Jason is the founder of Perimeter Partners, a consultancy focused on developing game industry clusters around the world in partnership with stakeholders from government, academia and the game industry. For nearly nine years, he served as the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a professional society committed to advancing the game industry and the careers of developers. Jason was honored for his industry building efforts with the inaugural Ambassador Award at the 8th annual Game Developers Choice Awards. He continues to be an advocate for the expressive power of games and their capacity to change the world.

As a sought-after expert on the game industry, Jason has spoken at conferences worldwide (e.g., GDC, Tokyo Game Show, Nordic Game, ChinaJoy, etc), lectured at top universities (e.g., National University of Singapore, McGill, University of Tokyo, Penn State, etc), and has written for or been interviewed by countless news outlets (e.g., Wired, Edge, Nightline, LA Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, The Escapist, etc).

Jason has been a member of the game industry for over a dozen years, and has previously worked at IGDA, CMP, Quazal, Matrox Graphics, Silicon Graphics and Price Waterhouse. He blogs at www.realitypanic.com and can be reached via Jason [at] PerimeterPartners.com.

Sessions: KEY1, S0D, S1F

Jim Brazell is a technology forecaster, researcher and public speaker focusing on community competitiveness, educational innovation, emerging technology and emerging jobs.  Jim’s clients include think tanks, companies, universities, community colleges, workforce boards, economic development organizations and K-12 schools. Jim delivers 35 speeches a year with recent keynotes related to video games and technology, engineering, arts, mathematics and science (TEAMS) for the Orlando Science Center, National School Boards technology and Learning Conference, National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Centers, Defense Language Institute, Naval Post Graduate School, Bio Terrorism Summit, National Security Agency, US Army Morale, Recreation and Welfare Annual Conference, Norwegian and Portuguese International Conference for Technology Policy and Innovation, and the Casey Journalism Center for Families and Children and SxSW. Jim’s mentor is Dr. Francis X.

Kane (USAF ret.), a principal member of “Project Forecast”, one of the most comprehensive long-range assessments of military science and technology undertaken just after the launch of Sputnik. To learn more about Jim visit www.ventureramp.com.

Sessions: SK2

Adam Hatch is the Lead Level Designer at Tripwire Interactive. In 2003 Adam was originally involved in the Make Something Unreal Contest modification, Red Orchestra, that in 2005 spun off the creation of Tripwire Interactive and the retail release of Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. Before Tripwire Interactive was started Adam parted ways and worked in the Serious Games industry for 3 years and then 2008 he rejoined the Tripwire team. Adam has since then worked on the retail release of Killing Floor and the unreleased sequel, Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad. Adam is self-taught and has been working professionally in the games industry for nearly 5 years.

Sessions:

Adam Gensler works at GamesThatWork in Atlanta, developing a COLLADA parser and editor for use with 3D engines. Adam started programming in the mid 1980’s, when he got his first computer. Since then, he has been interested in programming and game design as a hobby, and has recently decided to make a career or it. He is currently attending the Art Institute of Atlanta.

Sessions:

Al Meyers is President of Saisei Consulting, a provider of strategy and corporate development advisory services to early-stage, growth-stage and mature digital media companies around the world. Al is on the advisory board of several local and national gaming startups. Many of Al’s current clients are based in Korea, and as part of these activities, he is working in tandem with the Georgia Department of Economic Development to help encourage such companies to establish their North America operations in the state of Georgia. Meyers has 18+ years of experience in the media and entertainment industry with several Fortune 100 companies. Most recently, Meyers served as VP, Strategic Planning at Turner Broadcasting where he was also a founding member of Game Tap, and helped facilitate the sale of Game Tap to a French company in 2008. Meyers spent nearly 13 years at the company (1995-2008). Al is currently collaborating on a book with clinical psychologist Reid Daitzman about how cyberspace behavior has impacted the lives of young consumers around the world. Tentatively titled “Love At First Byte,” the book will explore these issues in new and creative ways, providing a lens for the average person to re-think what they do, and why, all day. The book is expected to be published in 2010.

Sessions: S5F

Alan started his working career in the oil industry 25 years ago, moving later to the defence sector, culminating in 2 posts as a Managing Director within GEC-Marconi. This was followed by working for a number of major names in the finance sector, such as JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and New York.

Alan has been a military historian for 25 years, mixing that with game design over the same period. With a regular career in Information Technology, that included periods project managing major military solutions for current and future battlefield C3I concepts, Alan returned to the games industry with the new breed of WWII-themed FPS games. This started with bringing both military and project management expertise to a modification for Medal of Honor, called “The Russian Front”. This was followed by a shift to “Red Orchestra”, primarily to bring the historical expertise to bear.

When the team won the MSU contest, Alan supported the creation of Tripwire Interactive LLC along with the other key players in the original team. Alan worked on the design, budgeting and planning of the development of “Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45”, as well as focussing on raising the required funding for the company to develop the game completely independently.

With the development phase complete, Alan concentrated on generating the PR and marketing attention required for a major game launch, with the eventual result that the game achieved well over 120 reviews world-wide, scored in the top 10% on Metacritic for 2006 and has now sold over 400,000 units on PC worldwide.

Since then, Tripwire has gone on to launch the hit co-op zombie shooter, Killing Floor, which went to #1 in the Steam sales charts and has now announced the follow-up to Red Orchestra – “Heroes of Stalingrad”. Tripwire has pioneered selling games digitally, alongside traditional retail routes to market, with great success.

Alan has focused on the financial management and funding of the company, as well as the continued business development and PR over that time. Tripwire is now in its fifth year, with two hit PC titles delivered and a third on the way, fully-funded, profitable and completely independent – one of the very few developers to achieve this position.

Sessions: S5F

Andrew Greenberg, best known for designing computer games and roleplaying games, co-created the “Fading Suns” roleplaying and computer games, recently developed “Rapture d20,” and was the original developer of White Wolf’s “Vampire: The Masquerade.” He has credits on more than 50 White Wolf products and more than 20 HDI books. He has also worked on products with other roleplaying game companies, including “Star Trek Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine.” His computer game credits include Dracula Unleashed, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Warhammer 40K: Final Liberation, Merchant Prince II, Mall Tycoon, Dungeon Lords, and more. He began teaching game design at the Art Institute of Atlanta in 2006, and serves on the International Game Developers Association Curriculum Committee. He regularly writes for publications as diverse as Prick Magazine and the Matthew Bender legal reference series. Very active with a variety of causes and organizations, in 2006 he co-chaired both the Environmental Design Research Association and Mythic Journeys conventions in Atlanta, and coordinated the Human Forum in Puerto Rico.

