Heidi Boisvert

Co-Founder at Xth, futurePerfect lab

My experience and deep interests:

• Culture

• Entrepreneurship

• Gamification

I am based in: New York

I was referred to THNK by Emer Beamer.

I am a new media artist, game designer, creative technologist, experimental filmmaker, and writer, based in New York. I founded and serve as the CEO and Creative Director of the futurePerfect lab, a boutique creative agency that works with non-profits, cultural and educational institutions to develop imaginative and playful applications of integrated media and emerging technology. I was formerly the Multi-Media Director at Breakthrough, a global human rights organization, where I designed, developed and virally-propagated a wide range of new media and pop culture campaigns that helped raise awareness and instigate policy change on pressing social issues.

I created the first 3D social change game, ICED I Can End Deportation, to shift the frame around unfair U.S. immigration policies. ICED was downloaded by over 250,000 players in 166 countries, and earned tremendous media attention (23 newspapers, 134 blogs, 295 radio broadcasts, 68 television broadcasts, and 76 internet news & search engines).

I also designed America 2049, a groundbreaking alternative reality game on Facebook about pluralism, featuring Harold Perrineau (LOST), Victor Garber (ALIAS), Cherry Jones (24), Anthony Rapp (RENT) and the comedian Margaret Cho; and has been featured in Kotaku, TIME, Wired, Salon, Fast Company, Washington Post, and Huffington Post, to name a few, and nominated for a Games for Change Award and Katerva Award.

Prior to joining Breakthrough, I taught Digital Media & Media Studies at Hunter College, and launched a free digital media program for low-income youth through Time Warner & NOAA funding. Most recently, I co-founded XTH, an open-source creative biotechnology start up. I was named a Harvestworks Creativity + Technology = Enterprise Fellow with support by the Rockefeller Foundation, and have been an artist-in-residence at Banff New Media Institute, the Waag Society and the Vermont Studio Center; as well as serving as a new media mentor for both the National Latino Producer''s Academy and BAVC Producer''s Institute. I received my Ph.D. in the Electronic Arts program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. At the moment, I am a Media Impact Fellow at the Harmony Institute.