3rd Annual Microsoft Academic Days Conference on Game Development

  • Article

The 3rd Annual Microsoft Academic Days Conference on Game Development (GDCSE'08) - February 28-March 3, 2008 aboard the Celebrity Century Cruise Ship is expected to attract ~400 of the top research and teaching faculty in Computer Science, with an interest in gaming advances, from around the world.   The conference is held in cooperation with ACM SIGCSE and is co-sponsored by Microsoft Research and Electronic Arts.  

Microsoft Academic Days on Game Development in Computer Science Education (GDCSE'08) is an opportunity for university faculty to learn and interact with researchers and technology specialists nationwide who actively contributed to the development of several successful projects in the area of Game Development for Computer Science. The purpose of this conference is to share the experiences of faculty involved in the creation and management of Computer Science classes using game development with the wider audience of Computer Science faculty.

Topics will be explicitly related to the use of game development in Computer Science Education, including:

  • The design, execution and integration of game development classes in Computer Science major.
  • The use of game development projects in traditional Computer Science classes.
  • Game development courses as capstone projects.
  • Interdisciplinary collaboration with non-CS disciplines (both for students and for faculty).
  • Game development concentrations and majors.
  • Laboratory and infrastructure requirements for game development classes.
  • The effect of game development classes on the Computer Science student.

Agenda : The conference runs from 12:00 noon on Thursday, February 28, 2008 on the Celebrity Century cruise ship docked in the Port of Miami, and concludes on Monday, March 3, 2008.  Complete agenda can be viewed online at https://www.msadgd08.net/Agenda.aspx? (and is being updated continuously). The current list of confirmed GDCSE'08 general session & tech talk speakers includes:

  • Michael Zyda, USC GamePipe Laboratory, Los Angeles, CA (USA)
  • Ken Perlin, NYU Media Research Laboratory, New York, NY (USA)
  • Henry Kelly, President, Federation of American Scientists, https://www.fas.org/static/staffbios.jsp
  • John Nordlinger, Program Manager, MSR External Programs
  • John Cash,  Technical Director, Blizzard Entertainment
  • Steve Seabolt, VP, Global Brand Development, Electronic Arts
  • Colleen McCreary, Director of Corporate HR & Diversity, Electronic Arts
  • Matt Brown, Design Director, Sims Label, Electronic Arts
  • Andrew Brownsword, Electronic Arts, Senior Software Engineer - could be a tech talk.
  • August De los Reyes, Sr. User Experience Designer, Microsoft
  • Dennis Wixon, User Research Manager - Halo, Microsoft
  • Randy Pausch, CMU, Alice Project
  • Wanda Dann, CMU, Alice Project
  • Ben Sawyer, Serious Games