Sessions: S7E

As Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Andy Ross is responsible for broadening the presence of Florida Virtual School within the United States and the international educational marketplace.  Mr. Ross brings to his present position extensive experience in management, marketing and customer service.  During his twenty-nine years at IBM and IBM Business Partners, he provided total hardware, software, and services solutions to educational clients throughout USA.  Immediately prior to accepting his current position with FLVS, Mr. Ross served as the Executive Director for the Fulton Education Foundation for Fulton County Schools in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mr. Ross’ decision to join the FLVS team was motivated by his commitment to education and to the use of technology to support instruction. He believes that the world of virtual learning offers increasingly greater possibilities for enhancing and broadening K-12 education.  He also believes that FLVS is uniquely positioned to be the preeminent leader in the effort to provide high-quality educational opportunities to students, regardless of where they may live.  Mr. Ross earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and Organizational Behavior from the Business School at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Sessions: S5F

Ben Knapp
Senior Character Artist/ Concept Artist
Hi-Rez Studios

Ben is a Senior Character Artist at Hi-Rez Studios in Alpharetta GA. He is responsible for creating concept art and creating game ready assets for Global Agenda. Ben has worked in the game industry for 5 years and has contributed to a handful of titles aside from Global Agenda, including Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41 - 45, Rockband, Rockband: Beatles, and Borderlands. He holds a BS in Media Arts and Animation from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Ben's interests include Basketball, Digital Sculpting, Drawing, Videogames, Fitness, Martial Arts, and Comic Books. His favorite games include Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Call of Duty 4, Street Fighter, and Tekken.

In Global Agenda, Ben paves the way with the Assualt class utilizing the concussion grenades and sticky launcher. At Hi-Rez he enjoys the work atmosphere, daily playtests, and the freedom to come up with creative ideas for concept work, both in the 2d and 3d realm. He also loves tearing up the court with coworkers in an occasional Hi-Rez game of basketball.

Sessions: S3F, S6H

Bill Bridges is an MMO game designer at CCP NA | White Wolf. He is the co-creator of the "Fading Suns" science fiction game universe, and is the lead designer of the award-winning Storytelling system rules for all of White Wolf's World of Darkness games. He designed and developed the award-winning games "Mage: The Awakening" and "Promethean: The Created", and developed "Werewolf: the Apocalypse". His novels include "The Silver Crown" and "Last Battle". He has also written for Chaosium, and helped develop Last Unicorn's "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" roleplaying games. He co-wrote the scripts for Viacom's interactive horror movie "Dracula Unleashed", Interplay's "Starfleet Academy", and contributed to world design for Segasoft's "Emperor of the Fading Suns". He is an advisor for the Mythic Imagination Institute and co-chairs the content committee for Atlanta's Mythic Journeys conferences.

Sessions: S1A

Bill is an IT industry veteran, having attained numerous certifications from Cisco, Novell, Microsoft, Oracle and VMware. He has been instrumental in architecting and implementing the Virtualized Services division of Peak 10's Managed Services continuum and grew the division into a successful business unit, establishing Peak 10 as a VMware VIP Enterprise partner. Currently, as Solutions Design Manager, Bill engages directly with customers, helping them design and implement solutions that scale with their changing business needs. Bill has also been an avid gamer much of his life and understands the significance of sound, technical solutions for game companies' IT infrastructures. Bill’s varied and deep experience lends itself to assisting customers with database, server and virtualization infrastructure, network and security design particulars. Leveraging this expertise, Peak 10 assists gaming industry companies with developing and maintaining robust infrastructures that are highly-secure and perform up to the high standards of today’s gamers.

Sessions:

Bill Munk started his exploration as an artist and animator at a very early age, making flip books and drawing daily starting at the age of 5. He quickly became fascinated by the concept of bringing art work to life. In high school, he began making animated shorts on Commodore computers and exploring with 3d software. From that point, he was hooked and decided to put all his creative talent into making animation solely with 3d software. After graduating, he was awarded 3 scholarships which landed him enrollment at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. During that time period, he fine tuned his skills as a modeler, animator and story teller, making 3 animated shorts. After graduating, Bill landed a job at Trimetro Pictures, a motion pictures development house, as a lead animator. After a year of working in the motion picture industry, Bill realized that his true calling was in video games so he began work on Hostile Intent, a modification on Half-life. Following this, he became aware of Red Orchestra, a total Conversion for UT2003 and the rest was history. He started as a player animator for RO then over a 2 year time period he worked his way up to lead animator, working heavily on weapon animations. He became the Art Director, helping the team win multiple phases in the unreal competition and the grand finals. During his Art Director position, Bill still could not resist but to still heavily get his hands dirty in the project by working on everything from modeling, rigging to animation. After 10 years of exploration in art and 3d graphics, Bill made his dream come true as a co-founder of Tripwire Interactive, with responsibilities as Art Director and Lead Animator. He has realized his ultimate goal to become fully involved in the next generation of Video Game Developers.

Sessions: S5F

Blake Sorensen is a registered patent attorney in the Atlanta office of Merchant & Gould with experience in drafting and prosecuting patent applications, writing patent opinions, and trademark registration.  Prior to joining the firm's electronics and computer law practice group, Mr. Sorensen amassed seven years of industry experience in user interface design, statistical analysis software development, online computer game development and management, and embedded systems development.  He is a member of the Intellectual Property and Science and Technology Sections of the American Bar Association and serves on the Virtual Worlds and Multi-User Online Games, Open Source Software, and Information Security committees.

Sessions: S7E

As Lead Game Designer for Cartoon Network’s Games Studio, Brad Merritt has designed and directed dozens of games for CartoonNetwork.com and AdultSwim.com. While working in the web design industry, Brad started creating Flash games in 1999. He lives with his wife in Atlanta, where he is the organizer of the Atlanta Game Developer Meetup and has served as a guest instructor at the Art Institute of Atlanta.

Sessions: S0F

Brian Cauble has been working in software for almost ten years in fields ranging from the financial industry to forestry GIS. He has worked on both the leading Forestry GIS system in the US and the world's largest Factoring management software. Over the years he worked his way up from writing the software to managing development teams to creating actual development departments. However, over the last couple of years, something was missing. Brian had a strong urge to go out on his own. When deciding what kind of company to create, he kept coming back to his fascination with mobile phones, especially the iPhone. In 2009, Appsolute Genius was started with his partner, Andria Jensen, and they have been creating exciting, fun iPhone applications ever since. Applications such as 1000Words and Alarm clock nightstand are already released and applications such as My Audio Bio, Pimp My Ultrasound, and the Alabama gameday app are coming soon.

