The 2008 VISUAL WEB CONVENTION
This was the ofiicial website for the 2008 VISUAL WEB CONVENTION, held in London, UK.
The Visual Web Convention is leading the debate on the monetisation and application of the Visual Web 2.0 across a number of innovative industry sectors and where games can be used: including entertainment (e.g. games, marketing of bands, extending brands and audience), Broadcasting & Media, Corporations (e.g serious games) and public sector strategy.
Content is from the site's 2008 archived pages and other sources.
The Visual Web Convention is a major B2B event for industry, commerce and entertainment sectors planning now to harness the next-gen Web - The Visual Web 2.0. The convention brings together industry's eminent thought-leaders; practitioners and suppliers for 4 plenary 1-day conferences & summits with additional roundtables and Industry Consultations show-casing and debating the opportunities for monetisation and application: the practical roadmap 6-12 months for content and infrastructure, social networking and enterprise across all platforms.
The Events
The Visual Web Convention to be held at RIBA brings together 4 conferences all addressing the next-gen Web across virtual worlds, MMOs, casual games, web 2.0 & casual MMOs. You can book day passes or access-all-areas AAA VIP passes AND individual event passes on this site.
Visual Web 2.0 Not just about virtual worlds. How developers, publishers and brands (in-game, game-related + life-style) benefit from the opportunity resulting from the new Visual Web 2.0.
Widgets & Gadgets How this-gen Web, with prolific open APIs and widgets, is driving commerce, building communities and brands - including games and media.
Virtual worlds New platform for the Web? Life-style games? MMOs? Whats the value, opportunity and roadmap? Who are the key players and what are the right platforms for you to develop new games on?
Serious games & learning Appropriate use of Web 2.0, ARGs, virtual worlds and serious games to learning, awareness and policy. In addition, are climate change games a new family-friendly genre for games publishers?
The Talent Crunch How to find and then keep key talent in the creative digital industries. The definitive Academic Meets Industry Consultation!
CONVENTION SCHEDULE AT-A-GLANCE
- Registration opens from 9.45am both days
- The convention opens at 9.45am and closes at 5.30pm both days
- The free-to-access small expo and extra sessions are only available to conference delegates on the day of their pass.
- You must have a minimum of a conference pass valid for the day to enter the Convention.
- All conferences start at 10.30am sharp and close at 5pm
- The Legal Clinic is just £39 + vat and has limited availability.
- The Clinic, IP Pitching and Future Technologies Panel Sessions must be booked in advance to guarantee your place.
- All sessions are on a first-come, first-served basis.
Convention Schedule
9th July
- Academic Meets Industry Summit
- Monetise Web 2.0 & Social Networks Conference
- SEMN IP pitching Sessions & Future Technologies Panel
10th July
- Apply Serious Games Conference
- Apply Virtual Worlds & MMOs Conference
- Free Sessions (Free/ accessible only to conference delegates)
- Legal Clinic (£39 + vat for all paid-up conference delegates. Pre-pay. Limited places)
Also FREE Sessions for Delegates with a pass on the day.
Apply Serious Games is now in its third year, following on from the success of ASG 2007 that had around 250 attending in total, representing the serious games community from across the world. The conference is a packed day of discussion and debate.
Now Microsoft and IBM have entered the market, and the market has been valued at $9 Billion by Microsoft, we expect even more demand to discover what's the latest buzz, where's the reality of the application and how serious games are developed and what they can tell us about effective convergence and mashup.
Apply Virtual Worlds & MMOs is a 1-day conference building on the successful adoption of virtual worlds across games, entertainment and corporate communications.
Keynote speakers include: Lord David Puttnam and other leading speakers from companies across the MMO games and virtual world space: Avaloop, Rivers Run Red, Solaris Media - with many others yet to announce.
Monetise Web 2.0 & Social Networks Conference exlores the potential as communities from Facebook, Bebo, Apply iPhone and LinkedIn open up their APIs to expand their reach.
