Games for Change’s Post

Last week I attended Serious Play Conference for the first time. It was an incredible opportunity to meet individuals from diverse fields/backgrounds, from technology design/development to research and education. Thank to Paul Darvasi, Ph.D. the team and the volunteers for bringing up all these individuals together and making this happen! It gave me an opportunity to share my research with others and connect with so many inspiring people there! I did not get the chance to post during the conference but here is the summary/my reflections: - An interesting talk/workshop by Tory Van Voorhis & Jenn McNamara on health games taxonomy. If you are developing a game-based solution, definitely reach out to them! I also had the chance to meet Susan Bonner during this workshop and get to know her exciting works on AR/VR in children. - I could attend Dr. Eliane Biddiss’s talk on the development of their VR game-Bootle Blast, to improve the motor functions of children with CP. So happy to listen to her talk and get the chance to talk to her in person! - A fun workshop by Games for Change about how games can have a social impact! Through a group activity, we incorporated the design cycle, built a new version of tic-tac-toe and learned about 6 parts of the game! So fun! - Another fun workshop which I learned through play about the player types by Jacqueline Lloyd Smith founder of Strategic Play Global! Loved the play chest they made and how you can use it to understand what is your (or employee’s, students’s etc) player type! Also, it was interesting to find out how it could apply to my own research too! - Met an amazing person at this workshop- Farhan Quasem. if you teach sth and want to share it with public through an e-learning system, definitely reach out to him! - And finally, the highlight of the conference for me was, meeting Kimberly Hieftje, PhD I have been following her work and I am so happy that I could attend her talk on “Year of the Cicadas”- a game about loss and grief and find meaning through loss. She shared the process/journey of developing Cody’s legacy- truly emotional-inspiring journey with full of life and research/game development lessons! So glad to meet her in person at their lab booth and hear about their projects! And definitely, so many other amazing individuals whom I talked with during the conference! Hopefully, I can meet this amazing group of people once again soon!