[game_edu] First Two Keynotes Announced for Meaningful Play 2008

[Brian Winn]

The organizing committee is excited to announce the first two keynote  
speakers for Meaningful Play 2008 <http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu>,  
taking place October 9-11, 2008 in East Lansing, MI. The keynote  
speakers represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the design  
and study of meaningful play.

Keynote Speakers:

Nick Fortugno
Nick Fortugno is a co-founder and President of Rebel Monkey, a NYC- 
based casual game studio. Before Rebel Monkey, Fortugno was the  
Director of Game Design at gameLab, where he was a designer, writer  
and project manager on dozens of commercial and serious games, and  
served as lead designer on the downloadable blockbuster Diner Dash and  
the award-winning serious game Ayiti: The Cost of Life. Nick teaches  
game design and interactive narrative design at Parsons The New School  
of Design, and has participated in the construction of the school's  
game design curiculuum. Nick is also a co-founder of the Come Out and  
Play street games festival hosted in New York City and Amsterdam.

Ute Ritterfeld, Ph.D.
Ute Ritterfeld, Professor for Media Psychology, received her education  
in the Health Sciences (Academy of Rehabilitation in Heidelberg) and  
in Psychology (University of Heidelberg), completed her Ph.D. in  
Psychology (Technical University in Berlin), and habilitated at the  
University of Magdeburg, Germany. She was Assistant Professor at the  
University of Magdeburg, Adjunct Professor at the Universities of  
Berlin (Humboldt) and Hannover, and Associate Professor at the  
University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, Annenberg  
School for Communication. At USC, Ritterfeld directed an  
interdisciplinary research team devoted to the studies of digital  
games and hosted the inaugural academic conference on serious games.  
In 2007, Ritterfeld joined the faculty of Psychology and Education at  
the VU University Amsterdam and co-founded the Center for Advanced  
Media Research Amsterdam (CAMeRA at VU) where she serves as director of  
interdisciplinary research. Ritterfeld co-edits the Journal of Media  
Psychology (Hogrefe) and is leading editor of Serious Games:  
Mechanisms and Effects, published by Routledge, Taylor and Francis in  
fall 2008.

About Meaningful Play:
Whether designed to entertain or for more "serious" purposes, games  
have the potential to impact players’ beliefs, knowledge, attitudes,  
emotions, cognitive abilities, and behavior. Meaningful Play 2008 is  
an interdisciplinary academic conference that explores the potential  
of games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful  
ways. The conference includes thought-provoking keynotes from leaders  
in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper presentations, panel  
sessions (including academic and industry discussions), innovative  
workshops, roundtable discussions, and exhibitions of games.

Call for speaking submissions (papers, panels, etc) is due July 1, 2008
Call for game exhibition and competition is due August 15, 2008

Complete details on the conference is available at: http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu