My trip to Boston for the CIMIT Innovation Congress was AWESOME! I had a really great time. We arrived at our hotel, right near Copley Square, rather late at night, only to discover how early our next morning was going to be. Alison and I shared a beautiful hotel room with an amazing view of the nighttime Boston glow. We woke up a few short hours later and the city looked just as it did when we arrived. 5am is so damn early, but we were all energetic and ready to start the day.
For all of my time spent in Boston, I have never been to or even noticed the Back Bay Events Center. What a gorgeous place! Far within the deep corners of the Events Center was our section called Power of Virtual Experience. There were other representatives demoing video games for health, and the congress as a whole put video games in a new light for me. I was demoing Maxis' Spore at the congress, and had a hard time finding a direct link to health and medicine like the other demos of Brain Voyage and Trauma Center had until I had one conference-goer bring some really interesting ideas to light. There was one woman in particular named Deborah D. Navedo who asked me questions about what sorts of physiological responses would come from a game like Spore. I had never thought of how our bodies react to more casual games; I always focused on how high stress games affect our physical responses. This got my mind walking down so many new paths that I look forward to exploring. I'm hoping to further experiment with sensory experiences in video games later on. I had a great time meeting new people and explaining the value of video games to their professional fields. I hope they learned as much from me as I did from them.
After the conclusion of the CIMIT congress, Kent Quirk from Linden Labs invited us to his Boston office for a tour and an interesting discussion about the game industry and Linden Labs' very own Second Life. Kent has a lot of faith in students, and his belief in us, like Ann's, brings up my morale and encourages me to continue forward in this field. Looking at his company space in Boston and talking about the industry in this particular city revamped by ideas about working in the Boston area upon graduation. I truly cannot wait.
The ride home was a fun time. Giggly from lack of sleep, we chatted all the way home, coming up with grand ideas of gypsie life and laughing at our own creativity. It started to snow somewhat heavily while reaching the middle of Vermont. There was a slight dusting on the ground, too, but Burlington shows no sign of snow. If the weather continues like this I do believe we will have a white Halloween this year.
Oh, wow. I don't even have my costume ready.
3 comments:
Awesome. I'm blown away by you and what you are doing Heather. You're at the center of a great convergence of personal talent, incredible leadership at EMC, and an oceanic sea change in modern culture. I can image the day when doctors prescribe video game play as a way to combat high blood pressure - "Mr Smith, I'm prescribing 10 hours a week of the 'Peace and Prosper' game by HGC and Associates." The game will adjust its level of intensity by reading the player's biometrics (heart rate, pupil dialation, etc) to journey the player into a state of deep, healing energy.
One can only hope, Dad. The possibilities for the merge of health and video games is growing.
Nice to have met you, and best wishes!
Deb Navedo
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