Jessica Trybus, Founder and CEO of Etcetera Edutainment, has won an Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Pennsylvania-Ohio-New York region from Ernst & Young, and she may be considered for a National Award later this year.
Congrats Jess!
Trino Team has published their postmortem at GameCareerGuide. Congratulations!
For more: http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/752/postmortem_cmu_etcs_.php
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a nice article on ETC Press and Well Played 1.0, it's latest book of essay analyzing video games.
For more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09158/975139-44.stm
Games for Change Announces Winner of the First Knight News Game Awards
Annual festival to honor the most innovative games addresing critical social issues
Knight Foundation Press Release
http://www.knightfoundation.org/news/press_room/knight_press_releases/de...
"Play the News," (www.playthenewsgame.com) which uses "interactive news" mini games to change news consumption from passive reading to active engagement, has won the first Knight News Game Award. Presented by Games for Change, the award honors the best of this exciting new genre: games which are journalistic and strengthen people’s ability to make decisions in a democracy. "Play the News" was developed by ImpactGames, an ETC spin-off company.
The winner and finalists were honored at the Games for Change Expo Thursday in New York City, at an awards ceremony sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The Knight News Game Award submissions aimed to meet certain core journalistic criteria: in their role as investigative reporting tools, they needed to expose an unknown logic or new information, uncover a truth, or provide editorial or commentary on a current event or issue. These games, like others highlighted at the Games for Change Festival, address some of the most pressing issues of our day, from poverty to human rights, global conflict to climate change. The finalists are:
The Budget Maze: Players in Gotham Gazette’s web-based “Budget Maze” navigate a dreary dungeon. At various rooms, the player must find the zombie who holds the answers to a question about the city or state budget process in order to move forward.
Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City: Global Kids Youth Leaders and game developers from Gamepill created a Web-based game, “Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City” to recognize local heroes that emerged during the disaster. The game educated players on the essentials of disaster readiness and of reporters.
September 12th – A Toy World: Highly controversial at its launch in 2003, “September 12th” describes the post 9-11 world. Created by a team of Uruguayan game developers lead by a former CNN journalist, this game critically examined the US-led War on Terror.
“It's exciting to see news games emerge in their own right as powerful platforms where traditional storytelling and interactivity collide,” said Jessica Goldfin, Knight Foundation’s Journalism Program associate. “We know that games are good at communicating information, engaging with new ideas and issues, spurring meaningful action and teaching digital literacy. Knight Foundation wants to encourage games that teach the values of free expression and promote informed, engaged communities. We are thrilled to be part of this growing field."
Called “an early Sundance of video games” for “socially-conscious game-designers” the Games for Change Festival brings together leading non-profit organizations, educators and game developers to explore the increasing real-world impact of digital games as an agent for positive social change. The Festival is a showcase for some of the most innovative new games in development and the international nexus of this new movement. The three-day event will offer panels, interactive sessions, keynotes, networking opportunities and special programming to key audiences.
For more information about the festival, or for an opportunity to play all of the Knight News Game Award submissions, visit GamesforChange.org.
http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/09148/973412-28.stm
Thursday, May 28, 2009
By Ed Blazina and Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh will host the world's major economic powers at a G20 Summit in
September.
The White House made the announcement at a press briefing in Washington,
D.C. this afternoon. The summit will be held on Sept. 24 and 25.
Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said the U.S. agreed to host the next
summit during the London meeting earlier in the spring. Pittsburgh is "a
good place" to hold the summit because of its recovery from the decline of
the steel industry in the 1980s, he said.
At the Pittsburgh Summit, President Barack Obama will meet with leaders
representing 85 percent of the world's economy to take stock of progress
made since the most recent summits and discuss further actions to assure a
sound and sustainable recovery from the global economic and financial
crisis, officials said.
"With leaders already scheduled to be in the United States in September to
attend the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama offered to host
the Summit and leaders of the G20 welcomed the invitation," a White House
statement said. "Pittsburgh has demonstrated a commitment to employing new
and green technology to further economic recovery and development. The
summit will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Downtown
Pittsburgh, an exemplar of that commitment. The facility is proud to have a
LEED Gold Certification from the U.S Green Building Council for leadership
in energy and environmental design."
"This is a tremendous opportunity for Pittsburgh," said city Chief of Staff
Yarone Zober. "This is a chance for us to showcase our city, and our region,
for the world."
He said that Mr. Obama, perhaps joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, would
be among the world leaders in attendance, "as well as hundreds of
dignitaries, world leaders from around the globe, and thousands of
journalists from around the world."
Mr. Zober said the decision to hold the summit here was based on repeated
contact between White House staff, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and his staff, and
Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato and his staff.
Among the selling points: "Pittsburgh has really been a model for an
economic turnaround," he said, noting the smokestacks-to-knowledge
transformation of the regional economy and the development of
environmentally friendly "green" job sectors.
It doesn't hurt, he said, that "President Obama is a big Pittsburgh fan in
so many ways, and we're glad of it."
He acknowledged that preparing the city to host the world's leaders would be
a big job.
"We're going to be ready to welcome the world to Pittsburgh in September,"
he said. "We're going to make sure that this city shines. .
. . This is potentially one of the largest things to happen in Pittsburgh."
The short-term economic impact to hotels, restaurants and other Downtown
businesses is significant, he said. So may be the long-term impacts of
introducing so many top leaders and international journalists to the city,
hopefully including its neighborhoods, he said.
The city's public safety departments have already begun coordinating
security planning with the Secret Service, he said, but details are not yet
worked out.
Mr. Onorato said hosting the summit is a sign of the area's economic
stability and environmental innovations. Pittsbrugh's convention center is
the largest LEED-certified convention center in the world.
"I want to thank President Obama for giving us this remarkable opportunity
to showcase our accomplishments and transformation on a world stage," he
said.
The G20 includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France,
Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South
Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the
European Union (along with the European Central Bank).
The most recent summit occurred in April in London, Mr. Obama's first major
international conference.
Previous conferences have spawned demonstrations that have sometimes become
violent in the host cities. Pittsburgh had a peaceful protest in April
during the London conference when marchers went from Market Square to the
Federal Building on Liberty Avenue.
