Day 22: Tech Savvy Women as Keynotes at FETC 2015

I was very excited to see the names of two very tech-savvy women on the list of keynote speakers at the Florida Educational Technology Conference.  From FETC webpage
http://fetc.org/events/educational-technology-conference/information/keynotes.aspx

Opening Keynote: Learning is an Epic Win

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 • 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM

JANE MCGONIGAL

Director of Game Research and Development, Institute for the Future
@avantgame | janemcgonigal.com | TED Talk

Jane McGonigal, PhD, is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games who believes game designers are on a humanitarian mission. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, and is the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped nearly half a million players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury.

She has created and deployed award-winning games, sports and secret missions in more than 30 countries on six continents, specializing in games that challenge players to tackle real-world problems, such as poverty, hunger and climate change, through planetary-scale collaboration. Her best-known work includes EVOKE, Superstruct, World Without Oil, Cruel 2 B Kind, Find the Future, and The Lost Ring, which have been featured in The New York Times, Wired and The Economist; and on MTV, CNN and NPR.

As Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future, a non-profit research group in Palo Alto, CA, her research focuses on how games are transforming the way we lead our real lives, and how they can be used to increase our resilience and well-being. She is also the founder of Gameful, “a secret headquarters for world-changing game developers.

She has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in performance studies, and has consulted and developed internal game workshops for more than a dozen Fortune 500 and Global 500 Companies, including Intel, Nike, Disney, McDonald's, Accenture, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Before joining IFTF, she taught game design and game theory at UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute.

She enjoys speaking to global audiences, and has appeared at TED and the New Yorker Conference, and keynoted SXSW interactive, the Game Developers Conference, the Idea Festival, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Web 2.0 Summit, UX Week, Webstock. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Games for Change, and for the annual Serious Games Summit at the Game Developers Conference.

A former New Yorker, she now lives in San Francisco with her husband Kiyash and Shetland Sheepdog Meche.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 22 • 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM

A typical education takes twelve years to achieve. A dozen years from now, students graduating from high school will have had exposure to 3D printing all throughout their education. What will this mean for the development and use of the technology, and what will the world be like when all college students have grown up with 3D printing?

JENNIFER LAWTON

CEO, Makerbot
@jennylawton  | Keynote video

Jennifer Lawton has been with MakerBot since 2011 and has been responsible for the overall strategy and growth of the company, including strategic partnerships, product development, and retail. In addition to her work with MakerBot, she is a respected company builder, technologist and advocate for fostering entrepreneurship.

In 1991, Lawton co-founded Net Daemons Associates (NDA), an information technology consulting firm. With Lawton as CEO, NDA was recognized on the 1998 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held U.S. companies, and on the Deloitte and Touche Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists for 1997 and 1998. In 1999, Net Daemons was acquired by Interliant Inc. (formerly Sage Networks), where Lawton served as a senior vice president. She later worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence with Softbank and Mobius Venture Capital.

In 2001, Lawton left the corporate world to become the owner of the independent bookstores Just Books and Just Books, Too, as well as Arcadia Café in Old Greenwich, CT. After 10 years running successful retail ventures, Jenny re-entered the business scene, serving as COO for Rockin' Water and RAM Scientific, and SVP Operations for Mercury Solar Systems.