Academic Meets Industry Summit showcases and debates the new platforms and technologies for games whilst exploring ways to address the acknowledged talent crunch for the ever-increasing demands from games and related industries. Academic meets industry to forge new opportunities.
There are plenty of opportunities for networking over breaks throughout the convention - and we are expanding out with even more activities. Stay tuned for those. We are adding more of the activities to this page and the programme and schedule.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE AT-A-GLANCE
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Wednesday 9th July
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Thursday 10th July
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| 09.45 - 10.30 |
ACADEMIC MEETS INDUSTRY SUMMIT Just £69 + vat with a South East Media code: SEMN
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MONETISE WEB 2.0 & SOCIAL NETWORKS CONFERENCE Just £499* + vat
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APPLY SERIOUS GAMES CONFERENCE Just £499* + vat
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APPLY VIRTUAL WORLDS & MMOs CONFERENCE Just £499* + vat
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ADDITIONAL SESSIONS FREE TO DELEGATES ON THE DAY unless priced here
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| 9.35 - 10.30 |
Registration
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10.30 - 11.30
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Opening Keynotes:
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Opening Keynotes:
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Chair Welcome & Opening Address Professor Richard Bartle, University of Essex Keynote Lord David Puttnam of Queensgate - In his role heading the Climate Change Bill, Lord Puttnam will address how serious games, across platforms that include virtual worlds, and convergence of media, platforms and education can meet the understanding and educational needs of climate change. |
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| 11.30 - 12.00 |
Networking Break
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| 12.00 -13.00 |
Session 1: The Talent Crunch: Maximising Quality & Retaining Talent in Games & Related Industries Discussion chaired by Paul Hollins Panel members include:
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Session 1: Reaching the 500 million social networkers. Developing Monetising Games for Facebook, Bebo & Google Speakers include:
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Session 1: Policy, Engagement, & Action - casual serious games, virtual worlds, Visual Web and ARGs. What is the roadmap ahead? Chaired by Margaret Robertson Speakers include:
Cultural, policy needs and current affairs are looking for new avenues to bring meaning and awareness to their messages and engage (and educate) their audiences - taking a leaf from the books of games and learning providers. Learning providers are looking to the media and the entertainment sectors to discover the elusive art of 'digital engagement' and story-telling. What is the roadmap ahead? Is Batman part of the future where culture and entertainment merge via games? Jon Johns sports the latest Batman t shirts and brings along extras as giveaways to demonstrate the power of hero worship. And while clothes don't really make the man, using the karma of Batman has some amazing advantages when it comes to motivation and self esteem. Whether you see him as the Dark Knight or the side kick of Robin, this is one superhero who is an actual role model for everyone. He shows you where you can get the best shirts online and then demos the future with a media display to blow your mind. Just keep your Batman shirt on... |
Session 1: Brands, Broadcasting & Advertising Keynote: Claus Nehmzow, Method & Dr Peter Mill, Cigna – The development of a virtual health care community for CIGNA, a leading health service company. What is the business driver behind Cigna's/vielife's new virtual health coaching program? Followed by Discussion Chaired by Sean Dromgoole, Some Research Panel includes:
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Industry Consultation – Defence & Home Security. Defence section chaired by Martin Mackain Bremner Defence Academy UK. Homeland Security section chaired by Professor Alan Hatcher, Homeland Security Group. Panel includes David Swift; Mark Osborne, NCALT; Lt Tony Marden, Maritime Warfare School & Chris Brannigan, Caspian Learning Key topics: • Security
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| 13.00 - 14.00 |
Lunch Break & Town Halls where Detailed |
MAIN AUDITORIUM TOWN HALL: 1.30 - 1.45 Gilbert Reveillon, IntraVerse Awards Overview | ||||
| 14.00- 15.30 |
1.30 - 4.30 South East Media Network (SEMN) Intellectual Property Pitching Session including refreshment break Introduced by Gina Fegan, CEO South East Media Network
