Games for Health 2004 Conference Set To Take Place

Madison Wisconsin, (September 15, 2004) - An innovative 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 (www.seriousgames.org), the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Lab (www.academiccolab.org) at the University of Wisconsin System in Madison, and the Federation of American Scientists' Learning Federation Project (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.

Faculty and Demos

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.

Registration Details

Details on the event including how to register, the latest schedule, and speaker lineup are available at www.gamesforhealth.org/events.html. Press who wish to attend may contact Ben Sawyer at bsawyer@seriousgames.org

About Games for Health

Games for Health is a project produced by The Serious Games Initiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars effort that applies cutting edge games and game technologies to a range of public and private policy, leadership, and management issues.

The Initiative founded Games for Health (www.gamesforhealth.org) to develop a community and best practices platform for the numerous games being built for health care applications. To date the project has brought together over 100 researchers, medical professionals, and game developers to share information about the impact games and game technologies can have on health care and policy.

About The Academic ADL Co-Lab

The Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Lab serves as the focal point for universities and colleges in promoting high quality, reusable content for distributed learning. This Co-Lab is the ADL academic link that tests, evaluates and demonstrates ADL-compliant tools and technologies to enhance teaching and learning. It also serves as an academic demonstration site for ADL tools and content, including those developed by the federal government, academia and industry.

Working as a partner with the Department of Defense, ADL Co-Lab in Alexandria, Virginia and other two node Co-Labs, the Academic ADL Co-Lab supports and collaborates on the research, development, demonstration, assessment and implementation of ADL tools and content on projects of relevance to participating organizations

About The Federation of American Scientists

The Federation of American Scientists is a nonprofit research institution with a sixty year history of providing science and technology analysis. Its Board of Sponsors includes nearly one-half of the U.S. Nobel Laureates in science. Its current major initiatives include: strategic security, information technologies for education and training, and energy and the environment. For the past three years its Learning Federation project staff has worked with national experts in learning science and information technology to define a national research plan to develop the next generation of learning systems. The work of the Learning Federation has been supported by Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Digital Promise Project, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.

Press Advisory:

If you would like to interview participants, and speakers during this conference we can arrange for such interviews on-site or via phone. Please contact:

Ben Sawyer Serious Games Initiative bsawyer@seriousgames.org 207 807 7428

Judy Brown Academic ADL Co-Lab judy@academiccolab.org 608 263 9270