Sessions:

Dr. Casey O'Donnell has worked as a software engineer and project manager both in and out of the videogame industry. He has done scientific data visualization work for Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) funded by the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). He worked for a videogame development company in La Jolla, California doing 3D sound system work for the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Windows and Mac OS computers. He worked for an Autodesk subcontractor doing design automation and tools development. His research has spanned studios from Vicarious Visions to RedOctane in India and has been funded by the NSF and NIH. He has presented at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) and at meetings of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). He is currently the Athens Chapter President of the Georgia Game Developers Association (GGDA) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Telecommunications.

Sessions: S5B

Chris Dodson has been playing and making games all of his life. He began his professional career as a game artist and game designer for Imagine Role Playing. He and several partners started Immrama Entertainment in 1999, where he designed for the game Legynds. Chris now teaches game design at SCAD Atlanta while working on side projects. He maintains ownership and interest in Legynds, and acts as lead designer and creative director for the indie company Hatboy Studios.

Sessions: S3G

Chris Groegler is a Senior Sound Designer at Ubisoft – Red Storm Entertainment, where he has worked on the critically-acclaimed Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon franchises. With over 15 years of industry experience, he’s credited on over 20 published titles, and is currently working on an unannounced multi-platform title. He has extensive field recording experience covering a variety of locales, including Japan, Central America, Canada, and multiple US locations. In addition to his work in games, he also mixes live sporting events for the Carolina Hurricanes and North Carolina State football and basketball programs, and has served as a re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor for private and film festival-circuit films.

Christopher Sabat has worked as an audio professional for over 10 years. Throughout his career he has been active in voiceover, voice direction, casting, composition, sound design and digital media.

Before founding OkraTron 5000, he was the senior voice director at FUNimation Productions, responsible for casting, directing, and starring in the hit animated series Dragonball Z, as well as a many other cartoons, videogames, and voiceover projects.

Outside of the daily management of the studio, Chris works as an actor on anime, cartoons, videogames, and as a commercial voiceover talent for national campaigns. Though his schooling at the University of North Texas was primarily in opera, Chris also tailored his studies to Radio, Television and Film. It was at the University of North Texas where he originally met most of the members of the OkraTron team, and has worked with them in various capacities throughout the years.

Though music and voice are his first loves, his other passion is videogames. Influenced by his true gamer father, Chris was fortunate enough to experience every console from the original Pong through Intellivision, Colecovision, Oddessy, Nintendo, Playstation and any other system you've ever heard of. The great fortune of being able to work in the videogame industry today keeps him happy and interested in upholding and raising the standards of game audio so that the next generation of gamers can experience the same joys of gaming he did when he was a kid.

Being an almost 20 year veteran in the IT Industry, Chris has worked as a network and database engineer, programmer and consultant in various European TOP 100 companies. After working with the original Red Orchestra mod team and then Tripwire Interactive for many years, he decided it was time to follow his dreams and moved to Georgia. Chris is currently working on Killing Floor and Tripwire's upcoming title Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad as a game play programmer.

Sessions:

Chuk's current major focus is the design, oversight, and final implementation of Global Agenda's city social spaces. His overall responsibilities include developing concept art, overall art direction, pipeline architecture and management, art integration, Pixel-Shader based GUI development and general art systems development. He also creates much of the Special Effects art used in Global Agenda. Prior to joining Hi-Rez Studios, Chuk worked on Unreal 2, Wizards & Warriors and Dungeon Lords at Heuristic Park. Chuk holds a BFA in computer Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design. His interests include beer, Games, art, and beer.

Sessions:

Cliff Jacobson is the Lead Engineer at Visioneering Games, an Atlanta-based company specializing in casual games and its flagship PrizeWagon.com free poker website. Cliff has been developing web applications for over 10 years, and loves to share his passion for the technology with an audience.

Sessions: S2F

Mr. Lowe is chief executive officer of C. Allen Lowe & Associates, LLC (www.callenlowe.com), an executive consulting and venture catalyst firm. Mr. Lowe is co-founder of Visioneering Holdings, Inc., and its respective subsidiaries: Visioneering Games, Inc. (www.visioneeringgames.com), SNAP e-Media, Inc. (www.snapemedia.com), and PrizeWagon, Inc. (www.prizewagon.com).  Visioneering Games is an engineering firm that creates casual games for Internet destinations.  SNAP e-Media represents a diverse group of Internet publishers and engages advertisers to provide highly-targeted Internet advertising brokerage and reporting services.  PrizeWagon is a premier Internet destination where players enjoy free games with real prizes.

Sessions: S6F

Courtney L. Perry is a practicing attorney in Atlanta and an adjunct professor at Emory’s Law and Business Schools.  She has a BA from The University of Virginia, a JD with distinction from Emory University School of Law, and an LLM in Law Teaching from Temple University School of Law.  After practicing corporate law in Atlanta for five years, Prof. Perry moved to Philadelphia to teach at Temple Law School as an Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellow.  Upon her return to Atlanta in 2000, she opened her own legal consulting firm which specializes in small and mid sized businesses, with a focus on intellectual property issues and general commercial law.

Sessions: S7E

Colman Bryant
Level Designer
Hi-Rez Studios

Colman has been designing levels at Hi-Rez Studios for the past 3 years. His responsibilities include building levels for both Player vs. Environment (PvE) and Player vs. Player (PvP) missions, working with artists to flesh out concepts and visual themes for levels and regions, as well as designing bot and boss encounters in the game. In addition to his work on Global Agenda, Colman has worked on a number of smaller projects, including the indie title Spectraball, U.K. Lottery Online Instant Win games, and designing music-themed mini-games for the children's title JumpStart World. Colman holds a BS in Computational Media from Georgia Institute of Technology.

When playing Global Agenda, Colman rarely sticks with one class for long, instead attempting to gain a deep understanding of all of them to aid in his level designs (as well as keep his coworkers and beta testers in check). In addition to playing GA, Colman is a long time fan of RPGs, sidescrollers, and platformers, especially those games that fit into multiple genres. When he isn't designing or playing video games, Colman enjoys programming, cooking, playing piano and violin, drawing, and traveling.

Sessions: S6A

.)

Sessions:

Lead producer at Filament Games, Dan (AKA Mr. White) holds a BS in communication technologies from Cornell University and an MS in educational communications and technology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Dan spent four years working at the Cornell Theory Center as development lead on an NSF-funded game project designed to teach advanced genetics concepts to middle school students. He later designed instructional technologies at the UW Division of Information Technology and the Academic ADL Co-Lab. Dan co-founded Filament Games in January 2006. His principal roles at the company include production management, design and art direction, client relations, and strategic planning. Dan's prime professional directive is to deliver game experiences that broaden perspectives, educate, and spark inspiration. Outside of work, Dan is a hobbyist learner (read: a glutton for punishment), continually seeking out new pursuits to try out and be bad at.

