Catharina Bohler

CEO and Co-Founder of Sarepta Studio

Catharina Bohler is the CEO and co-founder of the award-winning indie company Sarepta Studio. She has been working in the games industry for 8 years, primarily within the fields of management and game design. Sarepta’s goal is to create emotionally impactful games. In 2018 they released ‚My Child Lebensborn‘, a narrative-driven parent simulator telling the true stories about Children Born of War. In addition to her leadership role at Sarepta Studio, she is Chairman of the board of Norway’s first game developer collective: Hamar Game Collective.

Rob Bridgett

Senior Audio Director at Eidos Montréal

Rob Bridgett is a senior audio director based in Montreal, Canada. In 1993 he attended Derby University to study cinema and media, after which he was one of the first to graduate from the ‘Sound Design for the Moving Image’ Master’s degree programme at Bournemouth University in 1999. Since then, Rob has worked as sound designer, audio director, mixer and music director at a variety of studios across Europe and Canada. Since 2015 he’s been Audio Director at Eidos Montreal responsible for the sound, music and Dolby Atmos mix of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Throughout his career he’s also written extensively about videogame sound practice, publishing two books, and innumerable articles.

Jason Della Rocca

Co-Founder of Execution Labs, game industry entrepreneur, funding advisor, and cluster expert

Jason Della Rocca is a game industry entrepreneur, funding advisor, and cluster expert. He specializes in business/partnership development, pitching/funding, and ecosystem/cluster development. As the co-founder of Executions Labs, he was a hands-on early stage investor to over 20 independent game studios from North America and Europe. Between 2000-09 he served as the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), and was honored for his industry building efforts with the inaugural Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Conference. In 2009, Jason was named to Game Developer Magazine’s “Power50,” a list which profiles 50 of the most important contributors to the state of the game industry. As a sought after expert on the game industry, Jason has lectured at conferences and universities worldwide.

Fabien Demeulenaere

Studio manager at Game Atelier

Joined the video game industry in 2005, working as a Lead Artist for Vivendi Games and Konami before co-creating Game Atelier with David Bellanco in 2009. Their objective is to develop quality games for everyone, that includes adventure, excitement and solid technology.

Philipp Döschl

Co-Founder / Executive Producer at FDG Entertainment

Philipp co-founded FDG Entertainment back in 2001 at the age of 19. Having graduated in Sound Engineering and studied Japanese, Philipp can look back onto a video gaming background of more than 30 years, starting playing games at only 4 years old, witnessing the evolution and growth of the video gaming industry from the big crash in 1983 to nowadays first hand. After a long journey in Mobile Games, his childhood dream of making console games was fulfilled with the release of Oceanhorn on PS4 and Xbox One in September 2016 and Switch in June 2017.
The release of the critically acclaimed 'Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom', which was co-developed with Game Atelier, marks a big milestone for the whole company. It's the first continuation of the legendary Wonder Boy / Monster World series after 24 years, which he and Thomas Kern, two of the co-founders, played together in their early childhood days.

Since the start of FDG Entertainment, he worked on more than 50 games in various positions, from level designer to sound effect artist to producer, and many more.

Noah Falstein

Co-Designer & Programmer on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, Games Industry Legend

Noah Falstein has been a professional game developer since 1980, and was one of the first ten employees at LucasArts Entertainment, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He has run a design consultancy since 1996 (with a 4-year hiatus as Chief Game Designer for Google) and now focuses primarily on games for health. He began as a programmer, went on to work as a designer, producer, and writer, and has re-invented his career several times in the intervening decades. Some highlights of his work include co-designing the arcade game Sinistar, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and contributing to Serious Games such as ReMission and Neuroracer. He was a design contributor to other notable games including The Secret of Monkey Island (1 and 2), Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, and Alan Wake. Falstein was the first elected Chairman of the IGDA, design columnist for Game Developer magazine for 6 years and has presented at over 200 conferences.

Christian Fonnesbech

Head of IP Development at Nordisk Film

Christian Fonnesbech is an independent consultant specialised in IP & Brand development for games. He advises Nordisk Film Games on Story & Franchise development and works directly with a number of independent game developers, game schools and conferences. Before this, Christian produced and directed 35+ game projects for advertising, learning and entertainment.

