Virtual Worlds Forum Europe

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Monday, 01 October 2007

Joakim Achren
In 2005, Joakim Achrén founded Ironstar Helsinki to bring a 2D virtual world experience into mobile phones. MoiPal, the virtual world for Java handsets has now been launched. MoiPal's innovation is that your virtual world avatar can do things in the MoiPal world whilst you are not there. This has created a metaverse inside the mobile phone. The challenge has been to take into consideration all the handset limitations, but to be able to create new ways for social interaction in a world that runs 24/7. Joakim is a advisory board member of the IGDA Finland chapter and has been a member of IGDA himself since 2003. Please visit www.ironstarhelsinki.comand www.moipal.com.

Last Updated ( Monday, 01 October 2007 )

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Monday, 13 August 2007

Delé Atanda
Delé Atanda leads Diageo Plc's Global Digital Marketing activities, leading the development of initiatives within Diageo to develop 3D facilities enabling collaboration and teamwork for geographically dispersed teams. Delé Atanda began his digital marketing career as a Senior Producer with the UK's Central Office of Information, leading the delivery of award winning digital media projects for government departments including the Royal Air Force and Cabinet Office. He has also worked as Director of Projects at RCA Marketing Agency where his clients included Brandt, De Dietrich, eBay and Agilent, Senior Project manager for eMC Saatchi where he programme managed projects for the MG Rover Group, and as Director of PR and Marketing for Panoz Auto Development in the USA, the luxury vehicle manufacturing arm of the industry leading, Panoz Motorsport Group. Delé also helped establish the digital marketing agency, Ark Agent, and led expansion from its Atlanta base to include a New York office. He led the development of national digital and urban marketing initiatives for Pirelli Tires North America, Saleen Auto, McDonalds, General Motors, Mazda USA, BP Castrol and international activities for Saleen Auto, the American Le Mans Series, Formula Drift and others. Delé is a self professed cyber revolutionary and a passionate advocate of a new digital paradigm.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 August 2007 )

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Monday, 17 September 2007

Ed Bartlett
Ed Bartlett
VP Publisher Relations Europe and Co-Founder IGA Worldwide, Inc.
Ed Bartlett, Vice President Publisher Relations Europe and Co-Founder of IGA Worldwide is one of a new generation of multi-discipline industry visionaries, combining 14 years of videogame sector knowledge and experience with astute business acumen and proven advertising and media expertise.Having fulfilled senior creative and production roles on key game releases for publishers including Sega, Virgin Interactive, BMG Interactive, Acclaim and Hasbro Interactive, Bartlett went on to found dedicated in-game advertising agency Hive Partners ahead of the curve in 2003, with clients such as Red Bull.In 2005 Bartlett negotiated the acquisition of Hive Partners by IGA Worldwide before helping to raise its $17 million Series A VC round. He has since been responsible for building the foundations of its industry-leading proprietary Radial Network, securing landmark global deals with the likes of Electronic Arts, Valve, Atari and Codemasters.

Last Updated ( Monday, 17 September 2007 )

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Monday, 02 July 2007

Richard Bartle
Dr Richard Bartle co-wrote the first virtual world, MUD ("Multi-User Dungeon") in 1978, and has thus been at the forefront of the online games industry from its very inception. A former lecturer in Artificial Intelligence and current Visiting Professor in Computer Game Design (both at the University of Essex, U.K.), he is an influential writer on all aspects of virtual world design, development, and management. As an independent consultant, he has worked with most of the major online game companies in the U.K. and the U.S. over the past 20 years. His 2003 book, Designing Virtual Worlds, has already established itself as a foundation text for researchers and developers of virtual worlds alike.

