** virtual worlds conference ** - Virtual Worlds Forum Europe

Our speakers include

Peter Edward
Peter Edward is Director of the Home Platform Group at Sony Computer Entertainment . Peter left a suspiciously lucrative pharmaceutical career to work in games. He joined SCE as a producer in 2000, with a softography that includes Dropship: United Peace Force (2002), SCEE's first online multiplayer game, Hardware: Online Arena (2003), The Getaway: Black Monday (2004), and Eight Days (in production). As Director of the Home platform, Peter has responsibility for the development of the Home end-user experience, for the global presence of both game and non-game brands inside the Home world, and for the coordination of the global activity within the platform. Peter no longer lives in London, but does not yet have a dog.

Thomas Bidaux
Thomas Bidaux – Director of Product Development (NCsoft Europe)
Widely recognised as one Europe’s leading figures in the development and execution of online games from his time at Wanadoo, Bidaux was a leading member of the team that launched highly successful Dark Age of Camelot franchise. His talents were employed by the fledgling NCsoft Europe in September 2004, as one of the original core members. Over two years later, the Brighton UK office has massively increased from the original four members to a staff of more than 120 peoples. Thomas’ role at NCsoft is to manage the product development teams as well as researching and acquiring new titles.

Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com ) is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to Wired, Popular Science, Make, the New York Times, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. Presently, he serves as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

His novels are published by Tor Books and simultaneously released on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their re-use and sharing, a move that increases his sales by enlisting his readers to help promote his work. He has won the Locus and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards.His latest novel is Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town and his latest short story collection is Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present.

He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc, Stikkit, Annenberg Center for the Study of Online Communities, SiteShuffle, and Onion Networks, Inc. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called him, "The William Gibson of his generation."
He was also named one of Forbes Magazine's 2007 Web Celebrities, and one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders for 2007.