David Fox

Co-Designer & Programmer on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, Games Industry Legend

David Fox co-founded Marin Computer Center, the world’s first public-access microcomputer center in 1977. He co-authored the books Computer Animation Primer, Armchair BASIC, and Pascal Primer, and then in 1982 became a founding member of Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts. During his 10 years at Lucasfilm, he was a game designer, project leader, and/or programmer for 'Rescue on Fractalus!', 'Labyrinth', 'Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders', and 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure'. He was also the primary SCUMM scriptor on 'Maniac Mansion', and experience designer for the location-based entertainment (LBE) project, 'Mirage'. David most recently completed work on 'Thimbleweed Park', a Kickstarter-funded graphics adventure with ex-LucasArts members Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, where he was a game scriptor/programmer, game designer, sound designer, and writer. He currently heads up Electric Eggplant, creating mobile and AR/VR/MR games with a strong interest in LBVR.

Javi Giménez

CEO of WildFrame Media

Javier Giménez is CEO of WildFrame Media. After starting a couple of companies in the enterprise software industry, he decided, to pursue his lifelong passion about videogames, founding WildFrame Media 6 years ago. WildFrame started as a humble external development studio which under the brand Digital Sun transitioned into the studio behind the indie hit of 2018: Moonlighter.

Mylène Lourdel

Freelance Communication & Marketing consultant

Mylène has been evolving professionally in the games industry for almost nine years. Her career began at ANKAMA on the MMORPG DOFUS, then she worked for GOG.com as country manager for France & Belgium. Nowadays, she offers communication/marketing services as a freelancer for indie studios.

Hannah Lukashevich

Head of the Semantic Music Technologies (SMT) research group and Industrial Media Applications (IMA) business unit at Fraunhofer Institute

Hanna Lukashevich is Head of the Semantic Music Technologies (SMT) research group and Industrial Media Applications (IMA) business unit at Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau, Germany. Among her research interests are audio signal processing and machine learning. As head of the SMT group and IMA business unit, she manages a number of R&D projects, both for companies in the industrial and digital media sector as well as national and international public projects.

Andrew Munden

Live Operations Director at Space Ape Games

Space Ape Game's Live Operations Director with over 8 years of experience on live games. Creator and executor of Live Ops strategies on 7 games while influencing dozens more. Over the years I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of Live Ops and learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Ryuichi Nishizawa

Freelance Game Designer

"Born in 1964, Nishizawa-san started working at Tekhan Ltd. in arcade games design and dot graphics (later renamed Tecmo) at the age of 18. Having taught himself programming, he moved to UPL Co., Ltd., and developed arcade games such as Ninja-kun as a programmer and game designer. He founded Westone (later renamed Westone Bit Entertainment Inc.) and created many titles such as Wonder Boy (arcade), Monster World (console), as a director and game designer. Currently, he is working as a freelance game designer.

Chronological list of works by Ryūichi Nishizawa 1981 Swimmer (AC)
1983 NOVA2001 (AC)
1984 Ninja-kun: Adventure of Devil Castle (AC)
1985 Raiders5 (AC)
1986 Wonder Boy (AC)
1987 Jaws the Revenge (NES)
1987 Monster Land (AC)
1988 Monster Lair (AC)
1989 Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap (SMS)
1990 Aurail (AC)
1992 Monster World II: The Dragon’s Trap (GG)
1993 Aquario of Clockwork (AC)
1994 Monster World IV (MD)
1996 Dark Half (SFC)
1997 Willy Wombat (SS)
1999 Milano no Arbeit Collection (PS)
2016 Yuba no shirushi (iOS/android/PC)

Christina Seelye

Founder & CEO of Maximum Games

Christina Seelye is the founder and CEO of global video game publisher Maximum Games, as well as the company’s indie label, Modus Games. Founded in 2009, Maximum Games is one of the Top 20 game publishers in the world as recognized by NPD, and has offices in both the US and UK. Named one of the world’s “50 Fastest-Growing Women-Owned Companies” by WPO, Maximum Games has also been listed as an Inc. 5000 and SF Business Times' Fast 100 company for the past four years in a row. Christina is the recipient of several business awards, including Executive of the Year (American Business Awards), most recently taking home the gold award for 2018 Female Executive of the Year and the silver prize for 2018 Maverick of the Year (Stevies Awards for Women in Business). Christina lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Valentina Tamer

Game & Narrative Designer at King

Valentina Tamer is the Studio Narrative Designer at King Berlin, working on the mobile game developer's Candy Crush Saga franchise. Previously employed at Daedalic Entertainment, she was Assistant Creative Lead on "Ken Follett's: The Pillars of the Earth" and a writer on "The Night of the Rabbit". She holds a B.Sc in Game Design from MD.H Düsseldorf, having published her thesis as the eBook “Directing Games: Fantasies of Disempowerment”.

