Expert's Biographies for Creative Lab Concepting Mobile Multi-User Applications

November 26 2004 - December 02 2004, Oulu, Finland

Frank Boyd
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Frank Boyd is a specialist in creativity and innovation especially in the field of new media.
He has been Director of the European Multimedia Labs, a series of development workshops, since 1995. The Labs have supported some of the most talented new media creatives in Europe in devising new products for digital media.
He was Director of Creative Development for the BBCˆs Learning and Innovation Division for 5 years to January 2004 where he worked with for producers in television, radio and new media to create new ideas for TV, radio, broadband and interactive television.
Previously he set up the Arts Technology Centre, the first independent centre in the UK dedicated to creative applications of digital technology. Artec's programmes included production and research as well as vocational
training and educational projects.
He was a founder member of the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards and organiser of the UK's Digital Media Alliance (DMA). He has been a special adviser on new media to the UK governmentˆs Trade and Cultural ministries, the European Commission and the Council of Europe.
He is currently working for the Mayor of London on policies and programmes to encourage the growth of creative industries in the city.

Mathieu Castelli
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CEO and Founder, Newt games - For-Side Group
Applied Mathematics graduate, Mathieu Castelli started Newt Games on an idea that came to him when he was living in Tokyo. He considers himself half a manager/recruiter/planner/business developer. Newt Games is a company focusing on design and production of location-based game. Newt Games started in October 2001. The first game, Mogi, was delivered in April 2003 on KDDI - Japan. Mogi is in the first place a collecting game, then a creature hunting game; new features are added monthly.

Han Halewijn de Groot
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Since graduation he works as a freelance composer, oboist and has great interest in connections between
music and other forms of art. For this purpose he has collaborated with video, dance, music-theatre and
light-art (Bulat Galeyev). From 1989 till 1996 he works and teaches at the Computer and Electronic
Music studio (CEM) in Arnhem, Amsterdam. In addition to several European appearances as oboist and
lecturer in composition he was also active as a testing engineer/ass man director of AUGAN instruments
for user related problems with digital computer/audio equipment used by the film, video and musicindustry.
His last piece this year has been part of the Labyrinth of Possibilities - Breathing
in Breathing out an interactive rotating wall of 2 by 3 meter illustrating the effects of astma. In March
2004 he was selected for the Masterclass from Federico Fusi “Radio Arte Jump” organized by Almost
Real and Eurocult about narrowcasting ideas or using the air as a exhibition space.

Guido de Winter
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Guido de Winter is responsible for concept development and marketing for new multiplayer concepts at Ex Machina - a leading company in the area of mobile multiplayer technology. Projects he worked on include Razor, a realtime online racing game; Arkanoid Battle, a live multiplayer version of an arcade classic; mobile TV-Play-Along; Popkids, a location based dating game – as well as a number of titles currently in stealth mode. Partners for these projects include mobile games developers and publishers as well as mobile operators.

Volker Eloesser
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CEO and founder of Elocom Mobile Entertainment GmbH, Volker Eloesser has been in the game business for over seventeen years, releasing his first projects in 1987 while still attending school. In the same year, he co-founded his first company Escal Software GmbH, where he was responsible for the operational management of the company. In addition to ‘classic’ games development, he was one of the first individuals realizing the potential in the market for advertising games and educational software, developing a wide range that was distributed by Bertelsmann.
In 1996 he went on to found Elo Interactive GmbH, to refocus on the core interactive entertainment business. Elo Interactive was well known throughout Europe for its developments, conversions, localization services, and the development of customized tools. One of the most famous games Volker created was the implementation of the Artificial Life of “Creatures”, a life simulator where the player has to breed a population of virtual pets.
Volker also was a director on the supervisory board of Conspiracy Entertainment Corp., Santa Monica, U.S.A. (stock market symbol OTCBB:CPYE).
In 2003, Volker realized the strong potential of the mobile games market. Together with his wife Marianne he founded Elocom Mobile Entertainment GmbH.
Elocom soon became one of the leading mobile games development companies in Germany. Volker personally created successful games like “Moorhuhn Camera X”, “7 Zwerge” and “Attack of the Killer Virus”.
“Killer Virus” was the first augmented reality game for mobile phones and produced lots of attention in the public.

