Location: Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL

Company: VisionLab/PUC-Rio

Short bio:

Luis holds a Doctorate degree in Informatics from PUC-Rio, a top university in Brazil. He's a member of VisionLab/PUC-Rio.

Luis is into mobile entertainment - researching cool things as games and new ways for people to have fun with mobile devices since 2007. Driven by his curiosity, he has developed innovative mobile games that use gestures for game control and mobile games for visually-impaired people. Those works are among the pioneer ones in their kinds. One of them (The Audio Flashlight) was awarded as "best work" at the main Brazilian symposium on human computer interaction in 2008 (IHC '08).

As a researcher, Luis has published articles in relevant international conferences and journals, as SBGAMES, SIBGRAPI, ACM Computers in Entertainment, and the Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society. He's also a member of the editorial board in the International Journal of Computer Games Technology.

In the mobile industry, Luis has been recognized internationally by being selected as a Nokia Developer Champion six times (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012), being awarded several other times in this period. Particularly, he has won some Nokia contests, as:

• Python Code Camp, Rio de Janeiro, 2008.
• Flash Lite Code Camp, São Paulo, 2008.
• Four Day Kick off Summer Contest Winner (Forum Nokia Wiki), 2007.

He collaborates with Nokia through the Nokia Developer Champion program and as a Nokia Developer Wiki administrator (since 2007), helping to decide the Wiki's direction and in its overall maintenance.

Luis also took part in organizing academic events, such as the SBGames (the main Brazilian conference on games) in 2009, which held around 1000 attendees.

Before joining the mobile world, Luis worked with computer graphics and software architectures for games. His work at UFF (Brazil) helped to start game development research at that university.

Expert in:
Games, Qt

Applications

Accelerinvaders, the first game for the N95 that used the accelerometer for input. It was released back on late 2007, and it was available at Nokia MOSH. The download count at the time was about 73000. A video of the game is available on YouTube.

Possibly, it was the first game for mobile phones to use accelerometer-based input.

Books and other publications

I have published several papers in academic conferences and journals over the years. The current list is here.

Speaking engagements

• Mobile Monday Rio de Janeiro debut, November 2009 (http://www.mobilemondayrio.com.br/blog/video-momo-rio-luis-valente-forum-nokia-907.html).
• Various Brazilian academic conferences (SBGames, IHC'08).

Honors and Awards

• Six-time Nokia Developer Champion: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012.
• Most valuable project member of the month - Nokia Developer Projects, August 2010
• Champion of the Month: January 2012, December 2008
• Python Code Camp, Rio de Janeiro, 2008.
• Flash Lite Code Camp, São Paulo, 2008.
• Four Day Kick off Summer Contest Winner (Forum Nokia Wiki), 2007.