Andrew Vaughan

Developer Relations Manager at Dolby

Andy Vaughan works in content relations for Dolby Developer, helping developers (from independent to AAA) deliver Dolby Atmos-enabled titles for PC and Xbox. Based in Dolby’s San Francisco headquarters, he works in a larger Consumer Entertainment Group that helps advance the science of sight and sound in the cinema, at home, and on-the-go.

Valerio Velardo

CEO and Co-Founder of Melodrive

"Valerio Velardo is CEO and co-founder of Melodrive - the AI video game music platform. Melodrive has built an AI music system that generates music automatically for interactive experiences, such as video games and VR/AR. Valerio has a PhD in music and AI from the University of Huddersfield, UK. He has spent the last ten years teaching computers how to create music autonomously. In his research, Valerio has developed an AI multi-agent system that is capable of simulating a society of virtual songwriters that produce rock songs and develop their own musical style. Valerio is not only an expert in the design and development of AI music systems, but has also spent more than five years studying the impact of AI on creativity. His research in AI music and music cognition has been published in several international journals. Valerio is often invited to talk about the impact of AI in music, with a particular focus on interactive content, at conferences both in academia and industry. He’s recognised as one of the leaders in shaping the future of the computer music industry through the use of AI.

Valerio has made his mark on the world of academic music generation by founding a new conference and journal publication, which have both become key points of reference in the generative music field. Valerio has a double background as a composer/conductor/pianist and an astrophysicist. Very early in his career, he worked as a conductor of contemporary music, as a classical pianist, and as a composer. He’s written music for solo instruments, ensemble and orchestra. Valerio is currently working on two books on AI music. One, in collaboration with leading video game composer Guy Whitmore, focuses on the impact of AI on video game music, discussing in detail the concept of Deep Adaptive Music. The other, co-authored with his colleagues at Melodrive, is a technical book that provides an introduction to the art and science of generating music with AI in the Python programming language."

Paul Weir

Composer, Sound Designer and Audio Director

Paul Weir is a composer, sound designer and audio director known for his work in games, generative audio, radio and audio books. His last released game project, No Man's Sky, sold millions of copies and was widely acclaimed for its innovative audio design and use of original procedural audio technologies. He has sound-tracked over forty games in a wide range of musical styles and through The Sound Agency, created award winning generative music sound installations. He is the audio director for Microsoft's Lift London studio, sound designing HoloLens augmented reality projects and works with the VR surgery training company, Fundamental VR. Paul also runs the radio and podcast production company Perfectly Normal Productions. www.earcomaudio.com

Rebecka Coutaz

Studio Director Ubisoft Annecy

Born in Sweden, Rebecka has been working in the video game industry since 1998, after a degree in business school. In 2011, she decided to take a new challenge at Ubisoft, becoming the Ubisoft Annecy's Studio Manager. She worked on developing the studio to create a team of 230+ talented people who collaborate on AAA video game brands such as 'Tom Clancy's The Division', 'Assassin's Creed', 'Splinter Cell' and 'Driver'. In 2016, the studio released its first own game: 'STEEP'. For Rebecka, 'STEEP' is the Holy Grail that was missing in Ubisoft Annecy, combining its two passions: skiing and video games. Made a mountain passionate team, the studio worked in partnership with the International Olympic Committee on the extension 'Road to the Olympics', released in December 2017 and with XGAMES organization for the latest expansion released in October 2018. 2019 will be big for the studio with the release of 'Tom Clancy's The Division 2', developed in collaboration with Massive Entertainment studio.

Katya Dolgova

COO Redhill Games

Ekaterina (Katya) Dolgova is a Human Resources professional, facilitator and trainer with 20+ years of experience in Financial, Consulting, IT and Gaming industries.

A lawyer and Chartered FCIPD by background, Katya has been working in the HR field since 1995. During her career.
Katya successfully completed over 15 acquisition deals across EMEA; opened 11 new locations in Russia, CIS, Eastern and Central Europe, Africa and China; facilitated employees’ representatives, Works Councils and Trade Union negotiations across Europe; hired more than 300 professionals and over 70 executives; developed and run employee engagement programs, assessment and development centers; leadership and culture transformation campaigns.