Sessions: S5F

Daniel Cazan (Lead Faculty, Game Art and Design, Art Institute of Atlanta) has been working diligently to strengthen the presence of the game industry in Georgia for over four years. In the past Daniel has been the Atlanta Chapter Coordinator for the Georgia Game Developers Association, has worked as Art Lead for Waveform Studios, worked as a contract artist for multiple game studios, and has developed courses for both Savannah College of Art and Design (online) and the Art Institute of Atlanta. His educational background includes a BS in Computer Science from the University of Georgia (Yamacraw certified), an MFA in Computer Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design (focuses on Level Design and Procedural Graphics), and he is currently pursuing an MS in Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology (with specializations in Computer Graphics and Artificial Intelligence).

Sessions: S0H

Daniel Crowder is a partner at Monumental, an interactive software development firm that specializes in providing high-end technology and development services to marketing and communications organizations. For the past 12 years he has helped numerous advertising and interactive agencies, corporate communication departments, and design firms create fantasic user experiences ranging from mobile, web and, of course, game applications.  Monumental has worked with companies ranging in scope from CNN, MTV, The Coca-Cola Company, IBM, Pfizer, Sapient, iCrossing, Saatchi & Saatchi, Sony and many others.  Monumental has been recognized by Apple Computer and Communication Arts.  Daniel has lectured internationally, been an instructor at the Atlanta College of Art and Portfolio Center, and interactive chair for the Atlanta chapter of the AIGA.

Sessions:

Danny Miller is a Flash game developer and designer based in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the founder of K2xL LLC. Since 2001, his games on his website www.k2xl.com have been played millions of times by millions of players from around the world.  
In 2005, Danny was selected as the Editor’s Choice Winner and voted People’s Choice Winner in the Macromedia Student Innovation Award Contest in the Interactive Media category, for his Flash puzzle game Psychopath. His games are featured on thousands of casual gaming websites. Recently, Danny’s work was also featured in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and USA Today’s Tech Space. His games have been written about in online magazines such as The PCMagazine, The Daily Candy, Channel 4 (UK), Jayisgames, BlogCritics, and countless more. His most recent game, Boomshine, has been played over 10 million times and was the proud recipient of two awards from the casual gaming website Kongregate.com.  
In addition to creating games, Danny writes for multiple blogs and consults for various businesses. He is currently developing games and writing game designs for various gaming and adver-gaming companies around the world.

Sessions: S0E

David started his career doing computer graphics and compositing it with green screen/blue screen footage on several science fiction and children’s films for “Trimetro Pictures” in Youngstown, OH.

In 2003 David journeyed to New York City and entered the game industry working for Gameloft as a 3d artist and game designer. He helped lead, design and produce the award winning 3d “Massive Snowboarding” for cutting edge VCast mobile phones.

In 2005 David joined the newly formed Tripwire Interactive in Atlanta, GA to help produce the retail version of the award winning mod “Red Orchestra: Combined Arms.”

As Senior Artist, David was responsible for nailing down many of the art pipelines used in the production of “Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45”. He worked closely with Bill Munk and the other artists in the trenches to help get the mass amount of content finished for the game. His most notable contributions to the game were creating the player models and rigs, assisting in modeling, rigging vehicles and texturing vehicle interiors, creating the art for the “Gore” effects, creating the majority of the effect emitters, and environmental art lead.

Currently David is the Senior Artist on Tripwire’s Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad utilizing Unreal Engine 3 technology.

Sessions: S5F

Dennis Keijzer graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Game and Simulation Programming from DeVry University in March 2008. He was among the first class that graduated with a Game and Simulation Programming degree. Right out of college he was hired by Southern Flow Inc. as a Graphic Systems Engineer. There, his main responsibility is to build the HMI (Human Machine Interface) for the water and wastewater treatment plants where Southern Flow Inc. creates the control systems. By using standardized HMI packages like Wonderware’s Intouch and GE Fanuc’s Proficy iFix, Keijzer incorporates his custom-built graphics and code to interface with the PLC’s (Programmable Logic Controls) to control and monitor the plant.

Sessions: S0D

Derek Kim is the head of strategy department in Eduflo, a leading edutainment company in Republic of Korea specializing in MMORPG combined with education. He has a BA from POSTECH and worked as a management consultant in Booz & Company before joining Eduflo. He currently is in charge of corporate strategy and overseas business targeting global Mandarin market.

Sessions: S5F

Dov is Managing Director of GamesThatWork. This studio designs games to address client-specific problems across many domains including corporate, educational, entertainment and nonprofit organizations.

Recent military work includes contracts with the Navy, ONR, OSD, Army, three different Air Force labs and DARPA. Dov's career in the game industry began in 1979, as a lucky protege of the legendary military gamesmith, Jim Dunnigan.

Sessions: S0C, S3H, S6G

After earning an MFA in Computer Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Eric worked as a Character Artist/Jack-of-All-Trades at Kaneva (an Atlanta-based, virtual world/social networking company) for 3 years. About a year and a half ago seizing upon an internal opportunity at Kaneva, Eric made the fateful decision to pursue a career as a technical artist. In this capacity, Eric has assisted in the design of asset pipelines, helped to remedy all manner of asset related bugs and supported a team of artists using various white magicks such as MaxScript and AHK scripting. At present, Eric serves as a technology advisor for Kaneva, assisting software engineers with the development of proprietary, UGC-enabling technologies. On occasion he still manages to squeeze in a smidgen of art here and there as well for good measure.

Sessions: S1E

Frank S. Rietta is a software developer who has lead teams to develop games and applications for the T-Mobile Sidekick and Apple iPhone and iPod touch. One of his more popular titles is GSFX® Pigeon Hunt for the T-Mobile Sidekick. He is currently working on several projects for the iPhone.

Sessions: S0G

George has been a part of the game industry for the past five years, working primarily on games for kids. He has worked on multiple titles for clients such as Nick Jr, Kaiser Permanente, and Good Egg Studios. George is primarily a game designer and programmer, but he can also serve as a level designer, producer, or audio engineer as needed. He has recently taken a hiatus from the game industry to join a start up web development company as Project Manager and Lead Developer.

In his spare time, George enjoys reading, playing games, making games, writing about games, talking about games with friends, and pretty much anything else to do with games. If he didn't have his DS with him at all times to have something to do when waiting anywhere for 5 min, he would probably explode in a shower of confetti and sorrow. George's favorite color is blue and he is willing to negotiate gourmet cheesecake as compensation for freelance work.

Sessions: S0E, S3D, S3H

Gordon is an economist, entrepreneur and angel investor. After working as a financial analyst, in 1988 he established a business (Meliora Systems, Inc.) that created one of the pioneering products in the corporate e-learning & talent management field (Ingenium). He guided the growth of the company from a start-up to IPO through a merger in 1998 with Paul Allen's company, Asymetrix Learning Systems (ASYM). This exit event yielded a 12X return for initial investors in the business. See http://bit.ly/gi9hQ.

