Keynote Speakers

Several well-known scholars and gamers will deliver keynote presentations on a wide range of topics. We are proud to have:

Read up the keynote synopsis here.

Keynote Speakers' Profiles

CHANG Shih-Tsung (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis] website
 graduated from the School of Architecture in Pratt Institute and obtained his EdD from Columbia University. In 1988, he established Edu-Teque International (Also known as - ETI Group) in New York. It is committed to research and development of both informal education and edutainment related topics. Later, Dr. Chang was invited by the Taiwan Ministry of Education to continue his research and teaching in Taiwan. His past experience has been with the National Taipei University of Education; Professor at Department of Art Education, Head of Department of Plastic Design, Director of Graduate School of Toys & Games Design. Currently, Dr. Chang focus on the research of “UE-Learning?(Ultimate Education Learning) for children of all ages, and the design and promotion of new learning strategies in-and-out of classroom with the combination of teaching materials, toys, game, and fun activities.

CHEE Yam San (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis]
 is an Associate Professor in the Learning Sciences & Technologies Academic Group and the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. He conducts research on learning environments and the learning sciences, focusing especially on the use of distributed multimedia computer technologies in promoting learning and educational goals. His current interests fall on new literacies and new media in education, with a special emphasis on serious games and game-based learning. His current research efforts focus on simulation-based virtual reality collaborative learning environments, 3D gaming for learning, and learning environments for the development of argumentation skills.

Daniel DRUCKMAN (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis]
 is Professor of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, U.S.A, and Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia. In 2008, he was the Alcoa visiting professor at the University of Western Australia in Perth. He has been the Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason where he coordinated the doctoral program at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He is also a member of the faculty at Sabanci University in Istanbul, a visiting professor at the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, and National Yunlin University of Science and Technology in Taiwan. Dan has published widely on such topics as negotiating behavior, electronic mediation, nationalism and group identity, human performance, peacekeeping, political stability, nonverbal communication, and research methodology. He is a board member or associate editor of eight Journals and co-edits (with Bill Donohue) a new book series on International Negotiation. He received the 1995 Otto Klineberg award for Intercultural and International Relations from the Society for the Psychological Analysis of Social Issues for his work on nationalism, and, in 2006, a best applied paper award and the outstanding book award for Doing Research: Methods of Inquiry for Conflict Analysis. He currently serves as chair of the International Association for Conflict Management (IACM) Advisory Council. He is the recipient of the 2003 Lifetime Achievement award from the IACM.

Sara de FREITAS (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis]
 is currently Director of Research at the Serious Games Institute at the University of Coventry, U.K. Formerly she worked as Lab Manager, Project Manager on development programmes and Senior Research Fellow at the London Knowledge Lab. The Lab is a collaborative venture between Birkbeck College and the Institute of Education, University of London focusing upon technology assisted learning. She continues to hold a visiting senior research fellowship at the Lab. She also works in projects developing highly immersive learning games. In 2003 Sara founded the UK Lab Group, which brings the research and development community together to create stronger links between industrial and academic research through supporting collaborative programmes and for showcasing innovative R&D solutions for the knowledge economy. She publishes in many areas in simulation and gaming and also works as a consultant through her recently established partnership company: Innovatech llp.

Gert Jan HOFSTEDE (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis]
was schooled as a biologist, then did a PhD in production planning and became an Information Systems researcher. In the nineties he started creating simulation games to bring issues of information management and cross-cultural communication to life. Since then he published widely on simulation gaming, among others Exploring Culture (2002) and Why do games work? (2008). He has also published on trust and transparency across cultures, using a.o. agent-based models. His research interest centers on the biological background of culture. 

Dmitriy N. KAVTARADZE (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis]
graduated from Moscow State University in biology, 1970. He is now Head of Department Natural Resource Management , Faculty of Government Management, in Moscow State University. In 1997-2005, he was Head of the Laboratory of Ecology and Nature conservation, Biological faculty, Moscow State University. ); Russian representative in the World Road association (PIARC), National coordinator of IENE (InfraEcoNetwork Europe). He received in 2000 President Putin Award for education in sustainable development. He has written more than 200 articles in science magazines and books, including around 15 simulation games and manuals. He is the initiator of the toolkit design "Green Backpack" (2003) for decision making training in environmental education with 20 simulation games, toys and interactive posters. His present interests include simulation games and interactive methods research and design; urban ecology and sustainable development, evaluation on Theory of Coherent Development of Mankind and Biosphere.

Ryohei NAKATSU (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis]
received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from Kyoto University in 1969, 1971 and 1982 respectively. After joining NTT in 1971, he mainly worked on speech recognition technology. In 1994, he joined Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) as the president of its Media Integration & Communications Research Laboratories. In 2002 he became a professor at School of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University. Since March of 2008 he is a professor at National University of Singapore (NUS) and a director of Interactive & Digital Media Institute (IDMI) at NUS. His research interests include interactive media, entertainment technologies and communication robot/agent. In 1978, he received Young Engineer Award from the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers Japan (IEICE-J). He received many Best Paper Awards from associations in various Multimedia, Virtual Reality and Artificial societies from 1996 to 2001. He is a member of various academic societies such as IEEE, ACM, IEICE-J, the Acoustical Society of Japan, Information Processing Society of Japan, Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence., and others. He is also a chair of IFIP Technical Committee on Entertainment Computing.

Vincent PETERS (PhD)   [Keynote Synopsis]
studied educational sciences and specialized in research methods; he holds a PhD in Social Sciences. He has worked for over 25 years as a lecturer and most recently as an associate professor in research methodology for the faculty of Management Sciences at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Since 2005 he works in his own consultancy firm Samenspraak Advies, specialized in designing and applying gaming simulations, workshops, scenario building sessions and other participative methods that can be used in organizational change processes or in education. He has designed several simulation games and published about aspects of simulation games, like the validity of simulation games and the debriefing process. His ISAGA history goes back to 1992 when he first visited an ISAGA Conference. In 1999 he was asked to join the ISAGA Steering Committee. Since 2005 he is chair of the Dutch simulation and gaming association, SAGANET. Since 2008 he is Secretary General of the International Gaming and Simulation Association – ISAGA.