Skip to main content

Next Stop Baltimore: (Serious) Games For Health Conference 2008

Baltimore Convention Center where the conference will be held May 8 to 9, 2008

Dear All,

I'm heading to the upcoming Games for Health Fourth Annual Conference 2008, to be held in Baltimore next week, and from there to Japan.

This will be probably the only post I will publish in a 3-week horizon and is aimed at wrapping-up the other fourteen previews I've produced in preparation for the event, highlighting the re. press release specifics.

The Games for Health Conference is produced by the Games for Health project, founded in 2004. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneer Portfolio is the lead conference sponsor and a major supporter of the Games for Health Project.

Humana joins the Games for Health Conference in 2008 as a Premiere Industry Sponsor. Among the activities sponsored by Humana are two demonstration rooms filled with the latest efforts in exergaming. 

Other sponsors include Breakaway Games; Source Distributors; Gaming4Health.com – iConecto; Baltimore County Department of Economic Development; Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development; Red Octane; and Xrtainment Zone.

Serious games developer Virtual Heroes of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, is providing sponsorship for a May 8 reception. During the reception, attendees will be able to play with 3DiTeams. Funded by the U.S. Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), 3DiTeams was developed by Virtual Heroes with Duke University’s Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center, and lets People interact with a fully 3D simulation of emergency health care environments.

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.

A special Keynote Panel, organized by Humana, will feature four of the nation’s leading health insurance providers ( Humana, Cigna, Kaiser Permanente, InlandEmpire Health Plan) discussing their emerging activities in the games for health field. This is the first time in the conference’s history that leading health insurance industry representatives will be speaking.

About Games for Health

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.