This pitching session will introduce innovative products and services from technology and content businesses, or university research departments, who are seeking partners. This is a unique opportunity to find out about key emerging technologies and the companies behind them, and to consider whether the technologies or content propositions pitched have relevance to the development of your business. Approximately 10 companies will showcase their latest technology inviting interest from the audience: this with a view to establishing essential contacts to support the subsequent commercialisation of their intellectual property. Be an audience member at this event or pitch your own latest innovation to accelerate the commercialisation of your IP. |
Session 2: Key Issues for Monetisation. Tracking, Engagement & Brands Speakers include:
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Session 2: The Learning Revolution. Chaired by Donald Clark Speakers include:
John Nordliner, Program Manager, Microsoft Research joins the speakers on the panel. What direction is learning taking? What do ALL learning suppliers, consumers and fund-holders need to know about immersion, engagement & web 2.0? The mashup HAS truly arrived and its presence is even being felt behind the firewall! |
Session 2: Convergence, Community-Building & Monetisation: from MMOs to Social MMOs Chaired by Oliver Welsh, GI.biz Speakers include:
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Virtual Worlds & Serious Games LEGAL CLINIClead by Frank Jennings, Associate Solicitor, DMH Stallard - £39 + vat
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| 15.30 - 16.00 |
Networking Break
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| 16.00 - 17.00 |
4.30 - 5.30 Future Technologies Panel Session Chaired by Gina Fegan, CEO South East Media Network Presentations and debate between leading university representatives and games companies on meeting the need for the future needs of the games industry from technology R&D. We will also discuss how best to support industry innovation and commercialisation. |
Session 3: Mobile & x-platform Social Networks Chaired by David MacQueen, Strategy Dynamics Speakers include:
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Session 3: Industry Consultation – Healthcare
Speakers & panel includes:
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Session 3: What's the future for the Visual Web & Virtual Worlds? Platform roadmap, valuation roadmap? Which virtual world platforms will win the clash of the giants? Panel Discussion with speakers of the day Plus:
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Roadmap for Use of Virtual Worlds & Serious Games in Corporations Keynote: Justin Bovington, Rivers Run Red Panel includes:
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| 17.30 | Convention closes | |||||
* Pre-booked online only. Payment on the door is higher. Where the fee of £499 + vat is cited the on door fee is £699 + vat per conference without exception. 'Usual fee' is £699 + vat on the door and £499 + vat pre-booked online.
Programme subject to change. The organisers reserve the right to make changes to the conference programme at any time.
Booking Your Place
We look forward to welcoming you to Visual Web Convention 2008
Come early and catch the finals of Wimbledon tennis on 6th July, together with the conference and the summer sunshine! You can find a hotel through our link coming soon.
We prefer online payment through our secure payment servers however we also offer the option of a booking form for delegate places where online is not possible. There is an administration fee of £50 + vat for this.
IBAN/ money order and cheque (from UK Bank only) is accepted. Please contact us directly to arrange this.
Venue
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD
www.riba.org
Tel: +44 (0)207 307 3888
All details about parking and location are available. RIBA is located within the London congestion charge area See www.cclondon.com
Nearest Underground Stations
- Regents Park (Bakerloo Line)
- Great Portland Street (Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith and City Lines)
- Oxford Circus (Victoria Line, Central and Bakerloo Lines)
Hotels
All hotels in central London are within a short journey by taxi, underground or by foot to ASG.
Check out the range of hotels in Central London by going to: http://www.infotel.co.uk and you will find the right hotel for your budget.
Cheapest:
You will be able to find cheap accomodation nearby in Victoria. An example is Georgian House Hotel, Victoria. UK Booking Line: (uk+44) 0870 7522235. Cheapest listed rate is around £30 per night +vat
3 Star hotels includes:
- Jury's Inn, Kensington http://londonhotels.jurysdoyle.com/kensington_london
23+ sessions & 40+ speakers....Book Now!Take Part in the Debate with Leading Experts & Thought Leaders
Lord David Putnam is providing the Opening Keynote on 10th July across both Apply Serious Games and Apply Virtual Worlds Conferences.