After leaving ASYM/CLKS/SUMT in 2000, he spent the next several years investing in and serving on the advisory boards of various tech startups in the e-learning and online coaching sectors. He now focuses primarily on helping early stage ventures in the the digital media and edutainment sectors raise capital and create strategic partnerships.

He is President of Atlanta Technology Angels (www.angelatlanta.com), and a member of Angel Lounge (http://www.startuplounge.com/tag/angellounge/), the MIT Enterprise Forum, and the Atlanta CEO Council. He is also Managing Director of Vernon Bridge Ventures, an early stage capital/advisory firm. He serves on the boards of Rapid LD and Good Egg Studios.

He has extensive experience serving on boards of non-profit organizations (YMCA of Greater Atlanta, Interfaith Outreach Home, Teacher Support Network, The Lionheart School). He recently completed his first triathlon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Sessions: S6F

Mr. Gregory W. Stillions is the principal of Whitewater High School which is a suburban school located outside of Atlanta, Georgia with approximately 1700 students in grades 9 – 12.  Whitewater has embraced the use of instructional technology to create multiple pathways to a strong focus on rigor, relevance, and relationships and is an excellent model for other schools.  There is current technology in every classroom, including LCD projectors, interactive whiteboards, and InterWrite tablets. Teachers are very comfortable with the technology and it is integrated in meaningful ways in all classrooms. Because of his push for instructional technology and relationships, Whitewater was chosen as a Model School in 2008.

Mr. Stillions is a graduate of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and he received his Masters and Specialist Degree in Administration from the State University of West Georgia, Carrollton, Georgia. He has been a school administrator for 14 years. He resides in Fayetteville with his wife Jill.  His daughter Molly is a senior at Whitewater and daughter Kayla is a Junior at Kennesaw State.

Sessions: S5F

Hilario Gonzalez is a game programmer at GamesThatWork and a recent graduate from DeVry University in Irving, TX with a BS in Game and Simulation Programming. In his time at GamesThatWork he has been working with COLLADA which defines an open standard XML schema for exchanging digital assets across various graphics software applications and fills a gap for the game development community by providing a standard interchange file format. When not programming he spends way too much time on highly addictive games such as Guitar Hero (much to his roommate's dismay) and various MMOs.

Sessions:

James Simpson has been dreaming of writing games since he first touched his Atari 400. He began his career in gaming by studying C/C++ programming as part of B.S. in computer information systems at DeVry University. James followed this up by teaching himself a variety of 3D art tools, and has just recently finished his second Bachelor Degree from Art Institute of Atlanta in Game Art and Design. As part of this he has been working with Autodesk’s Maya and 3D Max programs and a variety of engines such as Unreal 2004, Unreal 3, C4, and Unity. His first published game with WildTangent was called “Invasion: The Last Stand” followed by a series of contract projects with various gaming studios such as Cartoon Network, Shifting Suns, The Game Creators, Vortex Games. At the moment he owns the game company “Cellbloc Studios”, contracting to create various casual games as well as working on a kid MMO called Bobbers World.

Sessions: S2H

Jeremy Seymour is a Senior Designer/Director for Primal Screen, an Atlanta-based design and animation studio specializing in the entertainment and marketing arenas. During his tenure with the studio, Jeremy has contributed to award-winning projects for clients such as Cartoon Network, PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Hallmark Channel and HBO Family. He is a graduate of Columbus College of Art & Design and has been honored during his career with numerous industry accolades including awards from the Broadcast Designers Association and PROMAX.

Sessions:

Mr. Jerry Heneghan is the founder and CEO of Virtual Heroes Inc. Most recently, Jerry served as an Executive Producer for the America's Army Game Project (www.americasarmy.com) focusing on the creation of training applications based on the game. Prior to starting Virtual Heroes, Jerry was a Program Manager in the Technology Assisted Learning Division of the Research Triangle Institute (RTI). Before his work at RTI, Jerry was a Game Producer at Tom Clancy's Red Storm Entertainment. Prior to work in the interactive entertainment industry, Jerry served as a U.S. Army Aviator (AH-64 pilot) in assignments all over the world. Jerry holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and a BS in Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy. Jerry is the President and Co-Founder of the North Carolina Advanced Learning Technology Association and Advanced Learning Technology Summit. He is a published author, most recently appearing in The Design and Use of Simulation Computer Games in Education.

Sessions: S7G

Jesse Jacobson has worked in the game industry since 1998. He has been worked on a variety of titles from the children's game "I See Sue" (the first CD-ROM distributed game to be written in Flash), to the "Vanilla Coke Mystery Game" (web-delivered flash content), to military simulations in a proprietary 3D engine. Along the way he has developed a natural language scripting format (ConvX), systems for using swarm intelligence to emulate creativity, and "soul-vision" AI. He co-authored "Flash and XML: A Developer's Guide" and has presented a ConvX implementation at conferences. He is currently Lead Technologist at GamesThatWork.

Sessions: S4E

Mr. Jingbo Chen currently holds the position of Vice General Manager of ChangYou.com (US) Inc. He is a veteran in Freetoplay online game industry in North America and Asia. He successfully lead the transform of the largest PC game software distribution company Tranksoft (China public company: CYTS) into a successful online game operator in China. As an initiator, he worked with game’s producer Mr. Brett Skogen to build up the famous MMOPRG game group named Digital Bamboo. Now, Digital Bamboo owns one game developing company, one health game company, also a game and animation developing base in the third largest city Tianjin in China.

After that, Mr. Chen finished his MBA study, and joined Interzone Entertainment, a soccer online game developer, to take charge of the global publishing business. At the end of last year, he joined ChangYou.com to establish its US subsidiary to source online games from Asia, and explore the online game business in North American area. This April, he attended the ceremony in NASDAQ to celebrate ChangYou.com going to public.

Mr. Chen has a lot of experience about operation, management, and business skills, also has a wide network in Freetoply online game industry. His profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jingbochen.

Sessions: S6E

Jin Pei, CG Artist and full time faculty in Game Art and Design &Visual Game programming at the Art institute of Atlanta. She worked as freelance Artist for studios in LA, Florida, and shanghai. She is invited Speaker of GDC China 2009. Several of her work have been selected in international game and animation festivals such as Tokyo Game Show,CINEME International Animation Festival etc. One of her students' work was selected in Orlando Siggraph Animation Festival when she worked as Assistant professor in Jacksonville University in Florida. She received Van Zante Artists from Department of Visual Arts, South Dakota State University in 2006. She holds MFA in Digital Production Arts from Clemson University and BE in industrial Design and computer science from Zhejiang University , P.R.China.

