Jane McGonigal takes play seriously. She studies the power of games to impact the real-world -- and she creates games that do just that. A pioneer in the field of "alternate reality gaming", her previous projects include World Without Oil, Cruel 2 B Kind, and I Love Bees. She is an expert on applying game design and game theory to real work and real business, and has consulted and developed internal game workshops for leading technology companies in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., as well as more than a dozen Fortune Global 500 Companies. MIT Technology Review named her one of the top 35 innovators changing the world through technology, for her role in pioneering the field of alternate reality gaming, and Harvard Business Review called her theory of "alternate reality business" one of the "Top 20 Breakthrough Ideas of 2008." Her alternate reality games have received the Innovation Award from the International Game Developers Association, the Gaming Award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and Year in Review honors from The New York Times She has keynoted SXSW Interactive, the Game Developers Conference, ETech, the Web 2.0 Summit, and has a PhD from UC Berkeley in performance studies.