Vice President at Booz-Allen & Hamilton in London and New York, Senior Manager at accenture/Andersen Consulting.

Gobion Rowlands - Chairman & CO-founder, Red Redemption

Gobion co-founded Red Redemption in 2000. Having designed his first game at age 10, Gobion has never lost his passion for games projects, and his extensive background in games design and project management (with brief foray into forensic psychology) gives him a unique insight into games and learning. Gobion was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in recognition for his achievements in Climate Change and Education.

Red Redemption developed the Climate Challenge game with the BBC that has had 2 million plays, won a European Green IT Award and is based on the real climate change data via a partnership with the Oxford University Environmental Change Institute and a team of advisors, many of whom are on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The company has just been announced as 2009 Candidate Tech Pioneers with the World Economic Forum. The games portfolio includes: Operation: Climate Control game which won two Defra Climate Challenge awards, and the Trouble Shooter game for EDF Energy and are currently in the process of developing some commercial games.

Dan Hon - CEO, Six to Start

One of the UK's first bloggers, Dan's interests range from gaming to storytelling to cross-media entertainment. Dan has over 7 years experience of producing mashed-up content for major companies and co-founded Six to Start to take this experience to a wider audience, including Channel 4 Education. He has been COO of Mind Candy, the company behind the hugely successful Perspex City ARG; worked with Elan lee at Microsoft Games Studios to develop an internal successor to The Beast (the first alternate reality game) and is a qualified technology/intellectual property lawyer.

Paul Miller - CEO, School of Everything

Paul is a writer, consultant and entrepreneur, living and working in London. He is co-Founder of start-up School of Everything, writes about innovation, new forms of organisation and environmental sustainability and is an Associate of the think tank Demos.

Paul has advised a large number of organisations, including Orange, Scope, the Cabinet Office, BT, Scottish Power, IDEO, Channel Four and the Department for Education and Skills. He has written for FT magazine, The Guardian and Green Futures magazine.

Frank Jennings - Associate Solicitor, Technology Group and Head of the Commercial Team, DMH Stallard

Frank joined the firm in 2007 and has over more than 10 years experience of the technology sector having previously worked at Psygnosis (a subsidiary of Sony) and in the technology and commercial team of a large law firm in London. Frank has a Masters degree in technology law and IP, is a panellist for World Copyright Law Report and is a member of Society for Computers and Law

Martin Mackain Bremner - Defence Academy UK

James Kinross - Surgeon, Imperial College

Dr Pamela M Kato - Senior Research Scientist of Gaming with the Patient Safety Center at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands & Founding President of HopeLab

Dr. Kato is currently Senior Research Scientist of Gaming with the Patient Safety Center at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. She is currently working on developing a serious game simulation to teach medical residents about patient safety. Kato was formerly with HopeLab in the United States where she was instrumental in the development and testing of Re-Mission, a PC game designed to promote medical compliance for young cancer patients. A Harvard- and Stanford-trained psychologist, she led the groundbreaking scientific outcomes study of the game which will be published in August this year in the journal, Pediatrics. Kato is an internationally recognized leader in the field of health psychology and video games.

About the Organiser Chair: Martine Parry

Following graduation in Physics from Kings College, London University, Martine spent 8 years in the AI industry, 2 as a Software Research Engineer in computer vision systems with GEC and the remainder with various leading visualisation & simulation tools and service organisations, developing business across sectors including defence, energy, telecommunications, health and finance.

Since 1994 she has worked with leading software house Admiral Computing (merged with LogicaCMG) and within the learning, CGI and games sectors. She founded Apply Group Ltd, a leading business consultancy, in order to continue this work and produce cutting-edge conferences that have included Games Developers Conference Europe and the CGI Festival in 2004 – and the Tiga Funding Lunches.

Christian Renaud - formerly of Cisco Systems Inc.

Christian is the Senior Manager of Business Development for the Cisco Technology Center. Technology Center acts as ‘intrapreneurs’ for the efforts of Cisco’s Corporate Development organization, providing business rationale and market insight for determining future Cisco emerging technologies. The Technology Center is Cisco’s corporate incubator chartered with identifying emerging markets and technologies and developing them into new revenue streams for the company.

Nader Nanjiani - Cisco Systems Inc.

Nader has worked in the area of rich media and marketing for more than a decade. Currently working as Marketing Manager for Unified Communications, Nader has launched a series of Cisco games to boost customer participation and dialog around specific technologies. He also co-authored the title “The Business Case for E-learning” published by Cisco Press in 2004.

Jennifer McNamara, BreakAway Ltd

Jennifer McNamara is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at BreakAway, Ltd. In this role, she supports customers in creating their own serious games and simulations for experimentation and training using mosbe™ – BreakAway’s simulation development platform.