Sessions:

With an early passion for music John started out with aspirations of becoming a professional musician. The band Aeturnus which he formed in high school went on to record an internationally released album for an independent label, as well as touring throughout North America. As the leader of Aeturnus John co-wrote, and co-produced the band’s album as well as performing lead vocals and guitars.

John got his start in game development working his way up through the ranks on several mod development teams, starting first with creating music and sound for the mods, and later doing programming. The culmination of this mod development effort was the mod Red Orchestra for Unreal Tournament 2003/2004. It was here that John honed his skills as a programmer and leader as he organized a group of highly talented amateur programmers, artists and designers from around the globe. This project would go on to win in the grand prize in the "Make Something Unreal" contest sponsored by Epic and Nvidia beating out over a 1000 other teams from around the globe.

After seven years of working for the General Electric Corporation as an engineer, John accepted his first commercial position in the game industry as a programmer for the MOVES Institute on the popular America's Army game for the PC. After winning the MSU contest John left the Army game to form a professional development studio, Tripwire Interactive, with the other core members of the Red Orchestra mod team.

Today as President of Tripwire Interactive John leads a talented team of developers creating hit games such as Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 and Killing Floor.

Sessions:

Jon Lindemann has a decade of software testing experience, and a lifetime of playing video games and following the game industry. He has held quality assurance positions at IBM Internet Security Systems and Kaneva, and is currently employed in a QA capacity by a software company in Atlanta. He is a long-standing staff member and current Director of Nintendo World Report, a well-respected enthusiast website providing worldwide coverage of the Nintendo brand. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in English/History from the University of Western Ontario, and resides in the Atlanta area with his wife Amy and three adorable cats.

Sessions:

JP Rhea is a visual storyteller. His art can be seen in numerous White Wolf publications. His short story Cradle was featured in the Atlanta Outworlder's collaborative project and released at DragonCon 2003. He one of his latest projects was working as a World-Building GM for the MMO game Hero’s Journey by Simutronics.

Sessions: S0H

Keith is a Transportation Planner, Traffic Engineer and GIS Specialist who has worked as a both a private sector consultant as well as a public sector staff member. He started in engineering as a co-op at Jordan, Jones & Goulding while working on his Bachelor’s at Georgia Tech. He then became Marsha Anderson Bomar’s first employee at Street Smarts while working on his Masters at Georgia Tech. He worked on many transportation planning and traffic engineering projects in the Atlanta metro region and as far away as New Jersey. He managed the development of a series of handheld computer data collection tools under a federal grant contract. After several years with Street Smarts, Keith went to work with Gwinnett County where he worked as both a Transportation Planner and as the county’s GIS Manager for several years. He then returned to the private sector and for the last 7 years he has worked primarily as the Director of Data Smarts, a subsidiary of Street Smarts that focuses on transportation related data collection for projects such as transit studies, freight studies and regional plans in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada. He has recently added Director of Transportation Planning to his duties at Street Smarts and has worked on a number of local multi-modal studies. Keith has been married for 21 years to his wife Donita, who he met while attending Furman University before coming to Georgia Tech. They have two daughters, Katie (15) and Jessica (10) and live in Lawrenceville. In addition to his work at Street Smarts, Keith is active at Oak Hill Baptist Church where he serves as a deacon, trustee and audio/video engineer.

Sessions: S0C

Kevin is the founder & CEO of PIXELearning, a UK-based ‘serious games’ services provider with a focus upon applying games and simulation approaches to organisational learning and development and business education. Kevin has been heavily involved in PIXELearning’s projects with international blue chip clients in Europe and the US, including Raytheon, KPMG, Comcast, HP, Fifth Third Bank, PWC and Coca Cola. As such he is well placed to describe and comment on the current and future potential for serious games for corporate learning as well as to tackle the very real commercial, technical and organisational issues around adoption. Kevin has been working in the technology-based learning space for over a decade as an entrepreneur (founding a custom eLearning studio in 1997 and PIXELearning in 2002) and also in a Plc environment, where he ran the firm’s eLearning arm. Previous to that he spent seven years involved in building services engineering and also obtained a degree in disaster management. Kevin is also involved with several EU-funded, public sector/education initiatives, trade groups and social networking groups, is well connected within the serious games community and works to help foster the growth of the medium as a commercially significant sector.

Sessions: S4D

Kevin O'Gorman
Faculty, Game Art and Design,
Art Institute of Atlanta

Kevin O'Gorman spent seven years as a game designer before deciding to focus his attention on training future generations of game developers. His experience spans from kids’ games to MMOGs.

Since switching to academia, Kevin has taught game design and game development at the University of Texas at Dallas, American InterContinental University, and the Art Institute of Atlanta. He has also served as a chapter advisor for the IGDA’s Dallas and Atlanta chapters. He is the co-founder and current chairman of the Georgia Game Developers Association. He is also active in the IGDA’s Education SIG and Game Design SIG.

Kevin has presented at numerous conferences on game development and game degree programs, including the Academic Summit at GDC, SIEGE in Atlanta, GA, GameX in Philadelphia, PA, and the Digital Games Expo in Raleigh, NC.

Leland Scali worked as an environmental and texture artist on Red Orchestra: Ostfront (RO), creating a large number of art assets for RO’s retail release. After being given a full time position at Tripwire Interactive, Leland took the role as lead environment artist on their recent release Killing Floor. He is now playing the part of Environment artist, Concept artist, Graphic designer and Audio engineer on Tripwire's UE3-based follow-up to RO - Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad - due out next year.

Sessions:

Lukas Bradley is President of Thrust Interactive, specializing in multiplayer games, virtual worlds, and Rich Internet Applications. A programmer since age 8, Lukas has designed and developed games on numerous platforms; his forte is connecting Adobe Flash games to Java-based servers. At the moment he's playing Demigod, Team Fortress 2, and Parachute Panic.

Sessions: S4E

Manuel Saint Victor's love affair with programming began in the 80's punching BASIC commands into a Pet Machine. A web developer for 10 years, Manuel has focused on Flash / Flex for the last 5. He has developed applications for companies such as EyeWonder, National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, Toyota and other Fortune 100 companies. Manuel founded DiamondTearz, LLC a software consultancy dedicated to helping growing companies develop highly usable web applications. He is currently a Flash Developer at WebMD. His spare time is spent playing Rock Band with MJ and his wife Amy, blogging about software at http://diamondtearz.org and building virtual worlds and multi-player social games on the Unity 3D platform. Manuel Saint-Victor holds an MD from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and BA from Harvard University.

