Tuesday, May 9th, 7:00pm
Location TBD

SOCIAL CHANGE VIDEOGAMES: The Next Frontier

Speakers: Ian Bogost, Suzanne Seggerman, Benjamin Stokes

"Serious Games" are coming to a computer near you! Focused on education, activism, and training, these games are being developed to affect real world change through virtual world actions. The Hollywood Hill future development and deployment of these games. To introduce the possibilities, we're hosting a presentation by three of the field's experts - Ian Bogost of Persuasive Games, and Suzanne Seggerman & Benjamin Stokes of Games4Change.

imageIan Bogost is one of the world's top experts and game designers in this area. He is an academic videogame researcher, game designer, and educational publisher at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Founder of Persuasive Games, a game studio that designs, builds, and distributes electronic games for persuasion, instruction, and activism. He designed the online activism games for the DCCC and the Howard Dean campaign in the last presidential election. Ian also participated in last year's Games For Change Conference in New York and Serious Games Summit in Washington, D.C.

imageBenjamin Stokes is Co-founder and Co-director of Games for Change (G4C), the national umbrella organization supporting and advancing social change through digital games. Previously, Benjamin was the E-Learning Architect at NetAid, where he trained high school students to reach 150,000 of their peers in the fight on global poverty. Benjamin has also managed the United Nations online volunteering service. Before NetAid, Benjamin produced research tools and virtual fieldtrips for the more than 43,000 high schools served by Bigchalk/ProQuest publishers. At the CREA House, Benjamin helped develop a living wage standard for the U.S.-Mexico border region. Benjamin has studied abroad in Senegal; at Haverford College he co-founded the anti-sweatshop student alliance.

Suzanne Seggerman is Co-founder and Co-director of Games for Change (G4C), a part of the Serious Games Initiative. G4C provides support, visibility and shared resources to organizations and individuals using digital games for positive social change, with special assistance to non-profits and foundations entering the field. She is also a Director at NYC-based think tank Web Lab, whose mission is to develop innovative new media and cross-media projects that bring fresh perspectives and new voices to the discussion of public issues. At Web Lab she works on a variety of projects, including the Crossover Project and the Loop, a television show in development. Her background in online media includes community-oriented interactive environments and the design of non-traditional games. Some of this work earned her awards from New Voices New Visions and Communications Arts. Before working in new media, she was a documentary film producer for PBS, including on the Ken Burns' series "The West" and as Co-producer of "Race For Life," a humanitarian aid and documentary film about the effects of the environment on perinatal care in Eastern Europe. She is a nationally-ranked scabble player and the queen of asteroids.