Now in January 2019 Katya works at Redhill Games as a COO and in her free time runs a Management Consultancy “It Starts With You, Ltd”. Previous experience includes Wargaming, Cisco Systems, First Data Corporation, Western Union, KPMG and JSCB “Contact”. She has been working with employees, leaders and local authorities in 177 countries.

Katya’s educational credentials include:
MS in Linguistics from the Moscow State Pedagogical University in Moscow, Russia
MS in Law from the Moscow Open Social University in Moscow, Russia
FCIPD from Manchester College of Arts and Technologies in Manchester, UK
LCOR certificate from Stanford in Stanford, CA, USA

Katya lives in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Benedikt Grindel

Studio Manager Ubisoft Blue Byte

After acquiring a master’s degree in Mathematics with a minor in business and a short adventure in the carpet manufacturing industry, Benedikt Grindel joined Ubisoft’s German subsidiary in 1998. With positions in Marketing, Business Development, Production and Operations, he has been involved in many different aspects of the industry. Among the games he worked on, The Settlers series holds a special place: Benedikt was producer of this classic PC strategy game brand for more than nine years. Since 2014, he is responsible for Ubisoft Blue Byte. As the Managing Director, Benedikt oversees 425+ employees in three studios in Düsseldorf, Mainz and Berlin, working on brands like 'Anno', 'The Settlers', 'Rainbow Six: Siege', 'Beyond Good and Evil 2', 'Far Cry', and many more.

Lars Janssen

CEO Travian Games

Lars is currently leading the Munich-based games developer & publisher Travian Games as CEO. With his business background, he joined the company as Product Manager in 2010 after gaining experience on other projects in the games industry for a few years. Since then, he's worked his way up and – being one of their own – earned the respect and trust from his peers along the way. Since January 2018, Lars also serves as Member of the Board at game, the German games industry association. Lars believes passion is contagious and focuses strongly on building and coaching enthusiastic teams with talented, diverse, inspirational, and all-around awesome people. He enjoys thinking outside the box and is rarely fond of the status quo. When Lars is not busy with the games industry, he enjoys spending time with his three-year old daughter practicing persuasion techniques. As he considers himself an honorary Texan, y'all might well run into him wherever there's good barbecue in his second home, the Austin-area.

Deborah Mensah-Bonsu

Content Lead Space Ape Games

Deborah is a media professional with a decade of experience, first as a print and tv journalist and then as a producer and content guru in games. She leads on Space Ape’s content and community engagement - regularly shaping and safeguarding the voice, brand and culture of the studio. Before joining Space Ape she was part of the editorial team at Xbox Upload. She’s an advocate for women in games and is passionate about the cross-section between games and education. She spearheads the company's student mentoring program, Space Ape Varsity, and is committed to developing future talent both at work and through various not-for-profits. She loves this industry, good film, bad tv, and sparkling juice drinks.

Audrey Leprince

President & Co-Founder The game Bakers
President Women in Games France

Co-founder of The Game Bakers, a French indie studio striving to make games that players will remember, like Furi and Squids. She is in charge of executive production, some narrative, business and studio management. She started as a game designer for Quantic Dream then producer for Ubisoft, 6 years in China. She now lives in Sweden. She created Women in Games France in 2017.

The Game Bakers presentation: We are an independent game studio founded by Emeric Thoa and Audrey Leprince, former AAA developers. To sum it up we say we make games like we cook food: with a lot of love. We want to create that experience that you remember, that you have fantasies about long after the game is finished, that makes you feel alive and energized. Our studio is "a studio in the clouds" as we work with a team of great collaborators around the world. Our portfolio includes our adrenaline-fuelled boss-fight only game Furi for PlayStation4, Switch, PC and Xbox One, our underwater tactical RPG Squids Odyssey on Switch, mobile and PC, and Combo Crew our modern take on old-school brawlers on mobile.

Pawel Rohleder

Chief Technology Officer Techland

Pawel is a highly experienced developer, leader and video games enthusiast who is keen on new technologies. Right now he’s working on shared technology for two amazing AAA titles @ Techland (Dying Light 2 and another big unannounced AAA project). He has over 15 years in the game development industry, of which the last 12 years are with Techland (known from Dying Light, Dead Island, Call of Juarez) he participated in both original DLs, both DIs and all four CoJ games from start to finish. Thanks to that, he has experienced almost every part of game development, from concept creation to QA.

Pawel is a regularly invited and highly experienced speaker at 60+ gaming and technology conferences. Currently he manages a team of 50+ technology professionals developing cutting-edge technology and systems for games across multiple platforms. He‘s crazy about synergy between technology, science, business and art, and he even did a PhD to prove such synergy exists.

