South African artist Ryan Hewett created a special painting in tribute of The Game Awards Future Class. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THLmyFp1giw&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank" class="duration-500 hover:text-accent2 text-accent1 transition">This is his story.</a>

Hailing from a small village in the West Midlands in the UK, Aimee Hart is editor-in-chief of Gayming Magazine and has been playing video games since she was first given a PS2 in 2001. She was handpicked to lead editorially for Gayming Magazine, an LGBTQ+ games publication specializing in queer analysis and criticism, in August 2019 and has since helped bring new, diverse voices into games journalism through her mentorship, as well as highlighted queer indies from all over the world.

Even before her role at Gayming Magazine, Hart has been involved in games journalism and queer criticism of games since 2017. She desires an inclusive future where queer and marginalized developers are able to work independently, and are given the care and support that they deserve to keep them doing what they love: making games.

Aimee Hart

Alhvi Balcarcel is a Guatemalan Game Developer/Programmer. She co-founded the studio Selva Interactive and the Guatemalan Game Developers Community, GameDevGT. Alhvi is also a part-time professor of game programming at Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. Coming from a country where the game industry is still in its infancy, the work done by Alhvi and the local community is vital to supporting young aspiring game developers in their careers. Alhvi is a very active and vocal person who has volunteered for Global Game Jam as a Regional Organizer and Latinx in Gaming as Country Lead. Alhvi sees a future in the gaming industry where opportunities are not limited by where people were born, where discrimination in the workplace exists no more, and where kids in every part of the world can dream of working in the gaming industry and fulfill their dream.

Alhvi Balcarcel

Dr. Amiad Fredman (Digital Doc) is a lifelong gamer dedicated to utilizing the power of play to improve health and wellness. Dr. Fredman grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and received his M.D. at the George Washington University School of Medicine in 2020 before returning home to work in digital medicine and consult for medical video game companies. As the founder and host of Digital Doc Games, a YouTube channel and podcast focused on the intersection of gaming and health, Dr. Fredman explores how videogames are being utilized as tools for medicine, therapy, education, and more. Dr. Fredman is proud to marry his unique background in medicine and passion for gaming to help bring in the next wave of games for health. To Dr. Fredman, the future of gaming is inclusive, accessible, and spans far wider than the confines of the living room TV; it is destined for the hospitals, clinics, schools, and for wherever else requires a little gaming magic.

Dr. Amiad Fredman

Améliane (a.k.a. Amé) is the Accessibility Lead for Square Enix West. Based out of Eidos-Montréal, she manages a small but mighty full-time department dedicated to help improving accessibility in all the experiences that the studios create for their audiences. It’s by combining efforts with the company’s talents, experts and accessibility champions that they strive to succeed in this important journey. Her background in Quality Assurance and User Research has sculpted her mind in such a way that prioritizes people’s experiences and realities. By putting inclusion and innovation at the heart of every initiative, she hopes this industry can move towards a more welcoming future. Amé is also very passionate about streaming, music, films and celebrating horror media in all its creative forms.

Améliane Chiasson

Dr. Amy Kavanagh is a blind gamer, activist, content creator and freelancer. She uses social media to share her adventures as a low vision Londoner alongside her beautiful Guide Dog Ava. Amy streams console and PC games as the BlindButtonMasher and has created an inclusive disability friendly community. She mainly plays action and adventure games but will have a go at anything with a good story, interesting puzzles and great characters. She can’t wait to try more genres as studios make the small changes that make a game accessible for her as blind low vision player. For example, the new features in Forza meant she could experience driving a sports car at top speeds for the first time!
Amy is passionate about accessibility in gaming and media. She has worked with studios and developers, advising on low vision friendly features and speaks regularly at gaming conferences. Amy believes there is a real enthusiasm in the industry for accessibility, from new awards to audio described adverts, it’s an exciting time to be a disabled gamer! Her hope for the future is greater disability representation in gaming, including maybe a badass blind lady character and her cheeky golden retriever guide dog sidekick.

Dr. Amy Kavanagh

Aria Bonczek is a Senior Animation Engineer at That's No Moon. Her personal mission is to "make moments that move people." Over the last 6 years, she has been able to make her mission happen at game companies, like Santa Monica Studio and Unity Technologies. With a passion for experiences that emphasize storytelling and character design, Aria seeks to develop software that drives the creation of products that have a diverse cast of characters in fantastical worlds. She hopes to lead by example and make AAA game development a safer and healthier environment for marginalized game developers.

Aria Bonczek

Carlos Egas is a Technical Sound Designer from Quito, Ecuador. He has worked with various studios across the LATAM region on games such as: Guardian of Lore, Captain Toonhead Vs The Punks from Outer Space and Aztech Forgotten Gods. He is currently working with game development studio/publisher Serenity Forge as their Audio Engineer. 

He is also a co-founder of the Game Audio LATAM community, a place that focuses on helping game audio professionals, students and audio enthusiasts from the LATAM region. It is an inclusive space for people to learn, network, share knowledge and experiences so the LATAM game audio scene can grow with the help of everyone.

His hopes for the future of gaming is to see Latin America continue its steady growth in the industry and for more inclusive spaces and representation as a whole. Carlos would love to hear more of their voices across all gaming spaces; as he comes from a place with such powerful stories, seeing and playing more of them would mean the world, not only for him but for lots and lots of people.

Carlos Egas

Chella is a narrative designer from the UK. She is currently living in Malmö Sweden, where she is on the writing team for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, at Ubisoft Massive. She is also the co-founder and narrative designer at 3-Fold Games, working in the AAA and indie games space. Chella is committed to telling stories that elevate marginalised perspectives and challenge the accepted default. Before I Forget is the BAFTA-nominated debut from 3-Fold Games, a narrative exploration about a woman with dementia. 

A former, award-nominated games journalist, Chella is also co-founder of POC in Play, a diversity organisation focused on improving the visibility and representation of people of colour in the games industry. Her achievements include Gameindustry.biz 100 2018/19, Evening Standard Influential Londoner, Game Dev Heroes award and in 2018-19, she was part of ‘Design Play Disrupt’ the V&A exhibition on the design process behind video games. Chella considers games the modern storytelling medium and wants everyone to see themselves represented within the creative teams and the games they craft.

Chella Ramanan

Chris, also known as DeafGamersTV, was born deaf. He is from Chicago and has loved gaming since 3 years old. He advocates for gaming accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing. Chris’ goal is to raise deaf awareness through gaming; he communicates in American Sign Language. Chris can speak, but he prefers signing over speaking since his voice gets tired pretty quickly and it's easier to communicate when people type or write back to him. 

He's consulted with different game studios such as Ubisoft, Santa Monica Studio, and Square Enix to help their teams understand the need for accessibility features as a deaf gamer. His hope for the future of gaming is to break down barriers that are keeping disabled gamers from enjoying games equally and to help set a standard for game design making all games as accessible as possible. 

Going into 2022, there are no excuses for some games continuing to make simple mistakes such as tiny subtitles that no one can read. It would mean a lot to Chris to be able to enjoy gaming with more features in games that'll allow all players to play comfortably and have fun.

Chris Robinson

Cinzia Musio is an award-winning Diversity & Inclusion professional in the UK, with an approach focusing on intersectionality. They work across the industry helping build awareness and education, using data to drive a culture of inclusion, knowledge sharing, and allyship. Cinzia is a Diversity & Inclusion Advisor at Splash Damage, and is part of committees such as the Ukie’s EDI board, Limit Break, and helps manage the UK Games Industry Slack.

Cinzia Musio

Since 2006, D'Juan ""Deejay Knight"" Irvin has been active in the gaming industry in various roles. Currently he is an entertainer on Twitch focusing heavily on Space & Sci-Fi as well as an event host.   

An accomplished educator, he's taught in multiple programs at Full Sail University including four years in the Game Design program and has previously worked in-industry as an Interface Designer.  

Gaming has been a major part of his life for as long as he can remember. His hopes for the future of gaming include more representation for more people & more accessibility options so that any and everyone can play more games. He looks forward to a future where gaming can affect everyone in the positive ways that it has affected him.  

Whether hosting events or entertaining in his channel, he uses his platform to promote positivity and the value of education while having as much fun as possible.

DeeJay Knight

Derek Lieu is an independent game trailer editor born and raised in Boston, MA. He’s worked on trailers for the games: Half-Life: Alyx, Among Us, Psychonauts 2, Firewatch, Spelunky 2, Subnautica, Dead Cells, Ooblets, and many more.

Since he can only produce so many trailers per year, he shares his knowledge of the game trailer making process to educate and empower both game developers and future game trailer makers. He does this through industry talks, blog posts, videos, live streams, podcasts, and social media posts (it's pretty easy to get him to talk a lot about trailers).

He loves game trailers not just for how they can excite players, but for their unique ability to let developers see their game with fresh eyes and take pride in their years of hard work.

Derek hopes game development continues to become more accessible to an even wider spectrum of people (so he can play their games) and to see new ways of storytelling only possible via games. He also wishes to foster a diverse game trailer industry so he can watch and learn from a new generation of talent!

Derek Lieu

Dom Shaw is the first Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Coordinator for the UK video games and interactive entertainment trade association, Ukie, who manages the #RaiseTheGame pledge, and supports efforts towards the Video Games Ambassadors programme with Into Games. Dom is also an ambassador for the UK’s national autism research charity, Autistica, who strive to give autistic people the opportunity to live long, happy, healthy lives.
 
As an autistic, dyslexic and LGBTQ+ identifying individual from a single parent home, Dom has never been a stranger to the importance of diversity, inclusion and understands the struggle individuals from underrepresented backgrounds can face when trying to get a job in any industry, let alone the games industry that can be extra fierce due to the ratio of people to jobs there is. Having worked diligently to get his foot into the games industry, starting his journey when he was 16 in 2010, Dom’s mantra is to always be open to opportunities and has been energetically committed to encouraging, empowering and amplifying marginalised voices. Increasing representation at all levels within the industry to ensure in the future of gaming no one is excluded and anyone can seek opportunities on a fair playing field!

Dom Shaw

Dominion Ero is a Video Game Designer and Community Manager. He is the founder of Arutu, a thriving initiative that seeks to improve the African Gaming Experience. As a young Nigerian, Dom noticed an apparent difference in how games were made and played in the African region, compared to other places. Since then, He has set out to fill that gap with projects like ""NDUZI"": a gaming career-expo for young Africans, participating as a mentor in the Google Game-Up Africa program, organizing local esports tournaments and gaming-oriented festivals and writing articles to educate other aspiring enthusiasts.
 Dom has also spoken at several conferences, showcasing the change that Africans and collaborations with African talent can bring into the video gaming industry. Some of these conferences include; GDC, OpenUp Summit, Pathfindin.GS, Africa Comicade and many more. Dom believes that the Gaming Industry is embracing diversity with each passing second, and that means more people can contribute their talents and dreams to an extremely passionate ecosystem.

