Mobile Gamification

Announcing the next meetup for Mobile Monday Grand Rapids: Mobile Gamification.

On Monday, January 16th, MoMoGR will host its free quarterly meeting at GVSU's Loosemore Auditorium in downtown Grand Rapids. The event will focus on "mobile gamification," which includes everything from game development to the use of game-like elements in non-game applications. Doors will open at 5:30 PM for pre-event networking, and the event will begin promptly at 6:00 PM.

We are proud to announce that this event will be sponsored by Motorola Mobility, and will feature a keynote presentation from Venu Vasudevan, Senior Director, Betaworks, at Motorola Mobility. We are excited to have Venu on board and are looking forward to an engaging presentation!

West Michigan Gamification Overview

Prior to our keynote address, there will be several short presentations that will profile how gamification is being used here in W. Michigan:

Shawn Crowley will present an overview of how Atomic Object uses Innovation Games in software development projects. Charlene Beckmann, Professor of Mathematics at GVSU, will present ParaboliX, an educational game for iPhone/iPod created at GVSU. ParaboliX was designed to encourage middle school students to explore quadratic functions and their properties. Alex Restrepo, a graduate student in GVSU's School of Computing, will present "Pocket PT" a suite of accessorized therapeutic iOS games being designed to help patients recover from traumatic brain injuries.

Keynote Presentation - Social TV : Fun & Games for Profit

Venu Vasudevan, Senior Director, Betaworks, Motorola Mobility

Over the past few years, TV has transitioned from a device experience (the TV on your wall) to a portable content experience (TV on any screen). More recently, multi-screen TV has evolved to 'dual screen TV' - whereby the rapidly proliferating 'second screens' in the living room (tablets|smartphones) are used simultaneously and symbiotically with 'big glass' TV to create composite TV experiences that were hard to conceive of even 3-4 years ago.

With the emergence of a second screen, the quest for a TV audience has gone online - as TV content creators both worry about the divided attention of a TV user and the opportunity to engage a TV viewer more deeply in the program in ways not previously possible. In theory and if done right, second screen story telling can be additive to the big screen story, and add a third social dimension to the TV experience. Both games for TV and gamified TV offer promising tools for keeping users engaged with TV content in new ways, rewarding the story teller with new tools to tell stories, and the audience with an enhanced and participative viewing experience. This talk will cover some experiences and perspectives on where mobile devices, games and gamification intersect with TV - and its potential impact both to TV as an experience and a business.

About MoMoGR:

Mobile Monday Grand Rapids is a group of local Developers, Marketers, and IT professionals passionate about mobile technology and its ever increasing ubiquity.