SPEAKERS
CONFERENCE OPENING KEYNOTE
Lord David 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 - Apply Virtual Worlds & MMOs
Professor Richard Bartle
Richard A. Bartle co-wrote the first virtual world, MUD, in 1978; he has thus been at the forefront of the industry from its very inception. He divides his time equally between being an industry consultant and an academic (Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK). His 2003 book, "Designing Virtual Worlds", is the standard text on the subject, and he is an influential writer on all aspects of virtual world design and development.
CONFERENCE CHAIR - Apply Serious Games
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. Donald has also won many awards for the design and implementation of e-learning, notably the ‘Outstanding Achievement in e-learning Award’ at the World Open Learning Conference. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and has won Best Speaker awards at several conferences.
CONFERENCE CHAIR - Academic Meets Industry Summit
Paul Hollins - Manager Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (Jisc CETIS)
Paul spent several years as a Director for an international games publisher before being appointed head of business development for an e-Learning content developer. Since 2003 he has been Manager of the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS), a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) development service.
Paul continues to advise on the development of digital educational games for JISC through their Innovation strand projects and is on the NESTA Futurelab “Teaching with Games” Advisory Board. Paul also maintains a relationship with Electronic Arts, advising on their educational activities.
CONVENTION KEYNOTES
Eric Winbolt - Head of Digital at EMI Records - no bio available
Andreas Boerner - Co-Founder, Bandstand
Andreas is the co-founder of Bandstand – a fan2fan marketing platform for the music industry. As a seasoned business consultant he has worked across multiple industries and countries. The combination of finance, marketing and technical expertise allows him to provide value based insights. Currently he advises several UK companies on ROI based advertising strategies.
Claus Nehmzow - MD, Method
Claus is MD of Method in London. Formerly 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. In Zurich, New York, London.
Justin Bovington - CEO, 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.
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.
Other speakers include:
Jo Roach - Commissioning Editor, Channel 4 Education - No bio available
Dave Taylor MSc MBCS—Imperial College, London
Dave (SL Davee Commerce) 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. Blog: http://www.nanodave.com Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nanodave
Kevin McNulty - President, Coole Immersive (formerly known as Terris-Hill Productions) & Founding Member of Serious Games Association Canada
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.
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.
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.
Kevin Corti - CEO, 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.
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 - Solicitor, Technology Group & 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
Frank has worked as an in-house lawyer with a number of companies such as Psygnosis (part of Sony), Vodafone and Yahoo! and as a result he understands the demands placed on businesses and is able to provide commercial and pragmatic advice
Matt Spall - General Manager, Morpheme Games Studios (part of Eidos)
With 20 years in the games industry Spall has seen many a gaming fad come and go. Now the General Manager of Eidos’s casual and online studio: Morpheme Games Studios, Spall is establishing a successful csual games market by building free, online content for play on Morpheme’s site, Gimme5games.com, and for friends list based competition on Facebook, Bebo and other open API based social networking sites.
David MacQueen - Senior Mobile Content Analyst, Screen Digest
David has been working in the mobile content industry at a senior level since 1999, when he founded The Games Kitchen. In this capacity he worked with the mobile content divisions of many high-profile companies including Disney, Sega and Panasonic.
David has had a number of articles on mobile content published and has spoken at numerous conferences. At Screen Digest, David has authored several in-depth mobile content reports, and worked on numerous consultancy projects for major media groups, regulators and the European Commission. David holds an Honours degree from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh where he also undertook PhD research.
Sebastien de Halleux - Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, PlayFish
Sebastien answers for distribution, monetization and business development at Playfish.