Sessions:

President / Sound Designer @ GL33K LLC, Matt Piersall started his career at anime giant FUNimation composing music and doing sound effect design for trailers and promotional videos. He had always wanted to get in to video games and fortunately found a small contract job at Terminal Reality which landed him an opportunity to work with Retro Studios. After working with Retro Studios, Chris Sabat and Piersall started Okratron 5000 based in Dallas, Texas. Together they created sounds and did voice over for countless titles. In 2007 Piersall started GL33k and moved the sound design operation to Austin where he and his band of misfits currently wail, make sweet sounds, and party (verb)."

Sessions:

As the vice president and general manager for Peak 10 Atlanta, Matt Searfoss brings more than 20 years of experience developing and delivering technology solutions to businesses in the Atlanta market. Prior to joining Peak 10, Matt served as the director of Colocation and Managed Services for Quality Technology Services (formerly e^deltacom). He has been instrumental in the start up of two successful technology companies including the launch of the e^deltacom business in 2000 and Bay Data Consultants, an Atlanta-based systems integrator, in 1997. Mr. Searfoss is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Engineering and has held technical, sales and leadership positions with companies such as IBM, NYNEX Business Centers, Universal Data Consultants and GE Capital IT Solutions.

Sessions:

Merrilea J. Mayo is the Director of Future of Learning Initiatives at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Her portfolio of activities includes video-game-based learning, educational virtual worlds, and cell-phone delivered learning. Previously, from 2001-2006, Dr. Mayo was Director of the Government-University-Industry Roundtable (GUIRR) of the National Academies.  GUIRR focused on trisector issues such the science and engineering workforce, intellectual property rights, the impacts of globalization on national competitiveness, deemed exports regulations, and national-laboratory university collaborations. Dr. Mayo’s earlier career included two years at Sandia National Laboratories, eleven years on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University, and a founding role in both ASTRA (an advocacy organization for the physical sciences) and the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership (an organization devoted to improving the ability of companies and universities to conduct joint research). Dr. Mayo is a materials scientist and engineer by training, having received her Ph.D. in that field from Stanford University in 1988, publishing approximately 80 technical articles, and serving as the Materials Research Society’s President in 2003.

Sessions: S5F

Michelle Menard is a freelance writer and game producer at Firaxis Games. After receiving a double bachelor of arts in Applied Mathematics and Music from Brown University, she decided to jump into the games industry by getting a master�s of fine arts in Game Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She lives in Owings Mills, MD with her husband.

Sessions:

Mick Larkins
Lead Technical Artist
Hi-Rez Studios

As a technical artist, Mick's primary responsibilities are programming the animation and physics systems within Global Agenda™. Mick also works to create tools for the artists and audio team as well as character-centric gameplay features. Mick holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Digital Production Arts from Clemson University and received his BS in Computer Science from Furman University. He has published three books on Maya: Mastering Maya 7, Maya 8 at a Glance, and Mastering Maya 8.5. His past work includes working on various multimedia projects with major musicians. In addition to his work at Hi-Rez Studios, Mick is an adjunct professor at the Savannah College of Art & Design. Within Global Agenda, Mick pwns using the Recon Specialist class and especially enjoys deceiving enemies using stealth and decoys. While his favorite genre of gaming is the first-person shooter, his latest obsession is drumming in the Rock Band series. Mick's other obsessions include music and cooking.

Sessions: S1E, S5H

Nathan Knaack
Game Designer, Writer

Nathan is responsible for all of Global Agenda's fiction, elaborating on world locations, storyline, and the overall theme of the game. He's also part of the design team, using the Unreal 3 editor to create training maps, cinematic encounters, and mission logic. Other duties include writing voice acting scripts and artificial intelligence routines.

Raised and educated in Michigan, Nathan earned a BA in English Literature from Oakland University before relocating to Georgia to become the Lead Designer, Lead Creative Writer, and Community Manager for Rapid Reality Studios. Prior to joining Hi-Rez, he also served as the official proofreader for CCP Studios and has been published twice by Sword and Sorcery Studios, a branch of White Wolf Publishing.

Other than destroying innocent playtesters and outmatched coworkers in Global Agenda, his interests include motorcycles, science fiction novels, role-playing games, music from the U.K., and the Detroit Red Wings. His favorite games include Fallout 2, Company of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and Battlefield 2142.

Sessions: S1A

.)

Sessions: S2H

Phaedra Boinodiris is a Serious Games Program Manager at IBM where she is helping craft IBM�s serious games strategy in technical training, marketing, and leadership skill building. She is the founder of the award-winning INNOV8program, a series of games that teaches and evangelizes Business Process Management. INNOV8 is being used in over 1000 schools worldwide and is now available for public consumption.

Prior to working at IBM, Boinodiris has been an entrepreneur for 10 years, starting two companies in custom application/social network development and videogame consulting. She co-founded WomenGamers.Com, a popular women�s gaming portal on the Internet and started the first scholarship for women to attain degrees in game design and development in the US. She was honored by Women in Games International as one of the top 100 women in the games industry. Boinodiris received her MBA and her Bachelors in Math and Comp Sci from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sessions: S8G

.)

Sessions:

Paul Orlando is a full time professor at the Art Institute of Atlanta where he teaches animation and modeling for entertainment and games. Paul earned his Master in Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design in 1999 and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and his Bachelor of Arts in Painting and Drawing. Outside of teaching at the Art Institute of Atlanta, Paul is a freelance artist.

Sessions: S1B

Taylor served as a Senior Vice President for the MPAA, the global voice and advocate of the American motion picture, home video and television industries. During his tenure with MPAA, Taylor was the overall head of the organization’s communications department under former MPAA President Jack Valenti. In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Motion Picture Association of America’s press and communications efforts, while serving as the primary spokesman and senior strategist for the American motion picture industry.

Prior to joining MPAA, Taylor was a Senior Associate with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Washington, DC. While there, Taylor spearheaded a number of national campaigns on behalf of agency clients.

The ESA is the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of the companies publishing interactive games for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers, and the Internet. ESA members collectively account for more than 90 percent of the $7.4 billion in entertainment software sales in the U.S. in 2006, and billions more in export sales of entertainment software. For more information about the ESA, please visit www.theESA.com.

Programming his first personal computer video game in 1979, Ron brings more than 14 years of Internet services operations management and more than 28 years of software development and consumer services experience to Zeev Exchange. Ron was previously General Manager and COO of CDC Games USA, leading the launch of China headquartered CDC Games' first North American massive multi-player game Lunia and the game portal 12FootTall.com.

