GWN Fall Congress

Saturday, 3 October at the Impact Hub in Amsterdam, we welcomed five speakers and a room full of attendees to our second Gamification World Netherlands Congress. The talks ranged from behavior change through gamification to the gamification in entrepreneurship.



We began shortly after 10:45, and Adam Lobel from Radboud University was the first to take the stage. He shared his insights from both his studies and work regarding the psychological benefits of gaming, and how these can be utilized when designing games for mental health. His presentation included clips from Mindlight, a full-fledged biofeedback game he helped develop, which encourages children to face their fears and manage the feelings of anxiety these evoke.



Following Adam, was Jordin van Deyl of Next Level Gamification. Because he is experienced in both gamification and entrepreneurship, he was able to share the benefits of gamifying business. Jordin shared his experience with designing a gamified platform aimed at battling youth unemployment, and highlighted one of his new projects, which focuses on helping startups in setting up their business through a gamified system. Even though he took no claim to being an expert in a room of experts, he was certainly knowledgeable on his topic.



Christine Fountain with Neocles.io began her presentation with a… game! The audience was asked to write down the key words and/or phrases that they associate with play, and then deliver the answers to her in the form of paper planes. With these answers as a starting point, Christine discussed the major aspects she sees defining games and gamification. Her talk also included a glimpse into an app she had been working on and was designed to bring romantic partners together and communicate their feelings (the app was inspired by research presented in the book Hold me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson).



Melion van Abs took the stage after lunch and shared his experience of working on gamification projects for contact business centers. Using his work experience as a starting point, Melion engaged the audience in open discussion about the use of gamification internally in businesses and organizations. He showcased examples of his work with companies such as Knab and Webhelp to talked about how you can use gamification practices in engaging employees and helping companies meet their goals of increasing efficiency.



Closing the talks for the day, Egbert Boertien stood up to talk about children, education and gamification. After the recent success of his collaboration in the Game Jam at the UPRISE Festival, he brought a series of photos to showcase how a group of kids worked together with industry experts to develop their own game. Egbert also represented pi-Dock, a school concept about using play in learning and creating a more dynamic learning environment.



The event was, as expected, a success. We had a great time and appreciated the support of the audience and the speakers who took time out of their weekend to participate in our event. Thank you to the speakers, the attendees, Van Ness Cupcake for the tasty cupcakes, Cora for the delicious sandwiches, and Lazy Shutter for his amazing photos!

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