Last Updated ( Friday, 13 July 2007 )

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Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Guy Bendov
Guy Bendov, co founder and CEO, Journeys Ltd
Guy Bendov has more then 16 years of experience as the founder, president and CEO of hi-tech companies in the interactive entertainment market. In his current position as co founder and CEO of Journeys, Guy is nurturing the creation of a new social, casual online game. Prior to Journeys, Guy co founded and lead the business activities of DoubleFusion, Cellular Magic and Click! Online as well as the Israeli game association, GameIS.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 16 October 2007 )

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Wednesday, 04 July 2007

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.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 August 2007 )

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Monday, 30 July 2007

Johann Brenner
Johan Brenner, General Partner, Balderton Capital Prior to joining Benchmark, Johan was the Founder and Chairman of TIME Vision, a privately owned Nordic-based investment company focusing on early stage communication and information technology companies. As an entrepreneur, investor and board member, Johan built a number of successful companies, including Jobline, E*Trade Nordic, DebiTech and Tradera. Before founding TIME Vision, Johan held various executive positions with the Kinnevik Group, including COO of Modern Times Group, Executive Vice President of the Kinnevik Group and President of 3C Communications in Luxembourg. Prior to the Kinnevik Group, Johan spent close to 10 years working for the ABB Group in various executive positions in the financial services and power generation industries. Johann bas boardÝseats onÝCas Services, Dropshop, Gourmondo, Igglo, Pageflakes, Rawflow, Rebtel, Sulake, Zopa Johann has anÝMBA from Stockholm School of Economics; Graduate education at The Stern School of Business at New York University and The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and Executive education at Stanford Business School.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 August 2007 )

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Monday, 17 September 2007

Corey Bridges
Corey Bridges, Multiverse
Co-Founder, Executive Producer and Marketing Director
Corey is helping build the world's leading network of Massively Multiplayer Online Games and 3D virtual worlds. Responsible for business development and strategic marketing, he brings experience from some of the most influential companies in the high-tech and entertainment industries to Multiverse, including Netflix, Netscape, Zone Labs, Borland and The Discovery Channel.

Last Updated ( Monday, 17 September 2007 )

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Tuesday, 03 July 2007

Justin Bovington
Justin Bovington, CEO of London based virtual world agency Rivers Run Red, has been instrumental in developing some of worlds major virtual launches: adidas, Reebok, Vodafone, Heineken, Sky News, ING Renault F1 and Penguin... to name a few. His company has been present in Second Life since January 2003, and in that time, they've helped develop and form the virtual world immersion market. He is one of the leading creative directors in the media and virtual creative sector.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 August 2007 )

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Wednesday, 04 July 2007

Betsy Book
Betsy Book, Director of Product Management, Makena Technologies
Betsy Book has participated in, managed, and developed a wide range of community focused products over the past decade, from text-based message boards and chat rooms to 3D virtual worlds.
Over the course of her career, Book developed co-branded web sites for iVillage, served as VP of Product Development at the ecommerce site Flooz.com, and managed large-scale moderation and reporting programs for entertainment industry clients such as AOL, MTV, The-N, Showtime, Country Music Television, and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
In 2003, Betsy launched Virtual Worlds Review, a web-based guide to social virtual worlds.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 August 2007 )

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Tuesday, 03 July 2007

Mark Boyd
Mark Boyd is Creative Director and Head of Content at advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, where he is responsible for developing new branded content opportunities for advertisers. Projects include branded TV programming, theatrical film releases, contract publishing, radio, mobile and gaming. Previously, Mark was Director of Content and Stream MSI/TBWA, having joined from Hutchison 3g (now 3) where he was Head of Young Adult Markets. Before this, Mark worked at Drum PHD on a number of advertiser funded projects in different media. He joined from Virgin Media, his first media role after a brief detour via the civil service. Mark has always worked to find new roles for brands beyond traditional advertising, working for all of the key stakeholders: agency, media owner and client side. Mark is also and founder and the Chairman of the Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA), bringing together people interested in branded content from film, music, TV, mobile and gaming industries.