Dominion Ero

Euna Park is a gameplay animator currently based in Los Angeles, CA. After she tried on other careers like medicine and marketing and photography, in 2017, she got hooked onto the creative chaos behind game development while in graduate school. Her love for animation is fueled by a childhood love for animated films, and she chose gameplay for the love of seeing characters come alive in a player’s hands. She is passionate about advocating for appropriate representation in games, and driving stories through gameplay.
When she visualizes the future of game development, she sees a diverse industry with sustainably maintained teams producing quality experiences. She believes in the potential of video games to foster empathy through narrative, and she wants to push that boundary as much as she can. She is honored to be listed among the Future Class, and with her own future, she hopes to pull the industry closer to that inclusive vision while directing narrative projects that inspire people to be kinder to one another.

Euna Park

Farah Coculuzzi is a Video Game Producer at Capybara Games in Ontario. Farah is of Palestinian and Iraqi descent, and lived in New Zealand for most of her life before moving to Canada. She's currently leading production on Grindstone, Capy's award winning puzzle battler. In the past, Farah worked as a freelance producer with various indie game companies such as Viewport Games and Ko_op. Her hope for the world of games is that we continue to strive to make room for marginalized groups to tell their stories through video games and that we can achieve more empathy and unity as a worldwide community through this ever-changing medium.

Farah Coculuzzi

Felice Kuan is a Narrative Director at Deck Nine Games in Boulder, Colorado. Originally from New York, she has an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU and was a bookwriter & lyricist before crossing over into games. At Deck Nine, she has been a staff writer on Life is Strange: Before the Storm and a senior staff writer on Life is Strange: True Colors, for which she helped create Alex Chen, the game’s queer Chinese-Vietnamese American protagonist. She now steers a talented team of writers and narrative designers in the creation of narrative adventure games that seek to portray marginalized perspectives with sensitivity, wit, and nuance.
Felice is passionate about facilitating authentic stories by, about, and for underrepresented groups. She firmly believes in the value of diversity, not only in the fictional worlds of our games, but even more so in the dev teams that create them. She is committed to seeking out, uplifting, and supporting new voices, a process which must be ongoing and collaborative to be successful. For her, it’s an incredible privilege to work toward a future where marginalized developers make up a significant portion of industry leadership and where diverse, respectfully-told stories are the norm.

Felice Kuan

Glen Henry was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. His love for visual and interactive media has led him to a career as an Independent Game Developer, and establishing Spritewrench Studios, with the expressed intent of exploring the industry and his creative passion. While operating the business as a vehicle for his personal projects and freelance endeavours, he connected with like-minded individuals who eventually helped to form the Jamaica Game Developer Society (JGDS). JGDS is a grass-roots coalition of projects and people in support of Jamaica's video game communities.  
 
He uses his experience to nurture and encourage the growth of the region's Game Development sector and is eager to see more projects come out of the islands. The future of gaming will include more personal and hand-crafted projects inspired by creators sharing their unique heritage, culture and perspectives. He hopes to be able to show that there is a sustainable path for the Caribbean in the industry, and that there is more than enough room at the table for everyone.

Glen Henry

Hailey develops authentic brand love and bombastic campaigns as a Social Marketing Manager for Xbox, based in Seattle, WA. She also cares way more about Seattle sports teams than she should.

Her history includes spearheading the Gears of War franchise's voyage into the mobile gaming and PC strategy space with the launch of Gears POP!, Gears Tactics, and the AAA title, Gears 5. Hailey was an honoree on the Forbes Under 30 list for Games in 2021 and is a member of The GameHERS Advisory Board.

She strives to be an inspiration and voice for young women in the gaming industry and STEM at large. It’s her mission to ensure gaming content is representative, accessible and tells dynamic & diverse stories. As a champion for D&I, Hailey currently serves as the Communications Lead for Microsoft's Disability in Marketing Employee Resource Group and is a leader in the Women in Gaming community.

Hailey Geller

Jarryd Huntley is a Jamaican-American programmer, designer, author, and community organizer hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, where he passionately supports the Cleveland Game Developers group as an organizer. The group is devoted to helping everyone from novices to industry professionals grow their skills and connect in the city, as well as helping to expand the local industry.
 
His book Game Programming for Artists was conceived as a ""programming book that doesn't read like a programming book”. Co-authored with Hanna Brady, the book is a resource for getting non-programmers into programming. It’s been used by universities, indie and AAA game studios, as well as numerous individuals starting their first games.
 
His studio, Polytundra, released its debut title Art Club Challenge in 2018, a year after it was featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum Arcade. Polytundra specializes in assisting studios to port games to new consoles and platforms, as well as developing original IPs. 
 Jarryd frequently speaks about managing an independent game studio, supporting marginalized communities in the game industry, alternate paths into game development, and has given talks at IndieCade, MEGAMIGS, GDC and others conferences. He is currently Lead Developer on the forthcoming game We Are OFK with team OFK.

Jarryd Huntley

Jeryce Dianingana was born in Paris, France to Congolese parents. He works as a 3D Game Artist at Rocksteady Studios in London, UK. In between his time working on AAA games projects, Jeryce has built up a powerful body of afro-centric 3D art inspired by his African heritage. He aspires to be a voice for the rich diversity of African culture, and to help increase the visibility of African-inspired design in the videogame and movie industries.

Jeryce Dianingana

Dr. Sim Jiaying hails from Singapore and is an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at DigiPen Institute of Technology, Singapore. She received her Ph.D. in Film and Television Studies from the University of Glasgow, UK. As an educator, she curates and teaches interdisciplinary modules, such as interactive storytelling, mythology, Southeast Asian film and fiction, as well as gender studies, in relation to game design and game narratives. It’s their hope that the future of gaming may be emblematic of the world we’d like to live in - a space where diversity is acknowledged, welcomed, and supported, rather than cause for discrimination and judgement; not simply in terms of game content and representation on screen, but also for the conditions and safety of all those working hard behind the scenes, at each stage of game development, and in every aspect of the gaming industry.