He loves new challenges and taking on “the impossible”.

Philipp Schellbach

Co-Founder & Director of Development YAGER

Philipp Schellbach is a co-founder and the Director of Development at YAGER, a game development studio based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1999, YAGER is best known for the critically acclaimed 'SpecOps: The Line', 'Dreadnought' and their upcoming game 'The Cycle'.

In the late 1980’s Philipp discovered his passion for games and technology when he got his hands on his first computer, a C64. After going on to complete a degree in computer engineering in 1998, Philipp started as an engine programmer at YAGER and later became the Technical Director of the studio. However, as the company has grown over the years his responsibilities have shifted, and his primary focus is now on the internal organization of the studio’s projects and resources.

Kate Edwards

CEO & Principal Consultant Geogrify

Kate Edwards is the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which pioneered content culturalization, a Board Member of Take This, and is the former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) from 2012 to 2017. In addition to being an outspoken advocate who serves in several advisory/board roles, she is a geographer, writer, and corporate strategist. Following 13 years at Microsoft, she has consulted on many game and non-game projects for BioWare, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and many other companies. Fortune magazine named her as one of the "10 most powerful women" in the game industry in 2013 and in 2014 was named by GamesIndustry.biz as one of their six People of the Year. In 2018, she was honored with Reboot Develop’s Hero Award and IndieCade’s Game Changer Award. She is also profiled in the December 2018 publication Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play.

Alessandra van Otterlo

Owner of Control Magazine

Alessandra van Otterlo is the owner of Dutch online trade journal Control Magazine and the driving force behind Control Conference. She is co-organizer of the European Game Showcase that takes place every year during GDC in San Francisco. Alessandra started her career in the games industry back in 2004 and she has worked for media, publishers, developers, and non-profit organisations.

Phil Elliott

Head of Indie Publishing Square Enix Ltd.

Phil created the concept for Square Enix Collective in 2013, and has spent the last few years building it up from scratch to offer a range of services for indie developers around the world. He's often seen at various developer conferences or industry events throughout the year, and also runs the Community team for Square Enix projects based in London. Prior to joining Square Enix, Phil ran GamesIndustry.biz for four years, with stints at GameSpot and BBC 5Live before that.

Tsahi Liberman

Veteran Game Developer & Designer, Head of Marketing & BizDev for Simpool, Head of Tiltan School for Game Development & Design, International Relationship Manager for GameIS, and many more

His entire lifetime, Tsahi was involved, officially and as an indie, in game design, development, team management, cyber security, play-testing and enjoying games, of all kinds. For over 15 years, he has been connecting the Israeli games industry with games industries around the world. Tsahi also leads the biggest game design and development school in Israel (Tiltan) and is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Simpool, a Game Economy Prediction and Optimisation Platform of LTV. In between, Tsahi is creating games and activities for conflict management globally, and loves to talk about it.

Susan Gold

President of Global Game Jam

Susan Gold is an American scholar with an academic career that spans 20 years in higher education. She is a proven leader, facilitator, collaborator and activist. She is the creator of the much loved Global Game Jam®, the annual event that brings together over 47k game developers from around the world for one creatively explosive weekend of fun and innovation. Recently, (July of 2018) Susan launched a new extension of the event called GGJNEXT®, a game jam and curriculum for young creators age 12-17. She is widely regarded for her expertise in the areas of game education & game design, game jams, community development and large scale collaborative projects.

Ms Gold is a skilled facilitator at bridging art, science, technology, industry & academia. Her ability to utilize her expansive network helps weave together large international audiences and projects. Currently, Susan has been fortunate to explore numerous opportunities working with global educational systems as well as international & federal agencies. Susan works to foster and nurture growth among the development community around the world through the Global Game Jam non-profit. Susan is drawn to the diversity that makes up the global independent game development community.

Susan moved to Boston in 2013 where she was Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University. Susan is an artist, designer, author, activist with a specialization in digital arts and media primarily focused on video games. Interested in community based projects that bring together the most creative minds and experimental thinkers, Susan says, “innovation through collaboration” is her mantra. As a veteran and leader in the video game industry, she sits on numerous advisory boards, working groups and non-profits boards.

