Bonnie Bracey
Online Internet Institute
Bracey is universally recognized for helping teachers successfully
integrate technology into their learning environments. In addition, Bracey
was the only teacher selected by President Clinton to serve on the National
Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee (NIIAC). Bracey was a
Christa McAuliffe Educator for the National Foundation of Education,
National Education Association, and was a member of the Challenger Center
Faculty. Bracey has served on the advisory boards of the George Lucas
Education Foundation, Lightspan Partnership, Apple, Technos, and the
Learning Company. She also has written numerous articles for national
publications and has been the featured guest of education technology
conferences across the nation.
Ted Friedman
Author of Electric Dreams
Friedman recently received his doctorate in literature from Duke
University. He is currently revising his dissertation, Electric Dreams:
Computer Culture and the Utopian Sphere, for publication. He has
published two essays on the dynamics of computer simulation games:
"Civilization and Its Discontents" appears in the collection On a Silver
Platter (NYU, 1999); "Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and
Interactive Textuality" appears in the collection Cybersociety
(Sage, 1995). He also has contributed to the journals Critical Studies
in Mass Communication and Communication Research, and as a
freelance media critic has written for Spin, Vibe, The Source,
Details, and Blender.
Geoffrey Goldstein
University of Utrecht
Goldstein was professor of psychology at Temple University (Philadelphia)
and visiting professor at the University of London, and is now with the
Department of Social and Organizational Psychology at the University of
Utrecht, The Netherlands. His books include Aggression and Crimes of
Violence (Oxford University Press), which won the Best Book award from
the International Society for Research on Aggression, 1988, and Toys,
Play and Child Development (Cambridge University Press). His most
recent book is Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent
Entertainment (Oxford University Press, 1998), which he edited with
support from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Goldstein is a fellow
of both the American Psychological Association and the American
Psychological Society.
Austin Grossman
Austin Grossman entered the game industry in May of 1992, by answering a
classified ad in the Boston Globe. He was hired by Looking Glass
Technologies as lead writer on Ultima Underworld II, and did the
initial design and story for System Shock. He also contributed to
Terra Nova and Flight: Unlimited. At Dreamworks Interactive
he was lead designer and writer for Trespasser. He is currently
working at Ion Storm, writing dialogue for Warren Spector's upcoming
action/role-playing game, Deus Ex.
Idit Harel
MaMaMedia
Harel, named one of Silicon Alley Reporter's Top 100 Entrepreneurs
for the past three years, holds a doctorate from the MIT Media Lab, two
master's degrees from Harvard University (Interactive Technologies &
Education and Human Development) and a bachelor of arts degree from Tel
Aviv University. She has taught at MIT and Harvard and speaks frequently
to business and academic communities throughout the world. Harel is
co-editor of Children Designers, winner of the 1991 Outstanding Book
Award from the American Education Research Association. One of the first
graduates of the MIT Media Lab, Harel founded MaMaMedia Inc. to create a
consumer brand based on breakthrough learning methodology and technologies
pioneered at the Media Lab.
Trip Hawkins
Founder of 3DO
Hawkins is founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of The 3DO
Company. Established in 1991, 3DO publishes video game software for the
Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64, PC, and Internet. The company hosts all of
its development in-house including the best-selling and award-winning
brands Army Men, High Heat Baseball, Might and Magic
and Heroes of Might and Magic. Hawkins also founded Electronic Arts
in 1982, where he was CEO for nine years and chairman of the board for 12
years. Despite entering a tumultuous marketplace with 135 competitors,
Electronic Arts rose in only four years to become the largest supplier of
computer entertainment software in the world and achieved a consistency in
profits and growth unrivaled in the industry. Hawkins holds a degree in
Strategy and Applied Game Theory from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from
Stanford University.
J.C. Herz
Author of Joystick Nation
Herz is the author of Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters,
Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds (Little, Brown), a history of
video games and their impact on popular culture. Herz is producing a
television documentary on the history of video games for PBS, and writes a
weekly column, "Game Theory," for The New York Times. She also
appears as a guest commentator on CNN & Company.
Henry Jenkins
Program in Comparative Media Studies, MIT
Jenkins earned his doctorate in communication arts from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and a master of arts in communication studies from the
University of Iowa. His books include Textual Poachers: Television Fans
and Participatory Culture, From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and
Computer Games, The Children's Culture Reader and the
forthcoming Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular
Culture. Jenkins has published articles on a diverse range of topics
relating to film, television and popular culture. His most recent essays
include work on Lassie, race and film comedy, pornography and bisexuality,
media and democracy, and Dr. Seuss.
Douglas Lowenstein
Interactive Digital Software Association
Lowenstein became the first president of the Interactive Digital Software
Association (IDSA) in June 1994. Creator and owner of the E3 trade show,
the IDSA is the only association exclusively dedicated to serving the
business and public affairs needs of companies that publish video and
computer games for video game consoles, personal computers and the
Internet. As president, Lowenstein is responsible for the Association's
operations and for industry-wide initiatives that affect the nation's
fastest growing entertainment industry.
Peter Molyneux
Lionhead Studios
Molyneux co-founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987, and created a new genre
of computer games, "the god game" with the release of Populous. Since then
Molyneux has been responsible for a string of massive-selling games
including Powermonger, Theme Park, Magic Carpet and
Dungeon Keeper. In 1997, Molyneux left Bullfrog Productions to form
a new games development company, Lionhead Studios, and is currently hard at
work on the company's first game Black and White. He has spoken on
the subject of development of computer games at the American Museum of the
Moving Image, the British Film Institute, ICA (London) and the Dortmund
Museum of History and Culture.