Dr. Jiaying Sim

Joanna Fang is a Taiwanese American Foley artist, and the first trans woman of color to win a Primetime Emmy. After spending eleven years in New York crafting custom and performative sound effects (Foley) for major films and TV shows like The Invisible Man and Clifford: The Big Red Dog; Joanna moved back home to Southern California to work for Sony Playstation. Joanna is the first in-house Senior Foley artist hired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in over 15 years. 

As such: she is tasked with leading, educating, and evolving the discipline of Foley for games and interactive media. In the last six months, Joanna has performed everything from the thumping of footsteps to the battering of weapons and equipment for some of Sony’s new titles including Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, Guerrilla Games’ Horizon: Forbidden West, and Santa Monica Studio’s highly anticipated God of War: Ragnarök. When she isn’t cracking boulders for Kratos, sharpening swords for Wolverine, or whipping webs as Miles Morales; Joanna can be found mentoring Foley artists and advocating for trans and gender-nonconforming inclusive healthcare in the games industry.

Joanna Fang

Jo is a game designer from Brighton, UK, that has spent her career working on games that anyone can play. Her first role in the games industry was on the BAFTA-winning Buzz! quiz games that are played using a gameshow-style buzzer controller. Jo never planned to have a career in games. Her first passion was TV and film production, but she loved the Buzz! games because they felt like being on a real TV gameshow. Game design turned out to be the perfect career for Jo and she's been determined to stay in the industry and keep making accessible and inclusive games for all her non-gamer friends to play together. She currently works as the Design Director at Snap Finger Click, an indie game developer that makes games that people can play together both in the living room and online over Twitch. Jo designed the innovative 'Live Show' feature that lets Twitch viewers play Snap Finger Click's games by typing into the chat without a need to have a copy of the game or even a game console. All of Jo's designs have socialising at their heart, and she believes games need more safe and accessible ways for players to connect with each other beyond the living room.

Alongside her work, Jo is an advocate for women and parents in games. She has been a mentor with Limit Break for two years, volunteering her time to help marginalised groups to progress in the games industry. Earlier this year, Jo ran a parenting workshop explaining the rights of staff in regards to pregnancy, adoption, fertility treatment, and childcare. She also laid out methods companies can adopt to make the workplace more welcoming to working parents. Jo believes retaining staff, particularly marginalised groups like women, is key to the games industry's future.

Joanna Haslam

Kat Welsford is from London, UK and works at Square Enix as a Digital Analyst. During the day she works on nearly all of Square Enix's properties, from Final Fantasy to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, whilst in the evenings she works to increase diversity & inclusion within games and the industry.
She hosts Games Industry Gathering, a monthly worldwide and online networking event for games industry members, and also hosts Save Point Industry Gathering, a dedicated space for marginalised genders, where she provides support and a safe and inclusive space to chat.
Kat also worked as a mentor for the 2021 Tentacle Zone Incubator, helping the next generation of indie developers market their games with mentorship and advice. Kat has also presented marketing talks at Develop Brighton.
She is also an admin of London Gaymers, a group for LGBTQIA+ gamers around the world, running the dedicated areas and events for women, non-binary, and trans people. She also runs weekly events for all, including pub meets, D&D, and providing spaces for numerous multiplayer games. In her free time Kat also works a Girlguiding Leader in East London, advises TTRPGs like Dissident Whispers, and tutors children in maths.

Kat Welsford

Kathryn Yu is a designer/developer based in Los Angeles who is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Southern California.
She recently worked at the indie studio Tender Claws on an unannounced VR project. Kathryn was a co-creator of the alternate reality game The Pickfair Directive, which was nominated to IndieCade. She was also featured in WIRED for her interactive story, “Metaverse Noir.” 

Kathryn is a co-creator of Heirloom, which won “Favourite game by a woman or female team” at the Women in Games Global Awards and was shortlisted for the New Media Writing Prize. Kathryn hopes to see more games like Heirloom in the future — telling multi-generational stories centering older, female characters.

Kathryn is currently creating a sci-fi virtual reality game, Penrose Station, for her master’s thesis. It features a team that is majority POC and a diverse voiceover cast composed entirely of people of marginalized genders.
 
Kathryn is also the Executive Editor of No Proscenium and a co-founder of the Immersive Experience Institute, a non-profit which aims to create a sustainable future for immersive and experiential arts and artists worldwide. She has spoken at Games for Change, The Knight Foundation, IndieCade, and more.

Kathryn Yu

Born in sunny Singapore, Khee Hoon Chan is a writer, critic, and editor; they are most recently the Features Editor at TheGamer. They’ve been freelancing as a journalist for at least six years, and have worked as a writer for much longer. In particular, they are most interested in the stories around videogames and culture. Their goal is to elevate and put a spotlight on underrepresented voices in the industry, including that from lesser known writers and developers from Southeast Asia.

In the same vein, they hope that the future of gaming is a diverse and inclusive one—one that is fearless about championing minority voices and talent, as well as being more welcoming to burgeoning writers, artists, and developers.

Khee Hoon Chan

Kyra Wills-Umdenstock is an educator and event producer based in NYC. They are a production coordinator at Games for Change, the chair of the IGDA Student SIG, and the founder/CEO of the EGD Collective, a grassroots nonprofit movement with a mission to help every student finish their education and find their place within gaming. In addition to K-12 and post-secondary institutions, they have worked on projects for indie studios, esports organizations, nonprofits, and museums.

