Game Jams - History, Technology, and Organisation

Dr. Allan Fowler is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor in the USA) at the University of Auckland. Before returning to New Zealand he was a tenured Associate Professor in Game Design and Software Engineering in the USA. While in the USA, he taught at Columbia University in New York, the University of California (Santa Cruz), and California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). He is originally from New Zealand and grew up in the Manawatu-Whanganui region. Allan was among the early game jam adopters and trailblazers in New Zealand, Australia and China. He has major game development experience as an academic and game industry professional. Allan has been involved in organising game jams since 2009, and has been involved in many game jams throughout the world. Allan has presented at Game Developers Conference San Francisco, DragonCon, and many academic conferences. He served as general chair for the Foundations of Digital Games conference, 2021. Foaad Khosmood is Forbes Professor of Computer Engineering at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), and Research Director at the Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy IATPP. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from University of California Santa Cruz. His research interests include natural language processing (NLP), games, AI, data science and game jams. Foaad is a co-founder and past president of Global Game Jam (GGJ). Foaad has presented at Game Developers Conference San Francisco, IndieCade, DragonCon, and many academic conferences. He served as general chair for the Foundations of Digital Games conference, 2019. At Cal poly he teaches courses on NLP, data science, games and interactive entertainment, and he advises the Cal Poly Game Development student club.
Both Allan Fowler and Foaad Khosmood created the International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons and Game Creation Events, to date the only dedicated academicvenue for game jam scholarship from all disciplines.