The latest “gaming for health” trends — including “exergaming,” health elements in popular commercial games (e.g., a “disease” being unleashed inadvertently on the population in “World of Warcraft”) and sophisticated, new videogames used to train emergency medical personnel — will be outlined during a live, two-way phone-based blogger/online news event at 1 p.m. EDT Thursday (May 8, 2008).
The special news briefing for bloggers and other online media will take place on the opening day of the May 8-9, 2008 Games for Health Conference in Baltimore, MD.
News event speakers will be:
— Ben Sawyer, co-founder, the Games for Health Project; and
— Chinwe Onyekere, program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio.
The conference will explore the intersection of next-generation game technologies and health issues. Founded in 2004, the Games for Health Project supports community, knowledge and business development efforts to use cutting-edge games and game technologies to improve health and health care. The Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the lead conference sponsor and a major supporter of the Games for Health Project.
TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based blogger/online news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1:00 p.m. ET on May 8, 2008 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the “Health and Video Games” news event.
CAN’T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.gamesforhealth.org as of 6 p.m. EDT on May 8, 2008.
CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com
(for media and bloggers); Elly Spinweber, (703) 741-7513, espinweber@golinharris.com
The Games for Health Project is produced by the Serious Games Initiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars effort that applies cutting-edge games and game technologies to a range of public and private policy, leadership and management issues. The project also produces the Games for Health Conference, now in its fourth year.
The Initiative founded Games for Health to develop a community and best practices platform for the numerous games being built for health care applications. To date, the project has brought together researchers, medical professionals and game developers to share information about the impact games and game technologies can have on health, health care and policy.
Over three days, more than 300 attendees will participate in over 60 sessions provided by an international array of 75 speakers, cutting across a wide range of activities in health and health care. Topics include exergaming, physical therapy, disease management, health behavior change, biofeedback, epidemiology, training, cognitive exercise, nutrition and health education. This year’s conference includes presentations by Dr. Richard Satava; Starlight Foundation; HopeLab; Realtime Associates; Virtual Heroes; XRtainment Zone; Archimage; Dr. Mark Baldwin of MindHabits; Electric Owl Studios; Noah Falstein of The Inspiracy; and Games for Health co-founder Ben Sawyer.
USA Exergaming distributors Exergame Fitness and Motion Kids will be attending the Games 4 Health Conference. Both Companies will be bringing a product called Lightspace Play developed by Lightspace Corp. Lightspace Corp, Motion Kids & Exergame Fitness have partnered up to bring the Exergaming community one of the most in demand products out today. The Lightspace Play will be available for everyone to try out and to see just what this amazing interactive piece can do for your facility.
For more information on the Lightspace Play Floor and Lightspace Play Wall please call 866.245.3036 or visit https://exergame.com or www.motionkids.com.
Exergame Fitness USA
Exergaming Research & Testing Center
530 West Colfax
Palatine, IL. 60067
Office: 847.963.8969 x1103
Fax: 847.963.8966
Cellular: 630.408.9995