Herkko Hietanen
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Herkko Hietanen is a researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology and at Lappeenranta University of Technology where he teaches Information and Technology law. His research has concentrated on community created content and location based services. He is also leader of the Finnish Creative Commons and responsible for translating official Finnish Creative Commons licenses. Not too many people know of his dark background with digital media and computer science. For some reason he was hired to design and implement website of the research institute that houses 100+ software engineers. Herkko is also a partner in a law firm that takes pride in understanding its IT clients business. From the beginning of 2005 he is visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley.

Sonja Kangas
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Sonja Kangas worked as a prototype designer and a researcher since 1998 at the University of Lapland, Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) and as an independent consultant. She has been involved in several proto/game design actins: e.g. Lumetila (spatial & haptic, sensory floor) (2001), Mobile/online Pumpui 3D-virtual pet/game (2002), guidance game for newspaper delivers (CD ROM) (1999), participatory information rich game for (mobile) digital television (2002), pervasive adventure game played by groups of players (2004-), Currently creating cross media fun and entertainment for Football World Championships 2006 with Deutsche Welle, Satama Interactive and others (2004-)

Jani Korhonen
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Researcher and project manager at the Information Processing Laboratory, University of Oulu.

Petri Kotro
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Managing Director, Valkeus Interactive Ltd,
With a background in music, architecture, computer animation, VR and wearable technology, and experience as practitioner, teacher and researcher Petri Kotro co-founded Valkeus Interactive Ltd in 2001.
Valkeus employs 7-10 people, concentrating in “user experience design” meaning project work ranging from developing mobile game concepts to developing novel user interfaces for mobile applications or hear rate monitors. In Valkeus, Kotro is responsible of strategy, sales and financing, also participating in customer projects as senior concept designer and consultant.

Tapani Launonen
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With a background in theatre, dance, photography and journalism, he graduated from film school in 2000, developed the air guitar championship and worked in content development during the last five years (e-learning, internet, television, radio plays, music recordings and films). Currently Tapani Launonen is working at the Oulu Polytechnic and preparing a mobile marketing and advertising project for SME companies.

Ludvig Lohse
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With a background in TV and film editing Ludvig Lohse has been involved in new media research since 1999 through The National Film and TV School, Cambridge University Moving Image Studio, Interactive Institute Sweden, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and BT Exact, focusing on non-linear narrative and logical interface design, as well as the use of cinematic language in new media production.

Tony Manninen
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PhD, Assistant Professor, LudoCraft Game Design and Research Unit, Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu.
Tony Manninen is a computer games designer, researcher and teacher. His main areas of research include design, analysis and production of multiplayer games and virtual environments and their diverse applications. In his PhD research, "Rich Interaction Model for Game and Virtual Environment Design", he studied the issues related to interaction forms and their manifestations in multiplayer games and virtual environments. He has
designed several experimental games and has published game related papers in academic forums, as well as, game reviews and game related articles in popular media. He is the leader of LudoCraft Game Design and Research Unit which studies games and applies the theoretical knowledge into game design. The approach combines theoretical, technical and artistic expertise in serving both the academic and the practitioner communities.

Jouka Mattila
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Graphic Designer and Games Researcher
Fine arts graduate from Tampere School of Art and Communication Art, studies mainly in classical arts, performance and lightning design. After school various projects on 3D modelling and animation in TV industry a.o. for Media company Zansibar and Finnish Broadcaster TV 2. Since 1997 game research at Nokia Research Center – practicing art as a basis for inventions.

Panu Mustonen
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With a background in history and commercial sales Panu Mustonen joined the games studio Housemarque working on marketing and project development in 1997.
In 2000 he founded Springtoys. Since 2003 he is evangelist of Neogames, Centre Of Game Business, Research and Development and founder and CEO of the gaming industry consulting company Horizontal C.

Tommy Palm
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Tommy Palm founded Jadestone in 1999 and has been working as a game designer and a technical architect on massively multiplayer games. Palm has been awarded second price in a world wide competition for best mobile game with the game Word in War. He enjoys teaching in his spare time and has written for Gamasutra and spoken at the Game Developers Conference. He regularly holds lectures at The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden and has been since 1998. He is a true gamer and is skilled in both FPS and RTS. Better known as 4rch4ng31.