Last Updated ( Monday, 09 July 2007 )

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Wednesday, 04 July 2007

Nic Brisbourne
Nic Brisbourne has over seven years experience in venture capital, working in London, Europe and Silicon Valley. His main areas of focus have been software and media. Prior to Esprit he was with Reuters Venture Capital.Nic has been involved in a number of investments including UltraDNS (acquired Neustar - NYSE NSR), Zeus Technology and Perfiliate (trading as Buy.at). He manages Esprit's investments in Buy.at, Zeus Technology, Axiom Systems, SRC, Cityspace and Tribold.Prior to joining Reuters Nic worked for Operis, a software and services start-up, and Cap Gemini.Nic also authors a blog commenting on the European technology and venture capital markets. Please see www.theequitykicker.com

Last Updated ( Monday, 09 July 2007 )

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Tuesday, 03 July 2007

Mike Butcher
Mike Butcher is a journalist and a new media expert. A former editor of New Media Age magazine, he has since written for newspapers (Guardian, FT), magazines and blogs including TechCrunch and PaidContent. In 2004 he was voted 'One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade' by GfK NOP.

Last Updated ( Monday, 09 July 2007 )

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Monday, 13 August 2007

Frank Campbell
Frank Campbell is Chief Business Officer at MindArk PE AB, Swedish creators of the Entropia Universe, the first virtual universe to utilize a Real Cash Economy. Frank's background in language studies allowed him to join MindArk and focus on external/internal communication, community management and collaboration with computer entertainment media. He has also been closely involved with online activities and development of the Entropia Universe. As virtual worlds reach beyond gamers and into corporate and public spheres, Frank is now focused on business development and the introduction of Entropia into new international markets and the presentation of the virtual universe to new strategic partners.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 14 August 2007 )

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Monday, 01 October 2007

Giff Constable
Giff Constable blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/giff currently leads The Electric Sheep Company's software business unit creating information services for the metaverse. In 2006, he served as ESC's VP of Business Development, working with Fortune 500 companies and major ad/PR agencies to help them conceptualize and implement projects within Second Life. He is a repeat entrepreneur in the software and Internet industry, and also spent time as an investment banker at Jeffries Broadview providing M&A and IPO advisory services to software and IT services companies. He blogs about virtual worlds at blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/giff

Last Updated ( Monday, 01 October 2007 )

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Monday, 10 September 2007

Stefano Crosta
Stefano Crosta is the technical leader for the Networked Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center. Technology Center acts as 'intrapreneurs' for the efforts of Cisco's Corporate Development organization, providing business rationale and market insight for determining future Cisco emerging technologies. The Technology Center is Cisco's corporate incubator chartered with identifying emerging markets and technologies and developing them into new revenue streams for the company.

Last Updated ( Monday, 10 September 2007 )

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Monday, 10 September 2007

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.

Last Updated ( Monday, 10 September 2007 )

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Monday, 13 August 2007

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.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 14 August 2007 )

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Tuesday, 16 October 2007

David Erixon
David Erixon is Director of Brand Strategy & Manifestation for Vodafone globally. Prior to taking up this role David was Marketing Director at Vodafone Sweden. David set up the new media company, Doberman. He is also is a founder of Hyper Island, the pioneering digital media school based in Karlskrona, Sweden

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 16 October 2007 )

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Wednesday, 01 August 2007

Robert Gehorsam
Robert Gehorsam is President at Forterra Systems Inc and has more than 20 years of management experience in the online games and entertainment world. In recent years, he has applied that experience to leveraging commercial game technology for national security applications, and has participated in several government studies on this subject. Before joining Forterra Systems he served as SVP, Programming and Production at Viacom's CBS Internet Group, where he was responsible for content, creative, production and operations for CBS.com, CBSnews.com among others. Prior to this, he was SVP for Programming and Production at Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). In addition to business planning for SOE, he was directly responsible for all operations, product acquisition and development, and technology for The This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , one of the world's most popular game destinations on the Internet. He oversaw the creation of a robust, highly scalable game platform that supports millions of customers of dozens of online games including, Everquest, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! Online. From 1985-1992 Gehorsam founded and led Prodigy's games and educational divisions, launching the first large-scale subscription- based sports simulations and nearly two dozen other online titles. He held management positions at Scholastic Inc. and consulted to Microsoft, AOL, CNET, Ziff-Davis and Children's Television Workshop. Earlier in his career he was an editor at Simon & Schuster, where he helped found its Electronic Publishing Division and published some of the first consumer applications for Macintosh.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 August 2007 )

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Wednesday, 15 August 2007

Mark William Hansen
Mark Hansen over the past eight years worked at LEGO creating new business strategy and play concepts based on consumer generated products and content, He is the original architect of LEGO Factory and project lead in the development of the LEGO Universe platform for the 21st century of play.

