GOVERNMENT

The Interactive Entertainment Institute, LLC (IEI) has chosen Orlando, Florida for the Institute's first G.A.M.E.S. Synergy Summit, on January 26-28, 2005, at the Renaissance Orlando Resort at Sea World. An acronym for Government, Academic, Military, Entertainment and Simulation, the G.A.M.E.S. Synergy Summit will bring together leaders from each of these convergent sectors to discover new ways that each discipline can address a broad range of non-entertainment applications using interactive game-based technologies. "Today, many diverse communities are hungry to create products which solve problems that until recently were considered too difficult to solve," said Doug Whatley, CEO of BreakAway Games Ltd., and member of the Summit's Advisory Board. "The military, government agencies, healthcare, major corporations, and academia are all now looking to create tools that can change the world. The convergence of the games community with these groups is making this possible" In addition to the sharing of best practices, trends and future needs through speakers, panel sessions and case studies, this international summit will engage participants in facilitated working sessions. Interdisciplinary groups will identify and address key issues, especially those that may advance or impede successful collaboration between the communities attending, and recommend future actions. "The most interesting things happen where disciplines intersect," said Judson French, Jr., Executive Producer of the Summit, and a founding partner of IEI, quoting the "mantra" he and his partners use to underscore the central theme of the Summit. "We are striving to provide not only access to knowledge and demonstrations of useful technologies and approaches that can be adapted by each sector, but also to help bridge the differences in terminology, culture and processes often occurring between different technical communities." Advisors both here and abroad have helped the Summit's organizers target topics of interest across the G.A.M.E.S. disciplines. "The guidance of our Advisory Board members will continue to be instrumental to our efforts," said Tom Buscaglia, the Summit's Executive Director, a game industry attorney, and another of the IEI founding partners. "Our working groups, forming before the Summit, will continue their work both at the Summit and afterwards." The G.A.M.E.S. Synergy Summit will also host pre-conference workshops, an exposition for game technology suppliers, numerous networking events and an academic and jobs fair. For additional information, as well as an expanded press release with comments from other sponsors and advisors, see http://www.synergysummit.com/ .