Father of video games Nolan Bushnell to keynote GamesBeat 2011

Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and father of the modern video game industry, will be the keynote speaker at VentureBeat’s GamesBeat 2011 conference at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on July 12 and 13.

Bushnell will give a talk about the continuum of games through history and where they are headed next as we transition into a world of many new platforms such as tablets and smartphones.

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Bushnell founded the original Atari Inc. with Ted Dabney in 1972, launching a revolution in home and arcade video games. He sold the company in 1977 to Warner Communications and left in 1978. During that time, Bushnell was always a colorful figure.

He has been named to the Video Game Hall of Fame, the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, and was named one of Newsweek’s “50 Men who changed America.”

He went on to found Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theater restaurants and a total of 20 other startups. He is co-founder and chief game designer of Anti-Aging Games, which is working on games that stimulate the brain. He also operates uWink.

Bushnell rejoined the board of Atari a year ago. He’s one of the most active entrepreneurs in the history of games and technology, and we’re excited to hear him speak.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To enter the Who’s Got Game? contest for the best game startup, click here.