Prior to Playfish Sebastien was at Nokia where he was responsible for Strategy and Business Development for the newly formed mobile advertising group. He helped accelerate this key group by completing the successful acquisition of Enpocket, a US-based mobile advertising company. Prior to Nokia, Sebastien was Strategy and Operations Director at Glu Mobile. During his tenure, he structured the European financial planning and analysis organisation and the tactical sales operations department responsible for prioritising, deploying and tracking several million mobile gaming SKUs. He was previously Head of Strategic Alliances at Macrospace where he was responsible for corporate development and key partnerships, resulting in the merger with US-based Sorrent and the formation and integration of Glu Mobile. Prior to Glu Mobile, Sebastien was a management consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, working on Finance and Media projects across EMEA and APAC. Sebastien holds an MEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering from Imperial College.
Playfish is the developer of Top 5 Facebook game 'Who Has the Biggest Brain?' and other leading community-based casual games.
Tom Nixon - Co-Founder & Director, Nixon McInnes
Tom Nixon is a founder and director of NixonMcInne, the largest agency in the UK devoted to social media. Having worked as a web
developer, interactive producer, and currently as a client account director, Tom has a detailed understanding of the web both from a
technical and business perspective. Clients include: O2, Cisco, Fat Face, More Th>n, Southampton University.
Ivan Pope - Founding CEO, Snipperoo
Ivan Pope fell into a text based command line driven network in 1988 while an art student at Goldsmiths' College, London. He subsequently dedicated his life to art and technology. While teaching at Goldsmiths' in 1993, he started a Web magazine. This was sold to Future Publishing and he was the launch editor of .net magazine in 1994. Subsequently he started a web design and build company called Webmedia and then a domain name company called NetNames which he sold in 2000. Along the way he invented the first internet cafe, Cybercafe and started the domain name industry. After a few years out, he is now the ceo of a widget startup called Snipperoo.
Jason Ryan - VP & Head of User Experience, iCrossing
Jason has been involved with digital media since 1995 and has contributed to many high-profile public-facing projects in the fields of business, government, art, science, education, music and film. In 2001 he became Production Director for Brighton digital agency Cogapp, where he led interactive projects for the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Science Museum; and the BBC.
He established a thriving User Experience practice at Cogapp, where his work includes digital consultancy and information architecture projects for The Home Office; The Houses of Parliament; The British Library; The British Museum; and The Jewish Museum, New York.
In October 2007, Jason joined iCrossing to head up the User Experience team.
Thomas Bidaux - VP, Avaloop
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 was to manage the product development teams as well as researching and acquiring new titles. He is now a Director with Austrian-based games developer Avaloop.
Thor Gunnarsson - VP, CCP Games (Eve Online)
Thor Gunnarsson was appointed Vice President of Business Development for CCP in the fall of 2007. An industry veteran of the Internet and entertainment software sectors since 1994, he was previously Vice President Business Development and General Manager at Ideaworks3D, the BAFTA award-winning mobile game developer and middleware provider. Mr. Gunnarsson’s professional involvement in the software industry spans sales, marketing and product management in the areas of mobile entertainment, wireless software, real-time 3D and multiplayer networked gaming.
Ian Hughes - Metaverse Evangelist, IBM
An IBM Consulting IT Specialist who has worked on leading edge emerging technologies for the past 17 years. As a gamer he has seen a massive increase in the capability within games and the rise of online gaming. In 1997 he started working on all things web, understanding the technology and the business and the richer mix of people involved.At work he has seen and been part of the Web 2.0 revolution has a top rated blog inside IBM and jointly writes http://www.eightbar.com outside. As a digital native his epredator persona spans many places, blogs, Eve Online, Xbox Live, Twitter, Flickr, Virtual Worlds. He is an IBM Metaverse Evangelist having led IBM into metaverses for the past 19 months understanding what the social, business and technical implications are.
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.
Bernard Horan -Senior Engineer, Sun Microsystems
Bernard Horan works for Sun Microsystems Laboratories as a senior staff engineer. His current research uses Project Wonderland, an open source toolkit for building virtual worlds. This research includes: an investigation into the use of 3d recording and playback; and the utility of mixed reality teaching to bridge the gap between local and physically remote students. Bernard is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of Essex.
