Digital media network to hold inaugural annual conference in Ottawa in June

The newly created Graphics, Animation and New Media (GRAND) Network will hold its inaugural annual conference in June in Ottawa, where one of the hot topics will be the use of digital media and gaming technology in fitness and cognitive programs for seniors. Dr. Abby Goodrum, GRAND’s director for social sciences and humanities research and a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, tells Tech Media Reports that she expects gaming programs for seniors—as one of the network’s research projects—to receive attention at the conference. Goodrum says another project is under way that will employ new media and gaming tools to help develop skills for visibility impaired, blind, or mobility challenged people. The GRAND network, a new federally funded Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE) based at the University of British Columbia, will be made up of 30 projects under the themes of new media; games and interactive simulation; animation, graphics and imaging; social, legal, economic and cultural perspectives; and enabling technologies and methodologies. GRAND has 50 “investigators”—typically university faculty members—who will collaborate with researchers and industry partners. Nineteen universities across Canada, from Victoria to Halifax, are part of the network. On Dec. 1, 2009, the federal government announced five-year funding of $4.65 million per year for the network. Speakers are not yet confirmed for the conference, to be held June 2-4 at the University of Ottawa. “It will be the first time that everyone gets together in one place,” says Dr. Kellog Booth, GRAND’s scientific director and a professor in UBC’s department of computer science. The network’s executive director is digital media veteran Dr. Gerri Sinclair, CEO of the Centre for Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus and past chair of the Telecom Policy Review Panel. Booth said about 80 per cent of the funding will directly support research, and that most of the money will flow to student projects. Booth says he expects the network to have an agreement in place by the end of March so that it can collect federal funding, but research for many of the network’s 30 projects is already under way. Booth adds that the network will have a significant number of researchers in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, Canada’s three main digital media clusters. Private and public sector partners will be located in each region. Researchers at the NeuroDevNet network, another NCE at UBC, are interested in partnering with GRAND Network researchers to look at how digital media and “biofeedback” game technology may be used to treat children with syndromes such as attention deficit disorder or autism, Booth says. “People have tied these things into video games, so that kids can play video games and get feedback through the game about their emotional state,” he says. “They’re able to learn to adapt their emotional state to what’s appropriate to interacting on a social situation.” Goodrum says she’s leading a project looking at today’s patterns of news consumption, such as when, how, and where people get their information, and how they evaluate the reliability of sources. Goodrum has another project about “what causes videos to go viral” on the Web through social networks, she says, and she expects to present some preliminary data from her projects at the conference in June.

Digital media network to hold inaugural annual conference in Ottawa in June

News | 01/14/2010 9:09 pm EST

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