2019 Games for Change Festival: Full Schedule

11:45am EDT

Beyond the Empathy Games 101: Digging Deep into Empathy, Ethics, and Design

Games which provide players the opportunity to experience profound and deeply emotional experiences are often labeled as “empathy games.” While the goal of crafting these kinds of experiences is frequently to evoke feelings of connection, there remains significant moral and ethical considerations. Is asking someone to experience another person’s trauma permissible in the name of empathy? How are we thinking about the ethics around creating immersive, potentially traumatic experiences? This talk will delve into the psychological construct of empathy, discuss how empathy maps to the design process, and share core questions to consider when designing in the name of empathy.

Speakers

Kelli Dunlap

Director of Mental Health Research and Design, iThrive Games

Kelli Dunlap, PsyD is the director of mental health research and design at iThrive Games. As a psychologist and game designer, she leads on the design and implementation of the organization’s mental health initiatives including conducting research, publishing academic articles... Read More →

Tuesday June 18, 2019 11:45am - 12:05pm EDT
Room 105

Health & Wellness, Talk

3:15pm EDT

VR for Binocular Vision: Using the Brain's Neuroplasticity to Treat Lazy Eye

Hundreds of eye clinics are using VR to treat lazy eye in more than 16 countries. This talk covers the science and business challenges of getting a novel VR medical device adopted as the new standard of care.

Speakers

James Blaha

CEO & Founder, Vivid Vision

James Blaha is founder and CEO of Vivid Vision. He grew up suffering from binocular vision disorders which sparked his interest in technology to measure and improve human vision. He built a prototype using a virtual reality head-mounted display of what would become Vivid Vision’s... Read More →

Tuesday June 18, 2019 3:15pm - 3:35pm EDT
Room 104

Health & Wellness, Talk

3:45pm EDT

Neuro Champions: Improving Child and Adolescent Knowledge of the Brain, Neuroscience and Mental Health

How many of you learnt about your brain when you were at school? With 50% of Mental Health Problems established by the age of 14, we believe that by learning about your brain and development this can help prevent the negative impacts of mental ill health and builds up skills, knowledge and the confidence to provide peer based support. Integrating neuroscience education, play, technology and psychological models of support, we created the Neuro Champions programme. This session will describe the Neuro Champions methodology, demonstrate game elements and share findings from our evaluation study.

Speakers

Naomi Mwasambili

CEO, Chanua

Naomi is the CEO of Chanua and has over 10 years experience designing, implementing and evaluating social change programmes. Her team at Chanua have developed a range of products and services embedding play, gamification and technology in areas of health, mental health and enterprise... Read More →

Tuesday June 18, 2019 3:45pm - 4:05pm EDT
Room 104

Health & Wellness, Talk

11:15am EDT

No Shame in Reproductive Health Games

We believe that because of their interactive, iterative and inspiring nature, games appeal to the human psychology in a way most other communication tools don’t and their impact on our brains far transcends the boundaries of the virtual world.

This session will focus on 4 windows of opportunity that can be leveraged when creating low-cost mobile games for reproductive health for a global audience; (i) games are a universal language,(ii) smartphones are now available in areas where even toilets are a luxury,(iii)mobiles games provide a private mode of outreach and (iv) scaling up games to different contexts is cost effective.

Speakers

Heather Miller

Creative Director, GRID- Gaming Revolution for Inspiring Development

Heather Miller is the Creative Director at GRID. She is responsible for the storyboarding and script writing of GRID's reproductive health games, SurrEndo and Nari Paila. Heather manages the team of graphic artists at GRID and provides art direction for all game assets. She also conducts... Read More →

Nokafu Sandra Chipanta

Program Officer II, Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University

Sandra Chipanta manages programmatic and research activities at the Institute for Reproductive Health. Under the Fertility Awareness for Community Transformation Project, she works on community-based and digital games. She informed the content design of the Nari Paila mobile game... Read More →

Wednesday June 19, 2019 11:15am - 11:35am EDT
Room 105

Health & Wellness, Talk

12:15pm EDT

VR NeuroTherapy in Rehabilitation for Improved Mobility, Chronic Pain Management and Independence

Research surrounding VR as a viable medical tool has been extensive; covering training doctors in detailed surgical procedures to working on the front lines enhancing the patient experience. VR as a rehabilitation treatment for spinal cord injury, brain injury and various musculoskeletal disorders and disabilities has had tremendous success in improving mobility, pain management, and quality of life for in-patient and out-patient users. Hospitals have access to rehab focused VR experiences as a stand-alone device or to complement traditional practice. Discover how VR is used to help improve the independence of disabled users and it’s novel pairing with other technology.

