Donald Brinkman

Microsoft Research
Manager, Games for Learning External Programs

Donald Brinkman manages external programs in digital humanities, digital heritage and games for learning at Microsoft Research Connections.

Brinkman supports the Games for Learning Institute, a consortium of eight universities, 14 principal investigators and a small army of graduate students whose mission is to explore what makes games fun, what makes them educational, and how to best blend the two goals. Brinkman is the Microsoft champion for the Just Press Play project, an experiment to transform the undergraduate education of 750 students at Rochester Institute of Technology into a gameful narrative. Other projects include Project Garibaldi and Game Show NYC.

Tyson Greer

Ambient Insight
CEO

Tyson Greer, CEO of Ambient Insight, has more than 30 years’ experience analyzing customer and business needs, designing targeted content in various media, conducting competitive analyses, and researching trends and practical applications of emerging technologies to affect change. At Ambient Insight, Greer develops market analysis reports on learning technologies including Location-based Learning, Game-based Learning and the Healthcare market for Mobile Learning. Greer also leads Ambient Insight’s Brand Strength Analysis practice.

Greer is a published author and an educator, and presents conference sessions and webinars on learning technology markets, trends, and opportunities. She also serves on the University of Washington’s Independent Filmmaking Advisory Board and the United States Distance Learning Advisory Board.

Richard Smith

Totem Learning
CEO

Richard Smith, CEO of Totem Learning, a Serious Games developer based in Coventry, UK, has more than six years of experience working in the Serious Games Industry and 10 years of working at Totem Learning, the last three years as CEO.

Totem Learning creates a unique range of serious games known as Immersive Learning Simulations, delivering business simulations, business and management skills training.  Smith leads company efforts in securing projects for a vast range of training topics with high value organizations in the US and Europe, many of them blue chip.

Claude Comair

DigiPen Institute of Technology
President

Claude Comair is the founder and president of DigiPen in Canada, USA, Singapore and Spain.  Comair is also the co-founder and former CTO, chairman and chairman of the board of Nintendo Software Technology, and co-founder and former president of Nintendo Software Technology Canada.

Comair received an undergraduate degree in Architecture from L´Université du Saint Esprit in Lebanon and a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Osaka University in Japan.

Comair is the author of 19 U.S. patents, and several patents pending, all of which deal with game design and/or game engineering.

David Samuelson

Achieve3000
Chief Marketing Officer

David Samuelson has spent the last 15 years in K-12 education publishing.

Before forming his own consultancy, Samuelson was responsible for all game initiatives for Pearson PLC, an $8 billion, UK-based global leader in education, business information and consumer publishing.  Pearson imprints include Penquin, Scott Foresman and Prentice Hall.

During his tenure at Pearson, Samuelson has served in a variety of roles including SVP of Marketing and Product Strategy for Pearson School Companies, Deputy Director for Collaboration for Pearson PLC and VP of the Family Education Network.

Dan White

Filament Games
Founding Partner and CEO

Dan White is a founding partner and CEO at Filament Games, where he directs both business and development operations. White earned an MS in Educational Communications and Technology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a BS in Communication Technologies from Cornell University.

White has presented on the business and design of learning games at numerous conferences, including Games for Change; NSTA (national); Serious Games; SIEGE; Games Learning Society; and Wisconsin Entrepreneurs. White has served as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation and is serving as PI on two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants recently awarded to Filament by the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.

Ann Latham Cudworth (Annabelle Fanshaw in VW) 

Ann Cudworth is a pioneer in virtual environmental design.  A two-time Emmy® Award winner, Cudworth inspires people to engage with the message and learn from content embodied in the environment.

Cudworth has shared her knowledge as a mentor and educator of virtual design and visualization at major universities, workshops and conferences worldwide for 16 years.

As founder of Alchemy Sims (http://www.alchemysims.com/), Cudworth has led project teams who work with organizations to create engaging, interactive spaces that deliver information and content in an unforgettable way.

Wanda Meloni

M2 Research
CEO

Wanda Meloni is a game industry analyst and market strategist. She has been tracking entertainment, development tools, 3D and graphics technologies and emerging markets and trends for more than 15 years, first with Peddie Research and later with DFC before founding her own firm.

Meloni reports on the market dynamics affecting development and on consumer buying trends. In addition to her published works, she consults with many of the top companies in the industry, providing custom analysis, investment strategies, strategic positioning and competitive analysis.

Randy Hinrichs

2B3D
CEO

Randy Hinrichs is CEO of 2B3D, a multi-award winning Internet media company focused on virtual world gaming and conferencing. Randy’s experience spans Microsoft Advanced Strategy Group, Microsoft Research, and Sun University. He holds various patents in multi-point Internet based video conferencing, influencer data mining, and digitizing medical health records. His recent publications include Transforming Virtual World Learning and Engaging the Avatar.

Randy serves as advisor to Virtual Worlds students at the University of Washington and is adjunct faculty at the iSchool. His goal: go green, advance medical gaming and enable everyone with science.

Brock Dubbels, PhD

McMaster University
Researcher, School of Engineering

Before joining McMaster University, Brock was a Fulbright Scholar at the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology; and worked at Xerox PARC, at Oracle and as a research associate at the Center for Cognitive Science at the University of Minnesota, where he worked with educators in comprehension, problem solving and cultural cognition.
Brock’s specialties include game design, psychometrics, cognition, social learning and play. From these perspectives he designs face-to-face, virtual and hybrid learning environments, exploring new technologies for assessment, delivering content, creating engagement with learners and investigating ways people approach learning. Brock also teaches course work on games and cognition and how learning research can improve game design for return on investment (ROI).

Brock is also the founder and principal learning architect at www.vgalt.com for design, production, usability assessment and evaluation of learning systems and games.