Games, Life and Utopia is a half-day event that is all about gamification, serious games, learning and play. It’s a conference for service and interaction designers, for social activists, for artists, for developers and geeks, and of course for gamers.
Gamification has garnered a lot of attention in recent years – both from academia and industry. At the event Game, Life and Utopia we will explore the potential and the boundaries of this emerging field. We will discuss the latest research results and discuss applications, not only in games, but also as tools for behavioral change. Our speakers offer a range of different perspectives on the topic – from hands-on experience with their own gamification products to a critical position based on psychological research. We will examine the operational mechanisms of games and their wondrous capabilities to produce experiences of hope, interest, enlightenment, and fascination.
We invite you to join us on Friday, November 11th, 2 pm, in Potsdam to think and talk about the nature of game playing and its meaning for people, institutions and society at large.
Please register for the event at gameslifeutopia.eventbrite.com
Event Organizers
Reto Wettach (FH Potsdam)
Reto Wettach is a Professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam/Germany (FHP), where he teaches and researches “Physical Interaction Design” and “Service Design”. Reto is also the design director with the Interaction Design Studios (IxDS), a design research agency in Berlin.
Previously Reto has worked as an Associate Professor with the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, and as a designer/researcher with Sony in Tokyo and Ideo in San Francisco. He studied Industrial Design at UdK Berlin and Mechanical Engineering at TU Berlin.
Reto is the initiator of Fritzing - an open-source initiative to support designers and artists to take the step from physical prototyping to actual product. The vision of Fritzing is to democratize the production of electronics. He also leads the research project “Experience the Energy”, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research.
Petra Müller (FH Potsdam)
Petra works with the E-learning group at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam. Prior to that she was a project manager at the Agentur für wissenschaftliche Weiterbildung und Wissenstransfer e.V., Brandenburg. She has a degree in educational science with a focus on adult education and vocational training.
Stefan Müller (FH Potsdam)
Stefan is a master student at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam. Before that he worked as a designer at Intel’s Digital Health Group, where I contributed to research and prototyping projects that enable transformations in the way healthcare is experienced and configured.
Event Sponsors
This event is organized in support of the “Interflex” lectures at at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam during the winter semester 2011/12. The “InterFlex” project promotes multidisciplinarity and flexibility in order to integrate research as well as knowledge and technology transfer into the curriculum.
“InterFlex” was part of the “Excellent Education” competition launched by the “Stifterverband der Deutschen Wissenschaft” and the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (Kultusministerkonferenz). It is funded by the Stifterverband and the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of Brandenburg.
