NYU-Poly Game Innovation Lab would like to present: "The Good Mobile Life - From Sweden to New York"
Abstract:
The Mobile Life VINN Excellence Center was formed in 2007, and has established itself as an internationally recognized research locus in the area of mobile services. The center is a joint venture between three research partners and nine industrial partners and with funding the Swedish governmental funding agency VINNOVA. The Mobile Life Center provides a view into our future life with digital technology; an enjoyment society where happiness, pleasure and play are adopted into all aspects of our lives. The unique strength of the Mobile Life Center lies in its combination of leading edge applied research and intense collaboration with industry. After five years, the Mobile Life Center has grown to be about 45 researchers, exploring experiential, leisure and playful mobile and ubiquitous interactions. The research is interdisciplinary, involving researchers from computer science, interaction design, sociology, psychology but also game designers, artists, dancers, and fashion experts. The Centre’s competitive edge lies in making serious research on what we might normally portray as “unserious” activities in collaboration with our industry partners Ericsson, Nokia, Microsoft Research, IKEA, ABB TeliaSonera, P, Movinto Fun and Stockholm City. We get inspired by doing studies on people's mundane leisure and creative activities such as horseback riding, hunting, parkour, dancing or role-playing. We use those insights to spur innovative design processes, resulting in mobile applications, sensor-based applications, pervasive games, Mobile Mash-Up services, new mobile media, technical platforms and materials to support amateurs' creativity.
Our two guest speakers are:
Annika Warren, a professor at Stockholm University, Center Director of the Mobile Life Center and one of the Game Innovation Lab's international collaboration partners is a ‘research by design’ academic with a background in computer science and Human-Computer Interaction, who has dedicated the latest ten years of her life to understanding games, and more specifically, pervasive games. These are games that are played in the physical world, often but not necessarily with the aid of mobile and ubiquitous technology. During 2004-2008, she acted as the coordinator of IPerG, Integrated Project on Pervasive Games, an EU-funded project with a total budget of 10 M Euro and nine partners spread around Europe. Together with colleagues from this project she co-authored the book Pervasive Games: Theory and design. Annika teaches regularly at Stockholm University, and acts as supervisor for bachelor, master, and PhD.D. students. Annika has industrial experience from working for Gamefederation AB 2000-2003. She is on the board of DIGRA, the Digital Games research association, has acted as editor for international journals, and frequently participates in program committees for scientific conferences.
Maria Holm, the administrative coordinator for the Mobile Life Center. She started in the center in August 2008. She has a background from the industry where she has worked in a number of SME’s as director of Finance and Administration. She has also been part of the establishment of a company together with her husband where she still holds the position as CFO. She has studied marketing strategy, strategic management, operations management, IT-management and business administration and she holds an MBA from Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK. She is part of the EIT ICT labs technology transfer program at SICS, that covers her interest for the innovation system and the processes of commercialization. She is also working part time as coordinator for SICS Center for Networked System, an Institute Excellence Center hosted by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science.
Light refreshments will be served - please come and join us if you are free!!!