Sessions: S5D

Ross Cox, Senior Director, Advanced Platforms, Adult Swim.   With over 10 years of mobile, interactive television, and broadband experience and more than 15 years traditional media experience, Ross Cox has been on the forefront of product development, interface design, and content creation within the interactive entertainment industry.  Cox has held positions with such companies as AT&T, Cox Enterprises, and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.  Working for these respected companies and independently, Cox has produced innovative interactive products and programming for clients/partners as Bravo, Insight Communications, Microsoft TV, Time Warner Cable, 20th Century Fox, UPN, and Yahoo!  Cox currently holds the position of Senior Director of Advanced Platforms for Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, where he is responsible for mobile, smartphone, iTV, iPTV, and VOD.  Cox oversees the development of video and gaming products for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim.  Ross Cox holds a B.A. in Radio, Television, and Film from the University of North Texas and currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.  Cartoon Network is a part of Turner Broadcasting System, INC., based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sessions: S0G

Scott Countryman is the Founder and CEO of Digital Media Exchange (DME). He is an international entrepreneur and cross-cultural team builder with over 15 years hands-on executive management experience and three successful start-ups in Asia to his credit. He is recognized as a pioneer in the Southeast Asian online game publishing and the Philippines offshore enabled services industries. Prior to DME, he founded People Support Philippines in 1999 and served as CEO to grow the Company from an idea to US$38m in annual revenues. The company eventually grew to over 10,000 full time agents in the Philippines and successfully completed a NASDAQ listing.

Scott has been the prime mover behind DME's innovative game support services and evolution from successful online games publisher to the region's first company dedicated to providing innovative game support services to global publishers and developers. Born and raised in Southern California, Scott holds a BA from UC Santa Barbara, and a MBA degree from the University of Southern California.

Sessions: TBA

Thomas J. Mihill is a litigator at Fellows LaBriola LLP, an Atlanta litigation firm. Mr. Mihill’s practice encompasses a wide range of complex business disputes, with an emphasis on intellectual property. Mr. Mihill has represented individuals and corporations in both bringing and defending against trademark and copyright infringement claims, trade secret violations, and cybersquatting actions. In the area of video games and virtual worlds, Mr. Mihill has counseled and represented game developers and publishers in intellectual property and business matters.

Mr. Mihill has tried cases and represented clients at the state and federal level, in Georgia and nationwide. 

Mr. Mihill is a member of the IGDA and GGDA, as well as the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, the State Bar of Georgia, the Atlanta Bar Association, and the Cobb County Bar Association.

Sessions: S7E

Tim Kirkwood is a partner at Monumental, an interactive software development firm that specializes in providing high-end technology and development services to marketing and communications organizations. For the past 12 years he has helped numerous advertising and interactive agencies, corporate communication departments, and design firms create fantasic user experiences ranging from mobile, web and, of course, game applications.  Monumental has worked with companies ranging in scope from CNN, MTV, The Coca-Cola Company, IBM, Pfizer, Sapient, iCrossing, Saatchi & Saatchi, Sony and many others.  Monumental has been recognized by Apple Computer and Communication Arts.   Tim is the creator of the Trampoline development framework and a featured EdgeDweller on technology issues.

Sessions:

Tony "Sgt. Flame" Richards is an independent game developer and founder of IndieZen.org, home of the Indie 2.0 Revolution and host of a variety of innovative open source software including a game engine framework, MMO middleware, and an integrated game development environment. Tony has held positions ranging from digital animator and video editor for a high-end real-estate visualization company to senior programmer for several Wall Street firms. His game "Fractured Universe", developed with Torque, placed first in the Dream Games development contest. Tony's diverse background of entertainment and enterprise development combined with his 20+ years as a professional software developer gives him a depth and breadth of experience and technical expertise.

Sessions: S3G

Tom's experience with computers started at a young age when his parents purchased an Apple II+ for their home, setting into motion a passion for computers and software development. That passion found its first real outlet when he was hired by Macromedia in the late 1990's. After nearly a decade working on Director and the Shockwave Player in almost every capacity imaginable, he made a break from corporate culture and joined the games industry in full. He did that by joining the team behind Unity as employee #5 and in the three years since has enjoyed helping build not only powerful tools but an incredible developer community. When not at work, you'll find Tom on the road traveling the world, usually on the back of a motorcycle with a grin on his face.

Sessions:

.)

Sessions: S2H

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Sessions: S3G

Watson Wu has been a professional composer/sound designer since the year 2000. With numerous experiences gained through school and after school music and live sound projects he was eventually offered multiple scholarships to various colleges and universities. During the early 90s Watson attended both Miami-Dade Junior college then later Florida International University. His major was Music Education with instruments of classical voice and piano. Composition, conducting, mixing, and music technology struck an interest to pursue a career into production work. Today Watson has successfully setup multiple studios with business partners in Boca Grande and Miami, Florida as well as Fallbrook, California (near San Diego).

Sessions:

Will Burns has been a Senior Artist at Hi-Rez Studios in Atlanta since 2006, doing environmental concepts for Global Agenda. He has been fascinated by environments since he was a boy, when he spent his summers in a haunted downtown mansion that his Grandmother managed. He graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena with a BFA in Illustration. He started his career doing backgrounds for educational games and for animated shows like Men in Black and Batman. For several years he worked with architects at The Disney Store, designing award-winning storefronts in Chicago and Tokyo. Since 2000 he has been in the games industry, making illustrations for Vivendi Universal Games titles like Curious George and Spyro the Dragon before moving on to Hi-Rez. Will loves to eat at Indian and Korean buffets, which is why he has to run for dozens of miles every week. When he's not eating or running, he's in therapy trying to get over the last four Braves seasons. He's married and has two boys, a two-year old and a four-year old.

Sessions: S6H

From 2005-9, Will Cain was Lead Software Developer for the award-winningGWDSS and CADRe projects for The University of Texas and as a contractor for Sandia National Laboratories. He is currently a Senior Software Developer at Alcatel-Lucent, working on service management products. While working for UT he also helped build a social network web application and co-authored two academic publications. Prior to UT, Will held various industry positions including QA automation technical lead/architect at the top Java performance management vendor, Wily Technology, now CA. He received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, where he was also a Mayfield Fellow. Will continues his exploration of serious games and simulation as an independent developer.

Sessions: S5G

Zach’s practice is concentrated on technology and corporate transactions, including the licensing and distribution of intellectual property, business process and information technology outsourcing, technology acquisition and development, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and general corporate matters. Zach's practice includes the representation of prominent video game and middleware developers on a full range of matters. He has significant experience in sourcing and complex technology transactions. Prior to joining the firm in 2009, Zach practiced in the Raleigh office of Hunton & Williams LLP and the Atlanta office of Alston & Bird LLP. Zach received his B.A. in Economics from Duke University and received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane University Law School. Zach served as an Assistant Managing Editor for the Tulane Law Review and is a member of the Order of the Coif.

Sessions: S7E