Gaming health conference in Winsconsin
by Kit

Wednesday, September 15 2004

Madison conference will cover health issues in gaming.

An conference addressing how games and game technologies can meet health care will be held in Madison, Wisconsin September 16-17. Announced in June of 2004 the conference expects over 100 attendees and close to 20 projects will be
highlighted. The event was developed by the Serious Games Initiative (http://www.seriousgames.org), the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Lab (http://www.academiccolab.org) at the University of Wisconsin System in Madison, and the Federation of American Scientists' Learning Federation Project (http://www.thelearningfederation.org).

"Before this week the only big idea of health and games was how much health your character had left in a game of Half-Life. If you had told me two years ago we could attract over 100 people to an event discussing the
creation of games which contribute to healthcare I'd have thought you were crazy - but we did it and it's backed up with over 20 speakers and 16 official talks. What's left to do is learn from the pioneering projects assembled and set forward an agenda that might help shape the future of this health oriented games for years to come." said conference co-organizer Ben Sawyer.

Games for Health 2004 will examine how interactive games and emerging game technologies could improve consumer health education, and professional clinical practice, including disease and injury prevention, service
delivery, and professional education and training.

Among those scheduled to speak include: Brenda Wiederhold (VRPhobia.com), Debra Lieberman (University of California, Santa Barbara), Doug Whatley (Breakaway Games), Paul Wessel (Guidance Interactive Healthcare), Barry Silverman (University of Pennsylvania), Craig Bannon (Legacy Interactive), Phineas Barnes (Respondesign), David Shaffer (University of Wisconsin), Brian Winn (Michigan State University), Kurt Squire (University of Wisconsin), and Mary Derby (Pulluin Interactive).

"We have a great faculty for this event. There are over a dozen projects that will be shown, and thanks to our demo room sponsors we're able to provide a hands on showcase for some very interesting projects and products." said Judy Brown, co-organizer of the event.

The conference will be held at the Monona Terrace Community & Convention Center, on the shore of Lake Monona in downtown Madison. The Center is known a local landmark due to its Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired design. The conference will feature a demo room sponsored by Humus Mog
(www.humusmog.co.kr) makers of "exertainment" peripherals, Red Octane (www.redoctane.com) the largest third-party supplier of dance-pad controllers, and Alienware (www.alienware.com) a leading vendor of gaming PCs and development workstations.

Details on the event including how to register, the latest schedule, and speaker lineup are available at http://www.gamesforhealth.org/events.html.

--- Kit