Raising SGI’s Profile in South Korea and China

Mervyn Levin, SGI’s Asia Representative, Reports

I attended two events in June on behalf of the Serious Games Institute – one in South Korea and two in China (Nanjing and Beijing), and also made a side trip to Shanghai.

Some of the highlights follow:

1. Euro South Korea ICT Forum on 16-18 June

A total of 280 delegates attended this 2-day conference in Seoul, among them 60 Europeans from 13 European countries, representing industry, the academic world and institutions.

Highlights included:

The EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, expressed a strong desire in the keynote address to see more ICT collaboration between South Korea and the EU and that dialogue and events over the next months should be transformed into concrete projects. This was echoed by the speakers from South Korea.

This sentiment was echoed by the speakers from South Korea.

• The December 2008 call for EU Framework Programme FP7 is likely to offer promising prospects for joint research projects involving South Korea and the EU.
• My presentation to the On-Line Contents/Gaming session on ‘New Routes to Market for Games Companies and the Role of Policy Makers’ was well received.

Mervyn Levin (left) with co-chairs Roger Torrenti of Orionis and Prof. Dr. Jung – hyun Han of IITA

An interesting Korean Serious Games project was presented by T3 Entertainment on anti-bullying, a subject of obvious relevance to the UK. The title was "Online 'Star Stone' Development for Improvement of Personal Relations".

South Korean University research was also presented demonstrating evidence of the relationship between on-line games and the development of leadership skills in the workplace, entitled ‘Can a game leader increase leadership through online game playing?’ This focused on how online games put the future of business leadership on display through, for example, managing the anonymous and the complex, meeting multiple people, situations and learning to work together with opportunities for trial and error, speedy decision making and risk taking.

Following the Forum, I joined the group to visit South Korea’s impressive Science City, Daejeon, to explore research links with leading Korean research institutes: Institute for Information Technology Advancement IITA, KAIST and Electronic Telecommunications Research Institute ETRI.



I made several useful contacts with South Korean organisations and also contacts of wider interest to SGI than Korea, including:

• Roger Torrenti with whom SGI has an existing relationship, and who is developing Science and Technology cooperation between Europe and Southeast Asia on ICT.
• Malte Behrmann, General Secretary of the European Games Developer Federation

SGI’s South Korea Partners

I had meetings with our partners following on from the visit by David Wortley and myself in March:

i) National Science Museum (NSM)

• The UK Korea Science Museum Forum is scheduled to take place in London in autumn. SGI is likely to be invited to present. They have accepted our invitation also to visit SGI.
• A Games Room is under construction at NSM. Facilities will be ready in 2 months time. They need concrete ideas on software to apply games to exploit facilities that deliver more engaging visitor experiences.
• NSM gave strong endorsement to SGI’s idea to run the Cultural Heritage and Technology Workshop in Korea during the first half of '09. The Korea Science Museum Federation (69 member museums) would likely partially fund. I am pursuing potential funding opportunities from the UK. They shared with me the output of a recent conference on Cultural Heritage and 3D Technologies.

ii) Korea Games Industry Agency (KOGIA)

• They affirmed the desire to take forward the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and outline practical steps, including SGI delivering a presentation at G-Star, the country’s flagship games event, in November.
• I understand from KOGIA representatives who attended the meeting between Commissioner Reding and the South Korean Minister for Knowledge Economy during the Euro South Korea IT Forum, that Serious Games is being suggested as a key area for future collaboration.

iii) Korea Games Society (KGS)

Many solid actions to build upon the MoU with the academic games community in South Korea were discussed, including.

Joint Research Project

We discussed the goal of having a joint project. The Korean side proposes a game about stopping smoking- a societal challenge common to our two countries and of course beyond. They have secured USD 200,000 from Seoul City. KGS would welcome support from SGI, specifically access to a test bed for research and testing the effectiveness of the game. Currently, this is planned as an on-line game and can be extended to other platforms. The game will also need frequent updating. A future project might be to address challenges around the ageing society.

Visit to UK

A KGS representative plans to visit the UK to attend the Virtual Worlds Conference on 11-12 September.

Academic Conference Committee for March '09 SGI Event

KGS representatives agree to join.
Joint Courses/Modules on Serious Games between Korea Universities and Coventry University (SGI)

KGS agrees that this is a fruitful area to explore possibilities.

Korea/SGI Co-Hosting International Conference on Serious Games in Korea in '09

An industry/academic international games conference to be held in May '09 in Cheonan could be a suitable opportunity for such an event.

Leverage funding from UK and Korea

We discussed the opportunities to seek funding now that we have a MoU in place. I am pursuing funding opportunities from the UK side. The three main sources of funding within Korea are:

• From Government through the National Science Foundation (NSF), this for personal research which is highly competitive
• Industry funding specific research work
• Through 'Brain Korea' for group research work

UK Trade Mission

I floated the idea of a trade mission from the UK. This could perhaps be linked into an Asian conference next year.
SGI Papers for Korea Games Journal

KGS invited SGI to contribute to the Korean Quarterly Journal on Games by submitting between 1-3 papers.


