Serious Play Conference to begin with keynote by Jesse Schell and Nolan Bushnell

This year's Serious Play Conference keynote address will be delivered by game designer and academic Jesse Schell along with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, the event's organizers announced today.

Schell (pictured above speaking at Games for Change 2013) will discuss mobile platforms and connectivity, and how they've helped spark significant growth in the fields of simulations and serious games. He is the CEO of developer Schell Games and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Bushnell will speak about new science about the brain and how it can be combined with video games to accelerate the learning process, which is the focus of his newest company, BrainRush. He founded Atari in 1972 and ran the company until 1978.

The Serious Play Conference is a leadership event designed to bring together developers of serious games and the people who might be interested in their applications, such as educators, government officials and businesspeople. This year's conference will take place Aug. 20-22 at the Redmond, Wash.-based DigiPen Institute of Technology.