They spend a lot of time thinking about training, recruiting, and retaining diverse talent in our industry - and how our education systems are failing our students. Nearly two million students who begin college each year will drop out before earning a diploma. Society's view that college equals privilege is woefully outdated, with 45% of students experiencing food insecurity, 56% experiencing housing insecurity, and 17% experiencing homelessness in 2019. More often than not, the students affected by these issues are from marginalized and underrepresented groups. Kyra seeks to expose students to STEM and arts career paths early in their education and ensure they don't fall through the cracks by addressing the systemic barriers that prevent students from pursuing careers in industry.

Kyra Wills-Umdenstock

Laia Bee is a Uruguayan developer, co-founder of Pincer Games, board member of the Uruguayan game dev association, and helps coordinate the Latam Video Games Federation: a unique cooperation of 12 Latin American countries. Laia was co-director of Girls in Tech Uruguay for 5 years.

She volunteers for the local Uruguayan game dev community organizing events, and helps create opportunities for indie studios. She organized the #1reasontobe panel at GDC in 2021 and was named one of the 100 Game Changers by GamesIndustry. She promotes the creation of scholarships for Latam studios to attend major events, and advocates for underrepresented devs in the region. 

Laia believes in the power of diversity and the talent of Latam, and she dreams of Latam video games being known worldwide and acclaimed right next to the big titles.

Laia Bee

Lauren Mee, currently living in LA, is the Senior Writer at Insomniac Games. She served as the Lead Writer for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PlayStation 5. Before her time wrangling Spider-Men and Lombaxes, Lauren was a writer at Telltale Games where she worked on titles such as Batman: The Enemy Within, and was a Lead Writer on The Walking Dead: The Final Season. 
 
Over the course of her career, Mee has pursued creating positive team environments working to make games that create an equally positive impact on their players. With her strongly held belief that games are the greatest medium for storytelling, she is looking forward to the future of the craft and how it can further improve its accessibility, craftsmanship, and diversity for its ever-growing audience. 
Over the course of her career, Mee has pursued creating positive team environments working to make games that create an equally positive impact on their players. With her strongly held belief that games are the greatest medium for storytelling, she is looking forward to the future of the craft and how it can further improve its accessibility, craftsmanship, and diversity for its ever-growing audience.

Lauren Mee

Lauren Moses is an award-winning Community Manager based in Cambridge, UK. She focuses on empathetic practices, nurturing Code Coven's community through kindness. As a Safe In Our World ambassador, Lauren advocates for mental health and is certified in Mental Health First Aid. In 2021, Lauren was named Most Influential Community Manager by Women in Games Global Awards and Community Visionary by MCV/Develop.  Lauren has taken Code Coven's mantra to heart - "We rise together".  She has helped empower hundreds of marginalised people by offering safe spaces within the games industry, connecting with people like themselves as peers and mentors, proving that career progression is possible. Lauren is working towards an industry of safe studios which prioritise the health of employees, with equality and parity at the core. By facilitating kind spaces, Lauren hopes to inspire our next generation leaders to drive positive social change.

Lauren Moses

María José Félix Vega is an audio designer from México who has worked as composer, sound designer, implementer and Audio QA in indie games, apps, and AAA games. She has 5+ years experience writing original music and sound for video games, film and other media. Her past work includes being part of the audio team for Alien: Descent VR, original composition and sound design for app Novel Effect, original composition for indie games like Greak: Memories of Azur, audio QA at 343 Industries for Halo Infinite, and audio director for indie game Lonesome Village.

María José is one of the co-founders of Game Audio Latam, a game audio community which seeks to empower and promote the work developed in Latin America by Game Audio professionals. Her hopes for the future of gaming are that we can see more inclusion and support for people of all races as well as marginalized communities, and she wishes that everyone can have a voice in game development and a future in the industry.

Maria Jose Felix Vega

Mel Ramsden is a Technical Game Designer at Flight School Studio, developer of the 2020 indie gem STONEFLY. They’ve also worked on Star Wars and Mass Effect, and hopes to someday say hello to every animal that has ever existed.
 
Growing up unable to afford new games or consoles, Mel fell in love with what they had. Sonic, Spyro, and Skyrim unlocked a passion for creating their own games, and ensuring all kinds of players could enjoy them.
 
Mel sees every project as a fresh opportunity – not only to design delightful experiences or unforgettable boss battles, but to build games in the most inclusive way possible! Whether it’s designing for accessibility, elevating marginalized voices, Mel is driven to make the games industry a more welcoming place for every kind of player and creator.
 
With so much creativity across the games industry we’ve yet to see, Mel hopes to create games and creative spaces where new voices flourish. For every experience gained along the way, Mel pays it forward, sharing with colleagues, students, aspiring game developers, and anyone who enjoys listening to a good ramble!
 
Mel lives in Montreal with their two cats, Raylan and Holmes, and scheming, unstoppable dwarf rabbit Ganon.

Mel Ramsden

Melissa “Memo” Moorehead is a Quality Engineer for Minecraft. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest with the gaming industry right in her backyard, she's had a controller in her hands for over 20 years. She never imagined having a career in games growing up, but everything changed when she picked up the first Mass Effect. It became a means of coping with intense anxiety, and of exploring gender and sexuality. Since then, she's been determined to create and support similar introspective experiences for others. She reached a crossroads after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree when she rejected a paralegal job offer to join Xbox.

