Serious applications of technology in games and health. Claudia Zúñiga
PhD in Applied Informatics, ENSTA (Paris, France), and Master in systems and computer engineering (Universidad de los Andes), he is the head of the Visual computing Area (IMAGINE Group) and has served as a full-time professor and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the Universidad de Los Andes.
Professor Edmond C. Prakash
PhD in High Performance Computing and Scientific Visualization, Edmond is currently Professor in Computer Science and Associate Dean for Research at Cardiff Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. With research interests around games technology, big data visualization, human computer animation, high performance computing, interactive digital media and AR/VR, he has held positions and research collaborations in India, Singapore, China, Colombia, UK and USA.
Professor Xun Luo
Professor Xun Luo is a distinguished member of China Computer Federation (CCF). He leads the Technical Committee on Virtual Reality and Visualization (TC-VRV) of CCF as TCVRV’s standing director. Luo is a titular professor at Tianjin University of Technology, as well as Chief Scientist of CAS-Jinyun Cloud Inc., one of the top cloud-service providers in China. Professor Luo’s research interests include virtual reality and augmented reality systems, and natural human-computer interfaces. Also, he obtained B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Masters in Applied Mathematics and Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Chicago, and he is the inventor and co-inventor of 28 U.S. and international patents. Besides basic and applied research, he is also an expert in education and has served as Program Evaluator for ABET and Chinese Engineering Education Accreditation Computer Engineering Commission.
Dr. Sergio Albiol-Pérez
Main Researcher of the “Health Multimodal” Consortium of Campus Iberus (Spain), and also of the team “Sistemas tecnológicos en el campo de la salud” at the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Aragón (Spain), he defended his PhD thesis with Cum Laude at the Universitat Politécnica de Valencia, Spain, and has been teaching since 2001 at the Computer Science and Systems Engineering Department, Universidad de Zaragoza. With research interests focused on patients with serious injuries and illnesses by using virtual rehabilitation techniques, in the area of Virtual Motor Rehabilitation and systems based on interaction for the recovery of mental disorders, he has organized workshop sessions regarding Virtual Rehabilitation Theories and Applications and has co-authored more than 40 papers around this topic (articles, conference papers and chapter books). Therefore, his research lines are: multimodal systems in patients with neurological disorders, gross and fine rehabilitation in patients with sensorimotor disorders, virtual rehabilitation: fall prevention in old people, and cognitive rehabilitation.
CEO Cyri Jones
CEO-Zen Maker Lab, Canada. In his own words: As far as I can remember, I have been drawn to entrepreneurship. While I was doing an undergraduate science degree at the University of Guelph, I got my first taste of a starting a new serious business, a leading environmental news scanning business run out of my dorm room and then later doing an MBA from UBC with a focus on technology entrepreneurship. A course at UBC with the legendary Haig Farris where business students were matched up with engineers was inspirational and sent me down the pathway of appreciating the benefits of cross-disciplinary teams and what it takes to start and grow a venture. From that one course came billions of dollars in local start-up valuations. Haig would show us the ropes and bring in guest speakers from industry each week with insights beyond any textbook. I was hooked (C. Jones, personal communication, 18 July 2019).
Eng. Fernando Alonso Gómez Carrillo
Systems Engineer from the Universidad Piloto de Colombia, Master in Direction and Management of Educational Institutions from the Universidad de la Sabana and Java Programmer certified by Sun Microsystems, with more than 19 years of experience. Moreover, for 11 years he has been Technology Director in the Tourism Sector (Carlson Wagonlit Travel), where he developed specialized software for the management and operation of this type of companies (ERP). Furthermore, he’s lecturer and author of articles on topics related to e-learning and virtual worlds applied to educational environments.
Artist Luis Astorquiza
Systems and Computing Engineer (Pontificia. Universidad Javeriana Cali), PhD Candidate in Design and Creation (Universidad de Caldas), and Director of the DaVinci Program for Transdisciplinary Research and Development in Digital Creation (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali), he has exhibited his works in Colombia, México, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, South Korea. Invited by ACC (Asia Culture Center of South Korea), Medialab Prado (Spain), Technological Institute of Monterey (México), University of Sao Paulo and University of Vitoria (Brazil), Tres de Febrero University (Argentina), among others; he’s the guest digital artist for Edutainment 2019 and leads the global initiative ACADEMIALAB promulgated in Medialab Prado, that seeks to bring the academic world closer to the digital experimentation spaces in Labs.
Wikipedia (2020, par. 1), defines edutainment or educational entertainment as “media designed to educate through entertainment,” and states that the interest to do this has been present for hundreds of years. One example is the Poor Richard’s Almanack which demonstrated early implementation of edutainment; here, Benjamin Franklin combined entertaining and educational content into and instructional booklet of rules of conduct for colonists using puzzles. In this way, Figure 1 shows edutainment as part of a continuum: “the continuum and overlaps between the world of development and entertainment; multiple sectors lie in between, such as SBCC (Social and Behavior Change Communications), C4D (Communication for Development), Entertainment-Education and Social Impact Entertainment” (Deml, 2018, par. 1), with applications range from TV (e.g. Sesame Street) to games, theme parks (e.g. Epcot Centre) and museums.
Figure 1.
Impact-Entertainment continuum
Source: (Deml, 2018).
Today, technology has pervaded all fields of human knowledge and activity, and edutainment is not an exception. Fields such as virtual and augmented reality, gamification, serious games, graphics, imaging, game rendering, animation, computer vision and e-learning are now considered important in education. Therefore, edutainment was born keeping in mind the need of collaborative research and practice required by innovative educational entertaining applications; it is important to learn to what extent technology and entertainment are useful for learning. That is why Edutainment 2019, the 13th International Conference on E-Learning and Games, was a place where researchers from all over the world and particularly from Latin America, exchanged experiences in the emerging field which combines education and entertainment. As previous versions which took place in China, Canada, Germany, Australia, UK, Edutainment 2019 covered all aspects of pedagogical principles, designs, and technological issues for education, research, and entertainment.
Professor Zhigeng Pan
Founder, Chair of Steering Committee of Edutainment Conferences
References
Wikipedia (16 June 2020). Educational entertainment. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_entertainment
Deml, T. (19 April 2018). File:Development-Entertainment Continuum.png. Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Development-Entertainment_Continuum.png
While planning Edutainment 2019 and CoTH, the organizing committee were aware of the importance of making Cali the world centre of serious games and health technologies for a few days. The event reunited around 100 participants