Benjamin Noel

Executive Director, Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy
University of Central Florida

Ben Noel has earned degrees Bachelors of Science, Accounting (University of Florida, 1986) and Masters of Business Administration (Rollins College, 1990); and earned a CPA license (State of Florida, 1990). Ben has 22 years of industry experience in technology development in electro-magnetic compatibility and interactive software. Prior to UCF, he was General Manager and COO of Electronic Arts studios in Austin, Texas and Orlando, Florida developing such products as Ultima Online, the world’s first massively-multiplayer product and the blockbuster franchise, Madden NFL Football. Ben also founded 360Ed, Inc., an education software company winning the Serious Game of the Year and multiple CODiE awards. In 2005, Ben became the Executive Director of the Florida Entertainment Academy (FIEA) at UCF in partnership with the State of Florida, City of Orlando and industry. The M.S. in Interactive Entertainment graduate program has been ranked in the top 5 programs for the past 10 years with over $100 million of annual economic impact to Florida.

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Benjamin.

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FOCUS DAY: COMMERCIAL AVIATION | GAMING | GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE

Tuesday, September 24th, 2019

10:30 AM The Power of Augmented and Virtual Reality: Insight from Leading Academia on Gaming

Orlando’s University of Central Florida has become a hub and vital partner for the U.S. Army Synthetic Training Environment Cross Functional Team. Within the

university, the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy is integrating popular commercial technologies with simulation and education.

• How Universities are integrating current commercial gaming technologies with simulation and education

• Partnering with academia to faster deliver better training and technical solutions

• Exploring new gaming methods to produce more accurate requirements

2:30 PM Site Tour

As an Internationally recognized research institute the UCF IST is dedicated to advancing human centered modeling and simulation technology with an additional focus on training and education. Earlier this year the U.S. Army’s Synthetic Training Environment Cross Functional Team entered into a long standing partnership with UCF in order to collaborate on the development of state-of-the-art technology to bring together virtual and real-world environments to better prepare and protect soldiers.

Join IDGA on this unique tour of the Institute for Simulation and Training UCF to get a first hand glimpse into how the IST is working alongside and supporting the STE CFT and how the IST is training students and working on virtual systems and initiatives that correlate to the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment (STE) needs.