Working closely with customers provides Jennifer with an insider’s view of their needs and experiences and the demands they place upon the available game and simulation technologies – as well as an understanding of how applied technologies can solve mission-critical problems. A professional background in cognitive and human factors psychology, intelligent training, and agent-based system development inspires her interest in providing advanced, tools-based approaches to simulation development. Prior to joining BreakAway, Jennifer worked at CHI Systems, Inc., where she developed advanced training games and simulations and decision support systems for customers throughout the United States Department of Defense – most recently developing training for Close Air Support team coordination using verbally interactive agents under the DARPA DARWARS Training Superiority program. Jennifer holds a B.S. in Cognitive Psychology from Drexel University and a M.Ed. in Instructional Systems Design and Development from The Pennsylvania State University.

Professor Bob Stone, Birmingham University

Professor Robert J. Stone
BSc (Hons), MSc, C.Psychol, AFBPsS, FErgS, Eur.Erg, FIoN, FVRS

Bob Stone is Director of the Human Interface Technologies Team within the Department of Electronic, Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Birmingham, UK. He graduated from University College London in 1979 with a BSc in Psychology, and in 1981 with an MSc in Ergonomics (Human Factors), and currently holds the position of Royal Academy of Engineering Integrated Professor (Systems Engineering) at the University of Plymouth. In 1996, he became an Academician of the Russian International Higher Education Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and an Honorary Cossack in 2003.

Bob’s applied R&D efforts since 1998 have concentrated on human-centred training/task analyses and simulator content definition for the UK’s Armed Forces (close-range naval weapons, submarine training/rescue and helicopter voice marshalling), civilian and military surgery and unmanned vehicles. He is Research Director of the UK’s Human factors Integration Defence Technology Centre and is also on the Advisory Group and Evaluation Metrics Team for the US serious gaming project Pulse!! – an Office of Naval Research-funded serious gaming initiative led by Texas A&M University Corpus Christi which aims to develop a sophisticated medical trainer for battlefield scenario and terrorist incident management.

Gavin Dudeney, The Consultants-E

Gavin co-runs an online training and development consultancy specialising in Moodle and Second Life services. Author of The Internet & The Language Classroom (Cambridge University Press, 200), and How to Teach with Technology ( Pearson Longman 2007) his current research interests are Communities of Practice and the application of MUVEs in education and training. The Consultants-E manage the EduNation island sim in Second Life.

Thomas Bidaux, NCSoft

Widely recognised as one Europe’s leading figures in the development and execution of online games from his time at Wanadoo when he led the team that launched Dark Age of Camelot, Thomas was one of the original four who set up NCsoft Europe in September 2004. Just over a year later and with more than 80 staff in the Brighton office, Thomas’ role at NCsoft is to manage the product development teams as well as researching and acquiring new titles.

Thijs Bosma - Zlong Games, China

Thijs is International Sales Manager at Zlong Games, a game development company based in Shanghai that develops serious games for western multinational clients.

Prior to working at Zlong Games, Thijs was responsible for the Artificial Intelligence behind Eccky, a virtual MSN Messenger product developed by Media Republic and Microsoft.

Rohit Talwar, Fast Future Ltd

Profiled as one the world’s ten leading future watchers by the Independent newspaper, Rohit Talwar is an award winning speaker and global futurist who specialises in exploring the future of China. He is regular visitor to Asia – exploring the latest trends and developments - in the last 18 months he has visited China, India, Korea, Singapore, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Dubai and the Phillipines. Rohit is actively involved in the development of media, animation and gaming ventures in China. He has recently published a global study on the Future of China’s Economy. Rohit is the CEO of Fast Future which provides advisory support to the leaders of new ventures in Asia and the Joint CEO of Global Futures and Foresight – a think tank which specialises in researching the future development of global economies, global markets and global issues.

Mal Baines

Mal enjoyed a 25+ year career with Xerox Corporation, working across Western Europe, Middle East, Africa, Malaysia and China - and was one of a small team of senior executives who went into China to set up a direct sales and service operation for Xerox and lived in China for over 2 years. This was successfully completed in the time frame with some 350 employees operating in three of China’s major cities by April 1998. From the end of 1998 to early 2000 Mal was engaged in developing a training strategy designed to deliver training services to around 25,000 employees across Western Europe. Since 2000, Mal has provided independent consultancy to a range of companies including China-based organisations: RenMin University and TCL Mobile Phones - and has also introduced UK companies TACK Training and Video Arts into China. Both of these companies now enjoy on-going revenues from China.

David Wortley, Director Serious Games Institute

David Wortley is Director of the Serious Games Institute (SGI) at Coventry University and responsible its development as a centre of excellence for serious games applications. Working with as a public/private partnership, the SGI aspires to be a focal point for games based learning, simulation and immersive 3D virtual environments.