Gabe Newell
Valve Software
Newell is the founder and managing director of Valve, an entertainment
software company based in Kirkland, Washington. Valve's first game,
Half-Life has won more than 50 Game of the Year honors, and was
called "Best Game of All Time" by PC Gamer (November 1999). Before
starting Valve, Newell held a number of positions in the Systems,
Applications and Advanced Technology divisions at Microsoft, where he
worked for 13 years. His responsibilities included running program
management for the first two releases of Windows, starting the company's
multimedia division, and, most recently, leading the company's efforts on
the Information Highway PC.
David Perry
Shiny Entertainment
Perry started designing and programming video games in 1981. After
authoring numerous books, Perry moved to England to develop professional
games for Mikro-Gen, Elite Systems and Probe Software. In 1991, he moved
to the United States to work for Richard Branson's new company, Virgin
Games. There he headed up the team responsible for hundreds of millions of
dollars in retail sales through award winning games. In October 1993,
Perry formed Shiny Entertainment, which so far has generated six highly
acclaimed titles. Shiny now focuses on PC based games and this year will
be releasing the highly anticipated games Messiah and
Sacrifice.
Mark Pesce
University of Southern California
Pesce has been exploring the frontiers of the future for nearly two
decades. The author of three books, Pesce is widely respected as a
technologist who possesses vision in equal measure to his technical
prowess, paired with a unique ability to translate abstract concepts into
concrete explanations. In September 1998, Pesce was appointed chair of the
Interactive Media Program at the University of Southern California's
world-renowned School of Cinema-Television. His mandate - to bring
cinema and broadcast television into the interactive era- led him to
create a program that encourages creative vision and is producing a
generation of entertainment professionals shaping the media of the next
century.
Bruce Shelley
Ensemble Studios
Shelley has been a professional game designer and developer since 1980. He
began working with board games and switched to computer games in 1987. He
helped start or worked for five game companies. Prior to the start of
Ensemble Studios in 1995, Shelley is best known for assisting Sid Meier on
the design of the original editions of Railroad Tycoon and
Civilization when they were colleagues at Microprose. He is a
senior designer at Ensemble Studios, where he helped organize the company
and evolve their development methodology. He contributed to the design of
both Age of Empires and Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings.
Greg Smith
Editor of On A Silver Platter
A former systems analyst for IBM and other firms, Smith is now an assistant
professor in the Communication Department at Georgia State University,
where he teaches media studies and history. He earned his doctorate from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Smith is the editor of On a Silver
Platter: CD-ROMs and the Promises of a New Technology (New York
University Press, 1999), and co-editor of Passionate Views: Film,
Cognition, and Emotion (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). Smith
is interested in how new media try to incorporate existing content from
other media, and in the ways that these adaptations can often expand the
aesthetic capabilities of new media.
Warren Spector
IonStorm
Spector started at Steve Jackson Games, a small board game company where he
worked on Space Gamer magazine, and developed or designed several board
games and role-playing games. After rising to editor-in-chief at SJG, he
moved on to a position as a game developer for TSR, Inc., best known for
the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games. After five years in the
paper game business, Spector made the leap to computer gaming, taking a
position as associate producer for ORIGIN Systems, Inc. Spector was the
producer of the award-winning Ultima Underworld series (with project
director, Doug Church), Ultima VII, Part 2: Serpent Isle, Wings
of Glory, among others. In November 1999, Spector accepted a
partnership position and seat on the board of directors of ION Storm. He
and his team are currently working on an action/role-playing game entitled
Deus Ex, scheduled for release later this year.
Ellen Strain
Georgia Institute of Technology
Strain is an assistant professor of Film, Video and Multimedia at Georgia
Tech. She teaches within the School of Literature, Communication and
Culture's graduate program in Information Design and Technology. Her
research concerns historical understandings of immersive entertainment
technologies ranging from world fairs to video games and virtual reality.
She currently has several projects in development, including a book
entitled Public Places, Private Journeys: Immersive Entertainment
Technologies and the Tourist Gaze, and an NEH-funded multimedia
learning tool focused on the analysis of D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a
Nation. She just finished a CD-ROM-based interactive narrative on the
unsolved murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor in 1922.
Christopher Weaver
ZeniMax
Weaver is the chief technical officer of ZeniMax, an interactive software
engineering and consulting firm based in Rockville, Maryland. Weaver was
formerly Chief Engineer to the Congressional Subcommittee on
Communications, Vice President of Science & Technology for the National
Cable Television Association and directed the Office of Technology
Forecasting for the American Broadcasting Company. Weaver participated in
some of the earliest commercial developments in interactive cable and
multimedia. He holds graduate degrees in Computer Science and Japanese,
from Wesleyan University and in Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. A former associate of the Architecture Machine
Group and Fellow of the MIT Communications and Policy Program, Weaver was
appointed a Fellow of the Robotics Simulation Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon
in 1995.
Eric Zimmerman
New York University and Parsons School of Design
Zimmerman is an accomplished game designer, artist and academic exploring
the emerging field of game design. Zimmerman teaches at New York
University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and the Digital Design
program at Parsons School of Design. He exhibited non-digital game
projects in the Center for Contemporary Art in Grenoble, The Bellevue
Museum in Seattle, and Artists Space in New York City. Eric has published
and lectured extensively on the design and culture of play and games.
