Angela Frank heads the Cultural and Creative Industries Unit of MFG Baden-Württemberg. MFG supports creative people in the state with funding programs, competitions and networking events. With the initiative "Creatables" it wants to bring the creative people together with founders* and companies of other industries with the aim of creating sustainable innovations. In particular, the use of creative techniques and motivating game mechanics can drive digitization and sustainable development. Baden-Württemberg has a diverse developer scene in the field of games, UX, AR and VR. In addition, there are excellent educational institutions, especially in the media sector, with graduates* who are settling in the state and are to be networked even more closely with companies through the Creatables initiative. MFG is the organizer of the Creatables conferences and also initiates workshops and network meetings in this area.
"Creatables - Games, UX & Co is for us a catalyst for sustainable development and innovation in the country".
Sven Schmidt is one of the initiators of the creatables initiative and has been involved in the production, marketing and distribution of digital media with a special focus on games for 20 years. In his career he has been successful as producer and marketing manager in companies such as WEB.DE, Electronic Arts, Gameforge and Crytek and since 2014 he has been advising clients from the fields of eCommerce and games as a freelance consultant. In consulting, he pursues a holistic approach in which the different elements and disciplines in a company work together.
As a coach, he accompanies people who find themselves exposed to a fundamental dissatisfaction or disorientation in their job. His clients learn to show all their talents, skills, know-how and the issues they are passionate about and thus achieve fulfillment in their professional lives.
"For me, cross-innovation is the key to achieving Agenda 2030, and I am convinced that we will master future challenges in the context of the 17 SDGs as a community, as a team across different industries and disciplines. This gave rise to the idea of Creatables. Imagine what can be achieved when start-ups, game developers, SMEs, universities and creative industries with such great potential for innovation in the context of sustainability think together!"
Prof. Dr. Steffen P. Walz is Director of Innovation at diconium, a Volkswagen subsidiary. He is also Adjunct Professor for Game Design at the Australian Swinburne University of Technology, teaches on the topic of "Playful Innovation" at the Executive School of Management, Technology and Law (ES-HSG) at the University of St.Gallen (CH) and for several years headed the Games & Experimental Entertainment Laboratory (GEElab) he founded at Melbourne's RMIT University, which also operated as GEElab Europe in Karlsruhe.
For more than twenty years, Dr. Steffen Walz has been exploring the potential of digital (serious) games, gamification and persuasive technologies for sustainability, digital strategy and business model development and, applied in full, to achieve goals such as learning, motivating, inspiring, communicating and behavioral intervention through interactive entertainment.
With partners such as Volkswagen, Audi / holoride, Daimler, Novartis Pharma, Bosch Rexroth, Deloitte Center For The Edge, United Nations Population Fund, Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg, Film Victoria, the City of Melbourne and others. Steffen has thus spurred entrepreneurial invention; sustainably activated inactive patients; made boring car rides more entertaining; recruited digital talents transmedially; trained intelligent industrial robots with the help of machine learning games; transformed classic guided tours of a UNESCO World Heritage Site into interactive adventures; and generated a number of patents and accompanied company start-ups.
Dr. Steffen Walz is co-founder and curator of the annual gamification congress bizplay in Karlsruhe, Germany; author and editor of books (including The Gameful World at MIT Press); and creator of FutureDeck®, a card game for the entertaining, strategic, collaborative invention of unorthodox, sustainable ideas from the digital future. Teams and game projects led by him have recently won the Red Dot Award: Communication Design, the German Design Award, the German Human Resources Award and the Automotive Brand Contest, among others. He is one of the initiators of the MFG initiative creatables.de, which aims to bring together creative industries and non-entertainment companies in order to create sustainable added value together.
"I am creatable, because for me personally and professionally there is no more important topic than the question of how we can achieve sustainability goals - and in my opinion creatively and digitally achieve this.
Sebastian grew up in the dark forests of Upper Franconia, Germany. Since his childhood he has been passionately interested in drawing, mechanisms, robots and unique fictional characters. He enjoys cozy bars, hearty food, time with his wife & son and forest work. Sebastian studied illustration and animation at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany, and graduated with distinction in visual communication (illustration and comic). He is co-founder and member of the award winning Indie Game Studio Black Pants Studio, where he works as Art Director / Illustrator and Managing Director. Before Sebastian pursued his passion for illustration and games, he worked as a geriatric nurse, cable installer, ran a youth club/bar called Tabula Rasa, co-founded the Woodland Festival and ANJS Skateboards.
Sebastian currently works as a professor for Game Art and teaches at the University of Applied Sciences Europe in Berlin. He is a member of the IF (Institute for Design-Based Research).