Toby Beresford - Commercial Director, Nudge
Toby Beresford is commercial director of Nudge, London's #1 dedicated social media agency. Toby has over 12 years experience delivering web applications to both businesses and consumers. He has built E-HR for BAE systems, Telemedicine for the NHS and community systems for the UN in Indonesia. Now at Nudge he has created ten apps on Facebook and Bebo for clients such as last.fm, Sky News and Affiliate Window. He is also founder of the Facebook developer garage a monthly meet up for sixty professionals.
Rob Davis - CEO, Solaris Media - no bio available
Dr Mirko Caspar - CMO, Metaversum
Founded in 2006 in Berlin, Metaversum develops and operates the 3D online world Twinity (www.twinity.com). The virtual world which is closely linked to the real world is currently in private beta and to be launched publicly in late summer 2008. m Before co-founding Metaversum Mirko worked as Senior Director of Business Development Universal Music and as Managing Director of Universal’s direct marketing subsidiary, where he was responsible for direct and online marketing, pricing and extending the music business into complementary markets. Mirko received his PhD in Consumer Behaviour and Branding Strategies from the Westfälische Wilhelms-University Muenster.
Matthew Jeffery - Head Global Talent Brand, Electronic Arts
Matthew Jeffery, is the Head of Global Talent Brand for Electronic Arts. He is based in the UK Office in Guildford, home to titles including ‘Harry Potter,’ the extreme racing game ‘Burnout’ and the destructive shooter, ‘Black’.
Jeffery oversees all recruitment across the European Studios, (including Dice, Phenomic and partners with Crytek); Mobile phone games in Romania and India; EA Tech, (formerly Renderware, the tech wing of EA); and EA Partners, (who work to sign independent developers games to EA for publishing). Jeffery represents EA at major shows including SIGGRAPH, GDC and Leipzig.
Sanjay Mistry - Electronic Arts University - no bio available
Scott Weiss - Executive Director, EMEA, Human Factors International
Scott Weiss is the Executive Director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, working from Human Factors International’s London office. Currently, he leads projects that span desktop, mobile, medical, consumer electronics, and enterprise business needs with regard to design, research, and usability institutionalisation. Prior to joining HFI, he led teams of researchers and designers for eleven years as the Principal of Usable Products Company, which he formed in New York in 1996. While running Usable Products Company, Scott led usability and design projects for Dun & Bradstreet, GlaxoSmithKline, Intel, JP Morgan Chase, Samsung, Sprint, and Vodafone, among many other well-known global companies. Scott's team produced annual benchmarks of mobile user interface technologies, including Media Downloads, Music & Video, and Mobile Search. Scott's book, "Handheld Usability," was the pioneering design, prototyping, and usability text for the mobile industry. Prior to forming Usable Products Company, Scott held career roles at Apple, Microsoft, Sybase, and Autodesk. He speaks frequently and globally on the topic of usability, with special interests in mobile design and quantitative usability benchmarking.
Chris Brannigan - Chief Creative Officer , Caspian Learning
Chris Brannigan is one of the two co-founders of Caspian Learning and is its Chief Creative Officer. Chris focuses his time and efforts within Caspian leading the R&D of the technology and the pedagogical approaches employed within the applications.
Originally from the North East, Chris left the area to undertake Learning and Memory research at both undergraduate and post graduate level at the Universities of Cardiff and St Andrews in Scotland. Chris then moved to London where he spent five years with Barclays bank, working on technology investment related projects. Following this, Chris spent three years working for the American technology company Razorfish as strategic director across Europe. Within this role Chris explored a variety of technology initiatives and worked on investment and growth strategies for clients.
Chris returned to the North East in 2002 to set up Caspian Learning. Since that time he has led a research team to develop tools that integrate learning and memory research methods with interactive computer games technologies. These tools are now being deployed in corporations and schools around Europe.
