Second ‘Games for Health UK Conference’ coming to Coventry

Global experts in the ground-breaking field of serious games and virtual reality, used to improve health and wellbeing, are amongst the speakers at the Games for Health UK Conference, in Coventry University this July.

The University’s renowned serious games research team in the School of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics is partnering with the US-based Games for Health Program to host the one day conference on 21^st July.  

Professor of Serious Games and Chair of the Conference, Pamela Kato, outlined some of the highlights: 

We are really pleased to welcome our keynote speakers. Jamie King, co-founder of Rockstar Games and owner of Jamie Inc of New York, will talk about how great commercial games are created and the implications for making great serious games, especially in healthcare.

“Howard Rose, CEO of DeepStream Virtual Reality and one of the creators of SnowWorld, a classic serious virtual reality (VR) game for pain relief during burn wound care, will be speaking about his perspective on VR  in healthcare.” 

The event will feature many leading names from the games industry, healthcare and academia.  Other notable speakers at the conference include: 

• Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge, who has developed and researched neuroscience-based games
• Ernest Adams, founder of the International Game Developers Association and author of one of the best selling textbooks on game design
• Andy Yeoman, founder of Focus Games which makes digital and non-digital board games used by patients and staff in the NHS
• Jakob Rossner, digital designer and developer of a malaria game at University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Medicine
• Ronald Dyer, Lecturer at the University of Liverpool Management School and holder of strategic ICT roles on Wall Street
• Richard Brady, owner of researchactive.com, app developer and speciality registrar in general surgery in the NHS
• Lucia Pannese, Owner and CEO of imaginary s.r.l which has a focus on digital interactive technologies in health.

The serious games research group at Coventry will itself be showcasing work on the PEGASO and PERGAMON projects, which combine serious games with sensor technologies to improve the health of young people.

Pamela M. Kato, professor of Serious games and Conference Chair.