Marco Accordi Rickards

Journalist & Writer, Founder & Executive Director VIGAMUS Foundation

Journalist and writer Marco Accordi Rickards is VIGAMUS Foundation’s Founder and Executive Director. He’s in charge of VIGAMUS, the Video Game Museum of Rome and business unit VIGAMUS Academy, while being in the advisory board of Gamerome Developers Conference. He teaches Video Game History and Journalism at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and is Extraordinary Professor in Link Campus University, at the helm of gaming-focused Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees. A founding member of EFGAMP, the European Federation of Games Archives, Museums and Preservation Projects, he has published books for Mondadori, Carocci and is currently working for RAI (Cartoons on the Bay Festival) and Enciclopedia Treccani.

Don Daglow

JTechnical Emmy®, 3-time Inc. 500™ CEO, Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, The Strong & President, AIAS Foundation

Don Daglow is a three-time Inc. 500™ CEO, a pioneering game designer and 2008 Technical Emmy® Award recipient whose career spans the history of the games industry. Teams have shipped over $1 billion in products under his leadership.

He advises game companies and software startups, coaching both new and experienced CEO's and teams facing the challenges of game development, team-building, studio management and change. His clients range from small startups to large international publishers, and he also advises The Strong Museum and serves as the volunteer President of The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Foundation, the charitable wing of the Academy.

He is the only executive in the history of the games industry who has held leadership positions on every generation of video game consoles, from 1980 to the present. In 2003 he received the CGE Award for "groundbreaking achievements that shaped the Video Game Industry," and in 2018 he was added to the Wall of Fame at the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin.

Along with John Carmack of id Software and Mike Morhaime of Blizzard Entertainment, Daglow is one of only three game developers whose work has been honored at both the Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards and at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences DICE Awards.

As an engineer working on mainframe computers, Daglow also created key early milestones in the development of chatbots (ECALA, 1972) and the machine translation of natural language (Spanish Translator, 1977).

Kirk Lenke

CEO & Founder of NUKKLEAR

Kirk (*1971) has been working on games since 1999. In 2007 he took over Reakktor Media GmbH, continued the world's first MMOFPS Neocron and released Black Prophecy, another MMOFPS worldwide. In 2011 NUKKLEAR - DIGITAL MINDS was founded. This was followed by several commissions for PointMMO, Deep Silver, SCEE, Spectacle Games, THQ Nordic, Sturmkind and many more. He was also an advisor to bib Hannover, which was successfully launched its first degree course in the field of game development. Beside this he is an Shareholder and Consultant to the Global Games Industry Network which was launched back in 2018.

Silvia Barraclough

Head of Videogames & Animation Sector at ICEX

Silvia Barraclough has worked at ICEX Spain Trade and Investment, the state agency for the internationalization of Spanish businesses, since 2007. She is currently in charge of the international promotion of the videogame, animation and VR sectors. In that capacity she is in permanent contact with the Spanish industry and travels to the main international events worldwide. Within the regular activities of ICEX, she arranges for the participation of Spanish companies in the events, organizes specific workshops and runs dedicated communication and marketing campaigns.

She holds a university degree in Audio-Visual Communication, Master in International Company Management and MBA in International Management of Multilateral Projects.

Alen Ladavac

CTO Croteam

Alen Ladavac is leading the technology team as well as working on all aspects of Croteam games since 1993. Now mainly heading the efforts on Serious Sam 4 development, his previous work includes the world-famous Serious Sam franchise and critically acclaimed The Talos Principle, as well as a series of console, VR and mobile versions of those games. His broad range of interests and experience spans all technical areas of the game development, from rendering, sound and physics, to networking, build systems and content pipelines.

Simay Dinç

Game Producer & Co-Founder at Recontact Digital Arts Co., Women in Games Turkey

She is the co-founder of Recontact and game producer of award winning Recontact:Istanbul mobile games series.

She is an executive board member of OYUNDER, which is a non-profit association founded for the purpose of supporting and representing Turkish Game Industry as well as the founder of “Women in Games Turkey” that aims to incorporate the energy and creativity of women to this industry. Simay was the finalist of the ‘Creative Impact Award’ of the year at MCV Women in Games Award in 2018

She is the finalist of 'European Women in Games Hall of Fame Awards' 2018

She is also a new generation angel investor in the “Rising Tide Europe” focusing her resources to social impact and creative industries. She believes that game is the cultural and art industry of 21th century. She continues to produce at full speed on the path we started with the motto of creating playable arts. Simay has been chosen one of the four women leader to Women and Leadership program in Arts & Culture by British Council in 2018 (three year program)