Gaming and Immersive Learning
 Juan Benito
Founder, Cooperative Entertainment
Juan Benito co-founded Red Storm Entertainment in 1996 and was Executive Producer for the original Rainbow Six. More recently, Juan founded the Raleigh studio of Atomic Games and has created a variety of games and applications at Virtus, Forterra Systems, Destineer Publishing, and Columbia University, where he received his undergraduate degree. He is currently working on a new venture to be formally announced next year.
 Richard Kristof
Co-Founder and CEO, American Research Institute
Mr. Kristof has over 16 years of professional training development experience and has served in several executive management positions. He provides strategic planning, oversees sales and marketing, including client relations for American Research Institute and PowerU. Mr. Kristof is an evangelist for advanced learning technologies including next generation corporate university infrastructure and serious gaming for adults. He co-founded the North Carolina Advanced Learning Technologies Association and currently serves on the board and as its Treasurer. He also co-founded the IDEAL Technologies foundation, a non-profit with the mission to develop talent to fuel the growth of the advanced learning technologies industry.
 Shaun McCabe
Production Director, Insomniac Games
Shaun McCabe is the Production Director at Insomniac Games' Durham studio. A six-year Insomniac veteran at the Burbank studio prior to moving to the Triangle, Shaun worked on Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet: Deadlocked and Resistance: Fall of Man as a sound programmer before becoming lead gameplay programmer for Resistance 2. Prior to joining Insomniac, Shaun was an engine programmer at Interplay Entertainment Corp.
 R. Michael Young
Director, Liquid Narrative Group
Department of Computer Science, NC State University
Michael is an associate professor of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. He founded and is co-director of the NCSU Digital Games Research Center and directs the Liquid Narrative research group. He received an NSF CAREER Award in 2000 and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Game Development from 2007 through 2008. He is an associate editor of the IEEE journal Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games and an editorial board member of the Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting.
 Phaedra Boinodiris (Moderator)
Gaming and Interactive Marketing Manager, IBM
Phaedra Boinodiris is a Serious Games Program Manager at IBM where she is helping craft IBM's serious games strategy in technical training, marketing, and leadership skill building. She is the founder of the award-winning INNOV8 program, a series of games that teaches and evangelizes Business Process Management. INNOV8 is being used in over 1000 schools worldwide and is now available for public consumption.
Prior to working at IBM, Boinodiris has been an entrepreneur for 10 years, starting two companies in custom application/social network development and videogame consulting. She co-founded WomenGamers.Com, a popular women's gaming portal on the Internet and started the first scholarship for women to attain degrees in game design and development in the US. She was honored by Women in Games International as one of the top 100 women in the games industry. |