A member of various women-led gaming communities, Melissa has advocated for greater transparency and fewer barriers, from speaking with Xbox's EVP and the WiG ERG about recent abuse and harassment in the industry to moderating the #ACSisterhood Discord server of individuals rallying for better treatment of women both within games and developing them. She's also a vocal defender of QA, and that moving quality further upstream will reap benefits for games, developers, and players of all types. When we openly collaborate, prioritize authenticity, and embrace vulnerability, we learn, we grow, and we create space for more people to join us. Gaming is a large, dysfunctional family, and it will be a privilege to see our passion and creativity shift the culture forward and change the world for the better.

Melissa Moorehead

In 2011, while serving as an active duty officer in the US Army, Mike Luckett was involved in a motorcycle accident and received a spinal cord injury, leaving him a C6 quadriplegic. Medically retired from the Army at the rank of Captain, he made it his new mission to be an active advocate for spinal cord injuries and a volunteer in his community, giving newly diagnosed spinal cord injury patients a catalyst in rehabilitation.  As an avid gamer, he considers adaptive gaming the key to opening doors for independence. Gaming was his catalyst to independence. Mike truly believes the future of gaming will include everyone, no matter their situation. If gaming becomes accessible for him, it can be accessible for everyone and everyone wins. You can catch him live streaming on Twitch, as MikeTheQuad, where he loudly advocates for accessibility in gaming. Mike resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his service dog Pixie.

Mike Luckett

Miranda Due (Pawnee/Cherokee) is an Indigenous game developer originally from Mvskoke Territory (Tulsa, OK), now working remotely in Tvlse (Tulsa). She currently works at Treyarch on the production team, where she supports the Core Engine and Tech Art teams. Miranda graduated from USC in 2016 with degrees in Interactive Entertainment and International Relations. While at USC, Miranda helped found the Native American Student Assembly, a university-recognized organization to support Native American students. After graduation, Miranda completed the George Washington University Native American Political Leadership program in 2017 where she worked at the White House Initiative for Native American and Alaska Native Education and focused on policy related to Native language preservation.
 Miranda has spent time working in production in mobile games (Emoji Charades), film, themed entertainment (National Comedy Center, National Cowgirl Museum, Colorado Center for Fine Arts), and AR/VR (Magnopus/Expo 2020) before landing her current position in AAA games. Miranda is committed to increasing diversity in the games industry and prioritizes elevating indigenous voices in all of her work, as well as supporting her fellow indigenous developers. In 2021 Miranda curated the Games 4 Change Indigenous Spotlight, helping to elevate the work and voices of indigenous game developers. She regularly speaks on the topics of indigenous representation in media and games and works within her company to lead and organize DE&I efforts. Miranda has advised on a variety of projects and media with indigenous characters, stories, and imagery, and is constantly pushing storytellers to tell authentic stories with authentic voices.   Outside of work, Miranda stays busy serving her tribal community on the Board of Directors for the Pawnee Nation Museum where she hopes to help her tribe build a new museum. She served on the board of IGDA Los Angeles Chapter as Vice Chair and Chair and is currently the Impact and Inclusion Chair for the Women of Cinematic Arts organization. In her spare time, Miranda enjoys watching Jeopardy, baking delicious treats, taking care of her many plants, and of course, playing games.

Miranda Due

Nikki Crenshaw leads User Research efforts for the Warcraft franchise at Blizzard Entertainment. Additionally, she leads Blizzard’s accessibility initiative, spearheading the program over the last 4 years through company-wide education, advocacy, process improvement, and knowledge-sharing across ABK studios. Nikki established multiple avenues for accessibility feedback in Blizzard games and products, including directly connecting disabled players with developers and creating the company’s Accessibility Research program.

Prior to working for Blizzard, Nikki obtained her PhD in Informatics from the University of California in Irvine, studying social affordances, community building, and the effects of cultural ideologies on player behavior in original World of Warcraft private servers.
 
For Nikki, the future of gaming should emphasize inclusivity by challenging the status quo of what games are today. Games User Research allows developers to utilize scientifically rigorous methods to include players directly in the development process. This is especially relevant for underrepresented player groups in our communities: players with disabilities, players of diverse genders, players of varying ages, and more. Through her work at Blizzard, Nikki hopes to participate in creating a future for gaming that includes epic entertainment experiences that ALL players can enjoy.

Nikki Crenshaw

<a href="https://www.rkowert.com/" target="_blank" class="underline duration-500 font-bold hover:bg-accent1 text-white transition">Rachel Kowert, Ph.D</a> is a research psychologist and the Research Director of <a href="http://www.takethis.org/" target="_blank" class="underline duration-500 font-bold hover:bg-accent1 text-white transition">Take This</a>. She is a world-renowned researcher on the uses and effects of digital games, including their impact on physical, social, and psychological well-being. An award-winning author, she has published a variety of books and scientific articles relating to the psychology of games and, more recently, the relationship between games and mental health specifically. Her published works include <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Video-Game-Debate-Rachel-Kowert/dp/1138831638/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=video+game+debate&qid=1628202772&sr=8-1" target="_blank" class="underline duration-500 font-bold hover:bg-accent1 text-white transition">The Video Game Debate</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0829PXWFM/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1" target="_blank" class="underline duration-500 font-bold hover:bg-accent1 text-white transition">Video Games and Well-being: Press Start</a>, as well as community-focused books such as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MRRY502/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i4" target="_blank" class="underline duration-500 font-bold hover:bg-accent1 text-white transition">A Parent’s Guide to Video Games</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082R2DZN8/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3" target="_blank" class="underline duration-500 font-bold hover:bg-accent1 text-white transition">Pragmatic Princess</a>. Recently, she founded her YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/psychgeist" target="_blank" class="underline duration-500 font-bold hover:bg-accent1 text-white transition">Psychgeist</a>, which serves to bridge the gap between moral panic and scientific knowledge on a variety of psychology and game-related topics.  Her hopes for the future of gaming are its continued destigmatization in society and more widespread recognition of the opportunities it provides for connection, growth, learning, and mental health.  Dr. Kowert currently resides in Ottawa and is an avid fan of pugs, avocado toast, and The Witcher.