Christian Reimann
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Christian Reimann studied computer science with economics as a subsidiary subject at the University of Paderborn. From 1997 till 1999 he worked as a student assistant in the department of Design of Parallel Systems at the University of Paderborn. During this time he was involved in several research projects in the area of Rapid Prototyping and 3D-Graphics Systems. In 1999 he joined C-LAB, a cooperation between the University of Paderborn and Siemens, as a student assistant working for Siemens on a variety of commercial projects concerning 3D-Visualisation and Edutainment applications. After graduation in 2001 he changed within C-LAB to the University as a research associate. Until May 2004 he was working in the research project AR-PDA, developing an AR-system for mobile consumer devices. Since then he is a doctorate candidate working on his PhD about the design of mobile mixed reality systems. His main research interests are within the intersection of mobile computing, mixed/augmented reality, software engineering, computer vision and user interfaces. Since 2001 he is also teaching courses in “Realtime 3D-Graphics” and “Object-Oriented Programming” at the University of Applied Science Harz.

Henrik Riis
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With a background in Mechanical Engineering and having been project manager with companies like Bang & Olufsen and Ambu International, Henrik Riis founded 2003 watAgame - a company devoted to the development of mobile MMORPGs.

Jen Southern
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Jen Southern is an artist based in Huddersfield, UK. Her process based collaborative practice investigates everyday journeys between virtual and physical spaces, which are navigated through socially embedded technologies such as video games and mobile phones. Working collaboratively is integral to a practice that is embedded in social processes and a relationship to local environment. Jen lectures in Installation Art and Multimedia Design at the University of Huddersfield. Current reserach includes development of a Dynamic Multi-User GPS Drawing Tool for Participatory Exhibitions in collaboration with Jon Wetherall of Onteca, Liverpool (www.onteca.co.uk) and Canadian Artist Jen Hamilton. This research uses mobile phones and bluetooth gps devices for web based dynamic, multi-user, collaborative drawing. Jen is a member of Base, a Huddersfield based research group into mobile and locative media which includes technologists, producers, artists and academics.
Jen’s work has been exhibited internationally in public spaces, galleries and festivals including: The Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon; Yorkshire Sculpture Park; Magna, Rotherham; The Photographers Gallery, London; Digital Summer, Manchester, UK; Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria; Arte Alameda, Mexico City; NPC, Bulgaria; DEAF, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Tom Söderlund
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Tom Söderlund is a professional game designer and producer, and also the co-founder of the games studio It's Alive, which recently merged with Daydream.
Born with a creative itch, Tom created his first game at age eleven on his Commodore 64. Today, he's working to redefine the games industry, and is striving to become the world's greatest game designer.
He has an MSc in Business Administration from Stockholm School of Economics, and his background includes the broadcasting company MTG and founding the online art gallery bin·aire. He is also an amateur filmmaker and co-founder of the movie studio Dubbla Drakar.

Heidi Tikka
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Heidi Tikka is a media artist and a doctorate candidate at the Media Lab UIAH. Her work consists of interactive video installations and recently, a series of mobile service and imaging experiments.
In her research Heidi Tikka has inquired into affective technologies and media art, arguing for the social and cultural situatedness of an affective experience and its technological mediations. She is currently a doctorate candidate at the UIAH Media Lab, where she has also been teaching media art and media culture since 1997, of which 2001-2002 as the acting professor in multimedia and communication. In 2002 she was awarded a 3-year grant from the Arts Council of Finland for developing media art projects, which will constitute the practice based part of her dissertation.
Since 2003 she has worked on Tilanteita, developing and testing mms-concepts for situated social interactions. In 2003 the work resulted with the pilot Syntymiä, a collaboration with the Finnish mobile service provider and operator Radiolinja/Elisa and the software development company Grip Studios Interactive. Syntymiä linked two maternity wards in Helsinki with the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. In another participatory online experiment from 2003, Imaginary Journey, a mother performed an imagined journey through Europe with her son. The progression of the journey could be followed in http://imaginaryjourney.uiah.fi. In 2004, Situations4x mobile imaging experiment was completed in the context of ISEA Wireless Experience exhibition at Kiasma. In Situations4x three families constructed mms narratives for sharing their everyday lives. The work for Tilanteita resulted in Heidi Tikka being awarded the first AVEK audiovisual art award in Finland in 2004.
http://mlab.uiah.fi/~htikka