Other Useful Intelligence Gathered


i) OECD

An OECD event on the Future of the Internet Economy took place, also during the same week in Seoul. I understand that a global conference on Virtual Worlds in 2009 is under discussion.

ii) BERR

My contacts at BERR mentioned that a Virtual Worlds conference is planned for Hyderabad in November.

iii) UK Embassy Seoul

I had a useful meeting with the UK Embassy to explore the prospects for funding of joint initiatives with South Korea on Serious Games/Virtual Worlds. They invited me to submit a proposal.

iv) European Innovative Games Award - EIGA
The SGI network may be interested in competing for a Euro 35,000 reward organised by Hessian Ministry of Economics, Transport, Urban and Regional Development, in conjunction with the European Commission. The closing date is 31 July. More details at this link www.innovative-games.eu

v) e-Learning Expo Korea 2008 in Seoul on 9-11 September
UK Trade and Investment is keen to support British companies at this international event.


2. 3rd International Conference on e-Learning and Games (Edutainment 08) on 25 – 27 June

The conference was held in the historical and delightful city of Nanjing.

Nanjing Normal University hosted the event attended by over 100 people, mainly academics, split about 50/50 between China and other countries. This is one of the top universities in China for educational research and the relationship to games.



International Journal of Computer Games Technology

Call for papers on Special Issue on Game Technology and Education.

Manuscript: 1st September, 2008
Publication: 1st March, 2009

Guest Editors are from Netherlands and China.

The link is:
http://mts.hindawi.com

Transactions on Edutainment (ToE) published by Springer an International Journal on e-Learning, Game, VR-based Education
Launched at Edutainment08 with 22 contributions.

Next edition planned for end of year. Deadline for submissions: 1st September 2008

The link is:
Link for submissions

Editors in Chief are from China, Singapore, Germany.

Dr Sara de Freitas is on the Editorial Board.
e-mail:
edutainment@njnu.edu.cn

Conference: Virtual Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry - Singapore 8/9 December 2008.

Paper Submission by 25 July 2008.
http://2008.vrcai.org

More information is at:
http://www.siggraph.org/publications/instructions

The International Journal of Virtual Reality is at this link:
http://www.ijvr.org/

The 2009 Edutainment Conference is scheduled to take place in Canada.

I made several useful contacts for the planned visits by David Wortley and Sara de Freitas to Asia later this year.

There were 185 research paper submissions, of which 50% were accepted.

The conference confronted the challenge of combining e-learning and games. There is a recognition that entertainment and education are now coming closer together and face formidable challenges around combining pedagogy, effective story telling and technology.

New and emerging e-learning technologies were explored, e.g. virtual environments and content sharing, intelligent agents, human robotics, wearable computing, artificial vision, mixed reality, and advances in understanding of human emotion and gesture.
One of the more interesting keynotes was the Asian approach to computing for ‘bringing delight and social bonding’.

This links closely to the concept of ‘cuteness’ which has a long tradition in Asia - kawaii in Japanese. This is widely accepted as an important criterion for design of interfaces that produce positive emotions, motivation and engagement that increases happiness. Academics are focusing on defining kawaii scientifically.

Two international journals and a conference were promoted, which may be of interest to the SGI research network:

International Journal of Computer Games Technology

Call for papers on Special Issue on Game Technology and Education.
Manuscript: 1st September, 2008
Publication: 1st March, 2009

Guest Editors are from Netherlands and China.

The link is:
http://mts.hindawi.com


The 2009 Edutainment Conference is scheduled to take place in Canada.

I made several useful contacts for the planned visits by David Wortley and Sara de Freitas to Asia later this year.


3. Real Business in Virtual Entertainment – Beijing on 30th June

This early evening event was co-hosted by the British and European Chambers of Commerce in Beijing attended by 40 people.
I was invited to examine the opportunities for the games, animation and multimedia industry to diversify markets and catalyse new value chains by developing and deploying Serious Games and Immersive Environments to meet both commercial and societal challenges.

Dr. Hart, the Regulatory Expert from the EU China Information Society Project in Beijing, addressed the regulatory implications of these new virtual environments and how successful regulation could enable the accelerated development of this promising new media.

We both received highly positive feedback.



Duncan Clark, Chairman of BDA, with Mervyn Levin and Dr Thomas Hart

Other Meetings in China

Shanghai Information Services Association - Digital Interactive Entertainment Committee
They reckon serious games for education could be a good event to target in 2009 in Shanghai given the Chinese emphasis on educational attainment coupled with good prospects for Government and private sector funding.

UK Embassy (Shanghai)
I briefed the UK Embassy on our requirements for organising a visit by David Wortley and Sara de Freitas to China in November.

HiPiHi (Beijing)
www.hipihi.com

This is a China based Virtual World platform with 60,000 residents (15% overseas) with exciting plans for the future and a strong desire to develop links with SGI.

All in all, this was a very productive visit to build upon SGI’s strong relationships in South Korea and to start opening doors in China.

Mervyn Levin, Asia Representative, Serious Games Institute
July 2008.

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