On February 23, 2021, the XPRIZE Connect Code Games Challenge will announce 17 next-gen winners in the world’s first international youth gaming competition. But who are the gaming and tech industry experts that evaluated the designs and tested the gaming experiences?
MEET THE JUDGES BEHIND THE CODE GAMES CHALLENGE
Eyram Tawia, Co-Founder and CEO of Leti Arts
As a game developer, Eyram believes that Africa can make a salient contribution to the world of game development and preserve culture through this. He has pioneered developing the gaming industry in Africa with Leti Arts. Eyram believes preserving cultural diversity through gaming and entertainment is very important and aims to prove this by creating world class games and comics using African talent. He's won several awards for his work in the African video game development space, a frequent speaker at game conferences globally and an author with his book Uncompromising Passion documenting his Journey as an African video game developer.
Shirin Laor-Raz Salemnia, Founder and CEO of PlayWerks and WhizGirls Academy
PlayWerks is an interactive media company that creates multi-platform immersive experiences. At WhizGirls Academy students engage in project based learning with tech literacy while acquiring coding skills, entrepreneurship tools, and building confidence as members of their communities using gamification with a healthy balanced lifestyle slant. As a thought leader and tech pioneer, she has created programs for The White House Council of Women and Girls and collaborated with President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden at the Reach Higher Education Summit at the White House. In 2013, she hosted the first Hackathon for Women and Girls with The White House. In May 2014, she hosted the Kids Hack for LA in collaboration with Mayor Eric Garcetti, the White House, and will.i.am's i.am.angel Foundation. Salemnia is also a TEDx speaker and was an esteemed panelist at the Milken Institute Global Conference. Salemnia has been honored with these exemplary distinctions: The Los Angeles City Pioneer Woman of the Year and the IJWO Woman of the Year awards. In October 2015, She was honored as a Tribeca Disruptor Innovation Fellow. And she is currently an Advisor to the Bixel Exchange and on the Executive Committee for the Television Academy's Interactive Media Peer Group.
Dennis Mathews, CEO of Revelation Interactive
Dennis Mathews is Founder and CEO of Revelation Interactive and CTO at Codicast Interactive. Co-founder of Black in Gaming (BIG) which is dedicated to cultivating, supporting, and promoting people of color in the game industry. He was mentioned as 1 of the top 10 African American game developers by Black Enterprise. He is an avid programmer and has been programming for over 15+ years for games, websites, hardware, and custom business applications. His expertise has been composed of evaluating and integrating new technologies and platforms which include AR/VR, casino, entertainment, game development, and oil & gas industries.
Heather Chandler, Gaming Consultant
Heather Chandler makes games. During her 25-year career in video game development, including 3 years as a Sr Producer on Fortnite, Heather has led teams at E-Line Media, Epic Games, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Activision. She’s published several books and articles on making games and has lectured about it around the world In 2019, Heather combined her love of games, passion for team-building, and entrepreneurial dreams to launch Whole Brain Escape, an escape room in Apex, NC. With four real-life adventure games in a 3,000 square foot facility, it provides immersive, interactive fun for everyone. She is a strong advocate of STEM education, and is committed to providing opportunities for students of all ages to get excited and engaged in STEM. Find out more about her at HeatherMakesGames.com.
Virginia McArthur, Executive Producer of Endless
Virginia McArthur believes that to give our kids the future they deserve, we need to give agency for learning and creation back to our students and make building using the whole body and senses the norm. Presently, as the executive producer at Endless Studios, her team builds platforms for kids to play and build games that also teaches them to code. Prior to Endless, she was the Executive Director of Dynamicland, part of YCombinator Research, building a community and space that was the computer itself. Previously, Virginia was an executive producer for social games and chief of staff at Zynga and spent nine years building interactive play spaces at Maxis with The Sims Online and the original Sims for Electronic Arts. In addition to production, while at Zynga, she co-founded the company's social gaming for good, Zynga.org, bringing social goods to pay-to-play games. Virginia began her career as a medical illustrator and producer in the 1990s and got into gaming after being recruited to work on one of Mattel’s first games for girls, Barbie Magic Hairstyler. Virginia lives in California with her two children; Bryce 14, Bella 11 and her husband, Chris. Free time is sparse, but when she finds a few moments, she is either out hiking, cross country skiing or raising the small farm of quail, cat, dog, fish and fruit trees in her yard.
Join us virtually on February 23rd at XPRIZE Presents: Code Games Challenge Winners Celebration. Register today here.