Rachel Kowert, Ph.D

Rodrigo Hernández Ferzuli is an Audio Engineer from Mexico City, currently working as a Sound Designer & Game Audio Implementer at Amber - Game Development & Studio Services Agency. You can listen to his work on the latest Tetris®️ videogame for the Apple Arcade platform, called Tetris®️ Beat. He is very interested and passionate about interactive audio and its applications in the Industry, reason why he also serves as an official IGDA Mentor for anyone interested in the Game Audio world.
 
Rodrigo has followed the Game Development Industry for several years by now. Being Mexican and witnessing a Latam Video Game Industry that is slowly growing over the years, starting with the increase of indie games developed and the budget with which they are made, up to noticing how foreign companies (publishers & developers) are increasingly interested in professionals from Latin America and in games developed in that region. 
 
He also considers that Game Audio is an area that has always been seen as unimportant or less than others, and more so in slow developing countries like those in Latam. Reason why, Rodrigo co-founded a Latin American Game Audio Community called Game Audio Latam (https://www.gameaudiolatam.org/), that focuses on supporting game audio professionals, students, and audio enthusiasts from the Latam region. It is an inclusive space for people to learn, network, share knowledge and experiences so that everyone can further develop the Game Audio scene in the region. With less than a year of launching, the community is already 500+ members. Rodrigo strongly believes this is a huge step for the Latam Game Audio and Game development industry (and in the American continent in general).

Rodrigo Ferzuli

Sarah Makdad has always had a driving passion for building and nurturing healthy, inclusive online gaming communities. Based in Paris, France, Sarah is the corporate community developer at publisher Focus Entertainment, and has worked on games including A Plague Tale: Innocence, GreedFall and Hardspace: Shipbreaker.

She believes that by hiring and trusting diverse talents and focusing on inclusivity, companies and organisations will be quicker to develop and attain wholesome healthy communities.

Sarah volunteers at Women in Games France, and is also a board member and community manager at Friendship Garden, a non-profit dedicated to advocating for inclusivity in games and empowering marginalized game makers. She recently hosted the ‘Arab Voices in Games’ panel at Games For Change 2021, and was subsequently invited to host a special episode of The Habibis podcast. She was honored to be listed on the 2021 She Plays Games 100 List, celebrating women who are having a positive impact and pushing boundaries within the games industry, as well as receiving two nominations at The*gameHERs Awards in the same year.

She hopes for a global end to toxicity and violence towards minorities, as well as a greater cultural and geographical equality.

Sarah Makdad

Shandiin Yazzie Woodward is a Diné (Navajo) game creator and artist from Albuquerque, NM who is known for her work on Button City. She is the co-founder and art director at Subliminal, where she helps spearhead her studio’s projects and crafts colorful worlds and characters. Shandiin has done design work for Meow Wolf, a multiverse art installation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her games have been selected in the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and she won their Best Game award in 2015. She is a prominent member in her local game community and co-founded the Albuquerque Game Developers Guild, a 501c3 group to help game developers in New Mexico, and she is also a regular game jam organizer. Shandiin is proud to be a visible indigenous game developer and her goal is to inspire other indigenous people in the industry, creating a space for native expression in video games. Shandiin continues to be a driving force of creativity and design at Subliminal, where they are now working on their next major project.

Shandiin Yazzie Woodward

Simon Ducharme is a Montréal-based scriptwriter, currently working on the narrative team of Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege. As a queer non-binary person who started gaming at a young age, he believes that gaming is and should be a powerful medium to help each other understand the world, who we live alongside of, and the kind of people we want to be.

With his current role being his first in developing narrative, he was responsible for creating Siege’s first official gay man and trans woman, respectively: Flores, the Argentinian master thief, and Osa, the Croatian robotics genius.

Simon is dedicated to making games and their communities more inclusive and respectful, and often takes to social media to bring subjects of social justice to the attention of players who rarely get confronted with realities outside of their own. He hopes to continue this education by creating more marginalized characters and showing that they too can lead and inhabit compelling stories.

Simon Ducharme

Smart Hopewell is a Dyslexic black British interactive filmmaker and creative based in Edinburgh, Scotland. For the past 15 years as a filmmker, graphics designer, creative, musician and writer. 

Smart's work combines a rich blend of interactive gameplay, cinematics and content creation to create game exclusive fan series and  mini-docu series to inspire and encourage viewers with a message of hope.

His hope for the future of gaming is to see more accessibility provided within the industry and genres of games expanded to provide more meaningful, uplifting and educational experiences to provide.

Smart Hopewell

SrBilyon Harris is the CEO and Game Director of Stormy Nights Interactive in Dallas, TX, leading the development of Breeze in the Clouds with a globally diverse team of creatives. He was one of 3 winners of the Lenovo Tech Trip in 2011 and was selected for Capybara Games Mentorship in 2020.
SrBilyon was born in Waukegan, Illinois, and grew up in Marietta, Georgia. At a young age, he’s always had an entrepreneurial spirit and an urge to lead and improve anything he touches. Thanks to his early exposure to video games and computers, he began making gaming magazines and comics as early as elementary school, made his way into designing games by high school, and participated in game jams to build his skills during his college years.
He’s mentored several of his college peers and local high school students within his community, teaching what he’s learned through indie game development, tech, and multimedia. This inspired him to put a focus towards making games with educational elements. He is striving for a future where creators of different backgrounds can have access to the resources needed to create or be a part of the process of creating the content they enjoy.

