Games for Good
Announcing Clark University's Games for Good 2025
We are pleased to announce the first Games for Good Conference at Clark University!
Join us for this two-day event focused on "Game for Good," advancements in serious games, and how games and game technologies can be a powerful collaboration point across a countless array of fields. Our conference brings together industry experts, thought leaders, and practitioners in the area of serious games to share their insights and strategies, designed for positive social impact and change.
Keynote & Plenary Speakers
Susan Rivers, PhD, is a social psychologist, learning experience designer, and social-emotional learning expert. For over two decades, Susan has been co-designing responsive and immersive environments and experiences with and for adolescents to support their learning, relationships, social and emotional skill building, and wellbeing. With her team at iThrive Games and the History Co:Lab, she partners with government agencies and nonprofit organizations like FEMA, XQ Institute, and One Love Foundation to design innovative learning experiences to support learning, relationships, and wellbeing, including the award-winning iThrive Sim, a digital role-playing game platform for civics learning and social-emotional skill building. She is currently working on the book, Game-Based Strategies to Ignite Teen Learning and Promote Well-Being, to be published by ASCD. Susan served on the teaching faculty at Skidmore College and the research faculty in Yale's Department of Psychology, where she co-founded the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Her work has been funded by foundations and federal agencies, including William T. Grant Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Novo Foundation, Air Force Research Laboratories, and Department of Homeland Security. Susan is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Games, Self, and Society, and the author of numerous scholarly publications and curricula. She is the proud mom of three teens and lives just outside of Boston, MA.
Stanley Pierre-Louis is the President & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the voice and advocate for the U.S. video game industry. With more than two decades of entertainment and media experience, Stan leads ESA’s efforts to showcase the dynamic impact the video game industry has on business, entertainment, and culture. Stan’s experience spans the film, television and music industries, as well as service on corporate and nonprofit boards. Stan received his undergraduate degree from Clark University and his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. He currently serves on the board of Games for Change and the National Symphony Orchestra.
Sponsors
We are grateful to our sponsors who made this conference possible.
Areas of focus this year include:
Accessibility and Inclusivity for gamers
Human/Computer Interaction
Games and game technologies as tools of positive change and social justice
Games as powerful learning tools
Interdisciplinarity of the game design field
The humanities, art, and storytelling in games
A sampling of speakers and panelists joining us to offer talks, panels, posters, workshops, and demos:
FableVision Games
providing award-winning, game-based learning resources created with our premier educational partners. All games are research-based with additional support to get you off to a strong start in your classroom.
The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise
Envisioning a world where all adolescents and young adults are supported in developing the social and emotional skills they need to be successful in school and in life.
Red Rabbit Games and Slimeware
Game incubators, academic pipelines, and re-shaping industry practices. Demo of the latest title, "Unsent!"
Yutong Mei Kaili Yan
“You Stepped on a Seed!”: An AR-Powered Eco-Education System Integrating Pop-Up Book Design — A Design-Based Study Grounded in Embodied Cognition and Game-based Learning
Derek Hoffend
Exploring the therapeutic potentials of interactive multi-sensory artwork with examples from my personal portfolio.
Atia Newman and Alissa De Wit-Paul
Decolonizing preservation: the Digital Interactive Preservation game
Weinan Zhao Hang Yuan
From Play to Prototype: Game-Based Learning as a Pathway to Creative and Empathic Education
Yutong Mei
Misunderstanding as a Tool: A Hybrid Game for Theory of Mind Reasoning for Autistic Children
BSDT Panel
The Game Studio: the pipeline from partnerships to global community
Interdisciplinary Panel
Leveraging games and gaming technology in grant writing with an interdisciplinary focus
Panel (Yu-Han Wang, Svitlana Ustychenko, Paul Cotnoir, Minka Stoyanova, Ulm)
Global Collaborations: National Taichung University of Science and Technology (Taiwan), Cherkasy State Business College (Ukraine), Clark University
Location
Clark University - CMACD
7 Hawthorne Street
Worcester, MA
United States, 01610
Dates
Registration period:
January 1, 2025 - 1:21 PM EST - November 20, 2025 - 2:00 PM EST
Contact us
If you have any questions, please contact ddesrochers@clarku.edu