Speakers

Jessica Maslin

Co-founder & COO, Mieron, Inc

Jessica Maslin is the co-founder and COO of @mieronvr, innovators of Virtual Reality NeuroTherapy for rehabilitation, physical therapy & pain management. Jessica has worked in research fields, analytics, digital marketing, product development, sales strategy, and partnership development... Read More →

Wednesday June 19, 2019 12:15pm - 12:35pm EDT
Room 105

Health & Wellness, Talk

2:00pm EDT

Accessible Player Experiences: A New Approach to Accessible Game Design

The focal point of accessible game design has primarily resulted in the addition of accessible options and features after the crucial design choices have already been made. From AbleGamers Charity comes a novel approach to accessible game design. With an emphasis on removing access and challenge barriers from the inception of the game development process, the AbleGamers Charity seeks to catalyze a new wave of game development that strives towards Accessible Player Experience (APX).

Speakers

Mark Barlet

Founder and Executive Director, AbleGamers Charity

Mark Barlet is the Founder and Executive Director of the AbleGamers Charity. Working alongside Mark, is Greg Haynes, Lead User Researcher at The AbleGamers Charity. Together, they seek to break down the barriers to gameplay that people with disabilities experience and foster accessible... Read More →

Greg Haynes

Lead Games User Researcher, AbleGamers Charity

Working alongside Mark, is Greg Haynes, Lead User Researcher at The AbleGamers Charity. Together, they seek to break down the barriers to gameplay that people with disabilities experience and foster accessible design practices in the gaming space. In discussing and consulting on accessibility... Read More →

Wednesday June 19, 2019 2:00pm - 2:20pm EDT
Room 105

Health & Wellness, Talk

4:15pm EDT

Gamification as a Life-saving Medicine

Ting Jiang will shed light on the science behind games and gamification and how to optimally apply serious games and gamification to promoting learnings and adopting the right behavior especially habitual behavior that impacts health and happiness with the "4P" framework. She will also demonstrate how the scientific tool of experimentation can be applied to both proving and improving products/games created.

Speakers

Dr. Ting Jiang

Principal, Center for Advanced Hindsight

Dr. Ting Jiang is Principal of Behavioral Tech and Architecture at Center for Advanced Hindsight, a behavioral science lab at Duke University led by Dan Ariely. As a scientist, she has published in a broad range of disciplines ranging from economics, psychology to anthropology on... Read More →

Wednesday June 19, 2019 4:15pm - 4:35pm EDT
Room 104

Health & Wellness, Talk

4:45pm EDT

Using Virtual Reality for Training Healthcare Providers in High-Stakes Pediatric Resuscitations

Some events in medicine - cardiac arrest, mass casualties, pediatric resuscitations - are difficult for medical providers to train for. First, because of their rarity (Low-frequency), there is less experience. Second, because of their importance (High-stakes), it's not a great time to 'practice' or learn from 'trial-and-error.'

Virtual Reality is a new method to train healthcare providers for low-frequency, high-stakes events in a safe but stressful environment. We'll describe how Children's Hospital Los Angeles helped develop a VR solution that is now being implemented in multiple hospitals and medical centers throughout the world.

Speakers

Dr. Todd Chang

Associate Medical Director for the Simulation Laboratory, Keck School Of Medicine, University Of Southern California

Dr. Todd P Chang is Divisional Director for Research & Scholarship for Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He has been Principal Investigator in a variety of grant-funded and research examining gamification, serious games, and virtual reality in healthcare. Dr... Read More →

Wednesday June 19, 2019 4:45pm - 5:05pm EDT
Room 104

Health & Wellness, Talk