As serious games are becoming more widely acknowledged as a training, learning and marketing tool in the business world, Meeting Professionals International (MPI) and the MPI Foundation were looking to see how serious games can have an effect on the meetings industry. For this reason, MPI is working with students and professors from Champlain College to develop two serious gamelets focused on key meetings and events industry concepts.

Six Champlain game development students will work through the entire conceptual process, action steps and production while onsite at the Professional Education Conference North America in Houston from February 2 - 5. Conference goers will have the opportunity to provide feedback to the students in this Game Design Lab.

The students will interview the attendees and be advised on a technical level by the three Champlain professors and the director of Champlain's Emergent Media Center. By the close of the event, the students plan to have two completed gamelets that will be posted on the Internet with an open-source license so organizations around the world can consider using them in their companies or training programs free of charge.

These are the games that the students will work on in Houston:

Challenge One is to create a game that will help meeting planners and suppliers understand the issues and questions about "How we go green?" What does corporate social responsibility imply and require in the event management and meeting planning environment? Where does one start? What does it mean to go green including reducing the carbon footprint? How does one manage the process and costs? How does one find out what one doesn't know?

Challenge Two is to create a game targeted at meeting and event planners but also at their clients. The purpose is to offer solutions to the question "How can meetings and events help corporations to accomplish their objectives, move initiatives and accomplish change? What are strategies and processes to Meet Different?"

In October, Champlain College students created two gamelets at Elliott Masie's Learning 2007 conference in Orlando.