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Tuesday, 03 July 2007

Paul Hemp
Paul Hemp is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, where he edits and writes articles on a variety of topics. He is the author of “My Week as a Room Service Waiter at the Ritz” (HBR June 2002), “Presenteeism: At Work – But Out of It” (HBR October 2004), “Avatar-Based Marketing” (HBR June 2006), and “Are You Ready for E-tailing 2.0?” (HBR October 2006). He has appeared as a commentator on CNN, CNBC, and the BBC and as a panelist at such conferences as the Yale CEO Leadership Summit and the SXSW Interactive Festival. Previously, Mr. Hemp was the director of publications at Mercer Management Consulting in Boston, a writer and editor at The Boston Globe,and a reporter at The Wall Street Journal in London and Brussels. He is a graduate of Whitman College and Harvard Law School.

Last Updated ( Monday, 09 July 2007 )

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Monday, 13 August 2007

Ian Hughes
Ian Hughes (epredator potato in Second Life) is an IBM Consulting IT Specialist who has worked on leading edge emerging technologies for the past 17 years, a programmer since he was 14. As a gamer he has seen a massive increase in the capability and design ethics within games and the rise of online gaming. At IBM he has seen and been part of the Web 2.0 revolution has a top rated blog inside IBM and jointly writes http://www.eightbar.com outside. As a digital native his epredator persona spans many places, blogs, Eve Online, Xbox Live, Twitter, Flickr etc.. He is now officially an IBM Metaverse Evangelist having led in band of colleagues into Second Life for the past 17 months with a view to understanding what the social, business and technical implications are of virtual world technology used with a web 2.0 mentality and user generated content.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 14 August 2007 )

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Monday, 13 August 2007

Michael Hulme
Michael Hulme is Professor and Associate Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Lancaster University. Michael is Director of the Centre for the Study of Media, Technology and Culture, a social insight consultancy specialising in understanding Consumer Behaviour and Culture in the context of, Media and Technology. He is currently engaged in a series of research projects examining behaviour in Virtual Worlds and Social Networks. He advises many leading International Broadcasters, Content Creators, Technology Companies and Mobile and Fixed Service Providers at Board and Senior Levels.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 14 August 2007 )

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Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Marc Goodchild
Marc Goodchild
After winning a Bafta for Walking With Beasts interactive, he set up the BBC’s nascent iTV unit, became the first true 360 exec on projects like How To Sleep Better and the Climate Change Experiment and continues to play a key role in the Knowledge Building initiatives outlined in the BBC's Creative Futures work.
At the beginning of April, Marc joined the BBC's Children's department to head up Interactive and On-demand production and continues to play an active role forging links across the factual community for audiences young and old.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 16 October 2007 )

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Monday, 13 August 2007

Paul Jackson
Paul Jackson is Principal Analyst at Forrester, and primarily contributes to Forrester's offerings for the Strategy professional and is a frequent contributor to the eBusiness, Channel, & Product Management professional. As one of Forrester's leading analysts on consumer technology adoption and usage, his research and client engagements focus on how companies can build strategies to bring new consumer technology to market or successfully exploit new technology and services developed by other firms. During his seven years at Forrester, Paul has driven both short-term immediate research needs, using Forrester's Consumer TechnographicsÆ data, and long-term strategic research around big ideas like the digital home, the tipping point online, and the evolution of the home PC.His current research agenda includes topics like home networking, virtual worlds, videogaming, and device convergence as well as general technology adoption and usage trends in Europe.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 14 August 2007 )