SrBilyon Harris

Stephanie has been gaming since the day her father gave her a copy of the shareware game Captain Comic. In university, she fell in love with coding and found her passion working in computer graphics. In her 5 years on Far Cry 6, Stephanie has been able to touch many different aspects of the game. She joined the games industry and Ubisoft after taking a pause to stay home with her kids until they were old enough to go to school. Prior to that, she worked on the Academy Award winning software Maya, bringing leadership to the rendering programming team.
 
Stephanie has become a professional programmer twice in her career. This experience makes her passionate about being a mentor, a role model, and a volunteer to help people break barriers and make the games dev community more inclusive. As a part of Ubisoft Toronto, Stephanie speaks to schools, mentors interns and students, and is one of the leaders of the Ubisoft Toronto’s Women Employee Resource Group. Stephanie wants to create a game dev community that lifts people up, fosters a culture of curiosity and learning, and builds a place for diverse people to thrive.

Stephanie Brenham

Married and father of 3 children, Steve Durán is a video game developer from México. Steve is the founder and CEO of Ogre Pixel. Along with his wife, Steve started creating games in 2014 as a hobby, once he and his wife finished their very first game they released it under the ""Ogre Pixel"" brand. 

Steve began creating video games during his spare time while working full time. Little by little, the Ogre Pixel games began to gain notoriety and finally, in 2018 Steve was able to leave his job to dedicate himself full time to creating video games. 

Steve and his team Ogre Pixel are the creators of successful mobile games Warcher Defenders, Swipe Casters and Black Tower Enigma. Steve and his team Ogre Pixel also created Jumper Jon, the first Mexican video game on Apple Arcade, which was also part of the initial 100 titles of the platform. Today, Ogre Pixel is a studio composed of 10 passionate creators. Ogre Pixel is currently working on Lonesome Village, their first title for PC and Consoles. 

Steve was selected as one of the 100 most creative Mexicans in the world by Forbes magazine in 2019.

Steve Durán

Thomas Knowlton is the school librarian at The High School of Fashion Industries in New York City where he hosts a weekly game club and facilitates student-led game design. He holds a Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of Georgia and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Rutgers State University.  For the past decade, he has curated games at large public events, such as International Games Day and Summer Reading Games Day at The New York Public Library, and Teens Take The Met! at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as open invitations for the general public to engage with tabletop, virtual reality, and videogames.  He loves to explore the intersection of games, libraries, and education in a way that celebrates how play connects us as students, parents, and educators. To this end, he frequently speaks on using games in educational spaces, as a guest lecturer at Brooklyn College and Queens College and as a panelist at New York Comic Con, and contributes articles to School Library Journal highlighting how educators can utilize games in their work with children and teens.

Thomas Knowlton

Victoria Caña is a Forbes 30 Under 30 game developer on a mission to bring more diverse, accessible, and inspiring games to the world. By day, she is a Lead Producer at Riot Games for Legends of Runeterra in Los Angeles where she oversees a multi-disciplinary team of developers to create new, exciting gameplay content for players. By night, she is a co-founder and designer at Cat Quartet Games, a boutique tabletop game studio most known for the award-winning board game Gladius, which raised $100k on Kickstarter. Before Riot, Victoria was a producer and product strategist at Wizards of the Coast where she worked on some of the most beloved games of all time: Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. While at WotC, Victoria co-founded Wizards of Color & Allies, an employee resource group focused on uplifting and creating a community for BIPOCs. In her free time, Victoria is on the Board of Directors for the charitable organization Game Pathways, mentors marginalized game developers in the Code Coven program, and designs digital game experiences such as the award-winning Hazel the Plant Witch and Lam’s Untitled Neon.

Victoria Caña

Victoria Tran is the Community Director at Innersloth, creators of the game Among Us. She has guided and maintained the game's success, leading the communications strategy, community, and marketing - with a lot of help! Plus Victoria has notable appearances in places like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Twitch stream and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. 

Previously, she worked as the Communications Director at Kitfox Games (Boyfriend Dungeon, Dwarf Fortress, more) and was the Community Strategist for the cozy puzzle game Unpacking. Originally from Canada, and of Vietnamese descent, she helps run Game & Colour, a group that supports and amplifies Canadian game developers of colour.

Victoria uses sociology and ethics to create practical, sustainable, and kinder online communities. She aims to create successful game communities at all scales that value personal connection, champion ethical practices in the industry, and provide care for their most vulnerable members. To her, the game industry can do more than just survive - it can thrive, and that starts with connections, community, and action.

Victoria Tran

Zaire Lanier is a writer and narrative designer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her first gaming experience was KOTOR at the age of ten until she bought a PS3 from a sketchy parking lot guy she found through Craigslist at the age of twenty. This reignited her love of story-driven games, and she soon began participating in game jams, discovering a like-minded community online.

A 2020 IGDA Scholar, Zaire is the author of Bone Herder, an Afrofuturistic fantasy horror comic that earned 80k on Kickstarter and has since been picked up for publishing in 2022. She has also worked at Compulsion and earned her first AAA credit on the popular Subnautica franchise. She uses her work to influence the changes she’d like to see in the world using the skills at her disposal.

Zaire believes the future of gaming is diverse, accessible, and inclusive. She feels strongly that games are for everyone and is excited to see marginalized devs create experiences and characters that authentically and fully reflect their interiority as human beings.

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