‘Why do simulation and games drive the digital transformation of cities and regions?’, 3-4 p.m., 10 July 2021, Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyala

Professor Hidehiko KANEGAE, PhD, was the 24th speaker in our webinar series under the 52nd Annual Conference of International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA2021). He is?Faculty of Policy Science, Institute of Disaster Mitigation of Urban Cultural Heritage, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He has been ISAGA-EB member (2017-2021), ISAGA-President (2015-2016), and JASAG President (2017-2021). One of his major successes was the planner training gaming simulation for regional sustainable development and planning, an exercise Program published in INTEGRATED GLOBAL MODELS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, Vol. II, UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems.

A city realizes the dreams that rest deep as residents’ desires within the brains. It offers comfort to the residents by matching its inherent geotechnical properties to their personal identities of place attachment and dependence. Its buildings, monuments, landscapes and houses are its tangible features, while its intangible features are composed of its culture, events and feelings like sounds and smells. The modern city has been transforming since the machine era through the systems era to the digital era of a complex society that is now driven by AT, IoT, smart city offerings and the gamified society.

A city is the largest and most powerful learning device built by humans. It is a psychological collection and movement of brains. A city faces many tight constraints in the beginning but develops multiple functions as it grows. Major cities were formed after the industrial revolution and were based on factories. A city is a package of information and a collection of images. It is a emergence of a unique urban culture and image. Planning is mankind's most powerful and optimal life phenomenon and is responsible for the creation of cities.

A large city begins with migration in a rural setting, and then experiences pubic health problems like pollution. Dr Kanegae’s perspective was that the digital transformation of cities and regions is driven by the mechanisms and phenomena of simulations and gaming.?The tight connection between real physical space and digital cyber space requires dynamic behaviors and activities driven by the rules and regulations of a simulated or gamified society.

Questions including topics such as digital literacy from Weronika, Elyssebeth, Balraj Chauhan and K Bhatnagar. ISAGA members present were Dr Toshiko, Dr Elyssebeth, and Jega. From SVVV, Dr Tushar Mandal, Dr KN Guruprasad and Er. Gaurav Shrivastava were present. Dr Ramesh Sharma, who had spoken on second life and avatars in one of our previous webinar speakers, was also present. We missed the presence of Dr Upinder Dhar, the conference chairman, Dr Jigyasu Dubey, the conference coordinator and other faculty from SVVV due to their commitments, elsewhere.

ISAGA2021 will be organised at SVVV, Indore, India from 6-10 September 2021 as an online event. We invite the S&G community to contribute to the conference. Papers will be published by Springer. Contributions are also invited in the form of workshops and posters.

ISAGA2021 webinar series is a great success due to the vigorous participation of SVVV faculty, S&G professionals and researchers, and teachers from diverse disciplines. This webinar was compered by Mrs Rupali Bhartiya in the absence of Dr Dubey.