Tom Gordon - CEO, Alien Pants - no bio available
Paul Golding
Paul has over 18 years in the industry, numerous patents, projects and industry firsts to his credit and a best-selling 600-page book - Next Generation Wireless Applications (Wiley). He has advised many operators, companies, technologists and entrepreneurs globally and was an expert member of MIDP 3.0. Paul is also founder/architect of ThumbJot, a socially-enabled Mobile Web 2.0 application for iPhones. Recently contracted as Chief Architect for Motorola’s mobile applications/TV group, he designed several innovative mobile social applications using video, location and presence. His services are widely sought after in the industry.
Dick Davies - VP, Ambient Worlds
Dick Davies is the Executive Producer at Ambient Worlds where he manages the design, development and deployment of private virtual worlds for collaborative serious gaming in a range of domains. Ambient are the European service partners for the Forterra OLIVE virtual world platform, the worlds leading private virtual world environment developer.
Dominic Davenport - CEO, Escape Studios - no bio available
Gilbert Reveillon - Director Strategic Marketing, LaSer (Lafayette Services)
Before LaSer, Gilbert was Managing Director Europe for EuropebyAir.com an online travel supplier based in Paris. Gilbert spent 6 years in Canada where he graduated and worked for the world-wide leader brand EVIAN (Danon Group). He then spent four years in the United Kingdom, where he took responsibility of Marketing Manager for the high speed train Eurostar linking the highest international volume route London - Paris. Following this, he worked for the executive aviation industry with OSS dealing with the RAF's 32 Squadron (The Royal), and later for Virgin Executive Aviation. He co-founded http://b-r-ent.com and http://nano-marketing.eu and created the "2008 IntraVerse awards". A world First with the Intr@Verse awards on June the 5th, Paris, France: The simultaneous awards ceremony, took place both in "Real" and "Second" Life, in the presence of the avatars of several blue chip companies directors, and of " Philip Linden", the avatar of Philip Rosedale, founder of Linden Labs and Chairman of the ceremony. Google provided the Real Life Intraverse trophies.
Paul Durrant - Director, Abertay University - no bio available
Gina Fegan - CEO, South East Media Network
Gina took on the role of setting up Screen South following two years as Director of the Kent International Film Festival (October 2000 and 2001) and Manager of Cinema 3 in Canterbury. During this time she also set up Kent Hothouse – a media development agency. With a background in construction, structural engineering and project management Gina has produced low budget drama, was the co-ordinator of the first LA Shorts Fest and subsequently spent a year in Los Angeles developing two feature films.
Gina is a trustee of the Metropole Galleries in Folkestone, sits on the events committee of BAFTA, on the South East of England Development Agency’s MTT (Media, Technology and Telecoms) sector group, is an executive member of the Cultural Consortium, the Funders’ Forum for the South East, the Government Office for the South East advisory group for Dept. of Culture Media and Sport and is a member of Women in Film and Television.
David Swift - MoD - no bio available
Mark Osborne - NCALT - no bio available
Lt Tony Marden - Project Manager , modelling and simulation, MWS Maritime Immersive Learning Simulation project - no bio available
Martin Mackain Bremner - no bio available
James Ross - Surgeon, Imperial College - no bio available
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.
ABOUT
The convention was conceived by Apply Group with trade body angils (the alliance for new generation interactive leisure and simulations): a networking association started in 2003 for organisations involved in emerging and established services and technologies that are - important to simulations, games, media & broadcasting, productivity tools and virtual worlds.
We have brought together the key stakeholders in the Visual Web, building on the success of Apply Serious Games, our knowledge and understanding of games and online media.
About Apply Group
Apply Group merged with the original event organiser Kezos Ltd in 2006. Apply Group Ltd was incorporated in 2000 and has produced events and other services for organisations including: Tiga, BP, BAFTA, United Business Media amongst others.
About angils
angils' unabashed goal is to enlighten related sectors within our remit, about each other - promoting cross-sector knowledge through bringing experts together who can grow and learn from each other. Inevitably this results in 'the adoption curve' happening faster and value being expedited.