Mr. Bushnell is a technology pioneer and is often cited as the father of the video game industry. He is best known as the founder of Atari Corporation and Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theater. Mr. Bushnell is passionate about enhancing and improving the educational process and truly enjoys motivating and inspiring others with his views on entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation.

Over the past four decades, Bushnell has been a prolific entrepreneur founding numerous companies, including: Catalyst Technologies, the first technology incubator; Etak, the first car navigation system whose mapping is still the basis for car navigation systems today; Androbot, a personal robotics company; and ByVideo, the first online ordering system, which allowed customers to order and pay for product from kiosks. Additionally, he has consulted for numerous corporations, including IBM, Cisco Systems and US Digital Communications.

 Currently, Mr. Bushnell devotes his talents to his two current companies: Tapcode and uWink. Tapcode develops digital media entertainment and hospitality software and uWink offers interactive restaurants that allow customers to order food, drinks, games and other media at their table through touch screen terminals.

Over the years, Bushnell has garnered many accolades and distinctions. He was named ASI 1997 Man of the Year, inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame, inducted into the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame and named one of Newsweek’s “50 Men That Changed America.” He is also highlighted as one of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial icons in The Revolutionaries display at the renowned Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. In March of 2009, Bushnell was honored with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship Award, the highest accolade the Academy bestows, for his outstanding creative contribution to the Video Games Industry. Currently a biopic about Bushnell, tentatively titled Atari, is in pre-production. The story was acquired by Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company and is set to star Leonardo DiCaprio as Mr. Bushnell.

Bushnell received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah, where he is a Distinguished Fellow and also attended Stanford University Graduate School.

Sessions: KEY1

Noah Falstein began making games professionally in 1980, but was a fan of video games ever since, at the age of 14, he was lucky enough to find one of Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space coin-op games at his local pinball arcade. He was one of the first 10 employees at Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts Entertainment, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. Noah was also the first elected chairman of the IGDA and wrote the Game Developer Magazine design column for six years. Since 1996 he has run The Inspiracy, offering freelance design and project startup expertise on both entertainment and serious game titles. A few games he designed or co-designed include Sinistar, Koronis Rift, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Hungry Red Planet, Freedom Fighter 56, The Cisco Mindshare Game, and Mata Hari. He also was a creative contributor to Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, The Secret of Monkey Island, Empire at War, and Alan Wake.

Sessions: KEY2

Charles E. “Chuck” Martin is currently serving his fourth term of office in the Georgia State House of Representatives. In January 2007, Martin was appointed Vice Chairman of the House of Appropriations Committee, directly responsible for the Sub-Committee on Public Safety. Additionally, Martin is serving as the Vice Chairman of the Science & Technology Committee and as a member of the Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications, Budget and Fiscal Oversight, the Ways & Means Committees. The Vice Chairman represents House District 47, which covers Alpharetta, Roswell, Johns Creek, and Greater North Fulton County. After the 2007 Session, Representative Martin was named by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce as 2007 Legislator of the Year, and was also recognized for Legislative Leadership by the Association of County Commission for Georgia. After the 2008 Session, he was recognized by the Georgia Association of Fire Chiefs and the Georgia State Firefighters Association as 2008 Legislator of the Year. Prior to his legislative service, Chuck served his constituents in other public offices. From 1993 – 1995, he was a part of the Alpharetta City Council. The next year, he was elected as the city’s Mayor, an office which he held until 2002, when his membership in the General Assembly began. He is a 1996 graduate of the Regional Leadership Institute, a member of the Regional Leadership Foundation, the Alpharetta Optimist Club and Lions Club, and served as President of the Milton Touchdown Club from 2003 – 2004. Martin was born & raised in Alpharetta and graduated from Milton High School. He attended the University of Georgia, where he earned a B.B.A. in Management Science in 1983. He then proceeded to pursue a career in Information Technology and Real Estate Consulting. Representative Martin is currently a Director with Ryan & Company. Chuck and his wife Johnna are the parents of two sons. Miles, 21, is currently attending Georgia Southwestern, and Lance, 19, is a freshman at the University of Georgia. Martin took an active involvement in their childhood and enjoys coaching youth activities such as baseball, football, basketball, and golf. Both boys play baseball at their respective schools, and Miles also coaches the Milton JV summer baseball team like his father and grandfather before him. The Martins are members of Macedonia Baptist Church in Canton.

Sessions: S5F

Allen Peake was born and raised in Macon, Georgia. Allen graduated from First Presbyterian Day School, attended Auburn University and graduated from Mercer University with a Bachelor of Business Administration, majoring in Accounting. Allen also attended Dallas Theological Seminary. Allen started his restaurant career as an accounting supervisor for RMS Family Restaurants (RMS) in 1985. In 1988, he was part of a management led leveraged buyout that took RMS private and resulted in his promotion to chief financial officer. Allen passed the CPA exam in 1989, therefore earning his status as a certified public accountant. In 1995, Allen was promoted to president and chief executive officer of RMS. He helped lead RMS to becoming the 10th largest restaurant franchise company in the U.S.A., operating over 130 restaurants in 3 different states, including Shoney's, Popeye's, Fazoli's, Church's, and Captain D's. In 1999, Allen and partner Mike Chumbley became Cheddar's Casual Cafe franchisees. They also purchased the 11 Captain D's from RMS in 2000. Allen now owns 5 Cheddar's in Macon, Warner Robins, Savannah, Columbus, and Augusta, and 12 Captain D's in Macon and surrounding areas, including Augusta. Allen's business philosophy is based on servant leadership; the biblical principle that the best leaders are those that serve others. Allen's business model is based on service to customers, employees, and the communities in which his restaurants do business. Allen has been married to Betsy Middlebrooks Peake for 26 years, and has 3 children; Kristi, 23, recently graduated from cosmetology school; Joby, 21, a college junior at Auburn, where he runs on the Cross-Country team; and Corrie, 15, a 9th grader at First Presbyterian Day School. His mother, Ann Peake, has been involved in numerous charities in the Macon area. His father, George Peake, who passed away in 2000, was past president of Georgia Timberlands and also was a former chairman of the State Republican Party. His in-laws, Henry and Jane Middlebrooks, were both life-long educators, with Henry serving as headmaster at First Presbyterian Day School for 25 years. Jane passed away in 1994. Allen's hobbies include running, playing competitive amateur golf (he qualified in 2005 for the United States Mid-Amateur), and scuba diving. An interesting fact about Allen is that he applied for and was interviewed for the reality TV show The Amazing Race. Allen has been involved with numerous committees with First Presbyterian Day School, serves as a Trustee of the Georgia State Golf Foundation, and has supported numerous charities in the Middle Georgia area, including Save-a-Life Crisis Pregnancy Center, Covenant Care Adoption Agency, Methodist Youth Home, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Young Life. Allen is in his second term in the Georgia State House of Representatives. He was named to the powerful Ways and Means Committee during his first term, a rarity for a freshman legislator. He also served on the Health and Human Services, Banks and Banking, and Children and Youth Committees. He also was appointed to the Special Committee on Certificate of Need, and serves on the Republican Caucus Policy Committee. He was named the Legislator of the Year by the Advocacy Resource Center, and was selected to represent Georgia in the Emerging Political Leaders Program at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. This program is sponsored by the State Legislative Leadership Foundation. He also recently graduated from the Georgia Legislative Leadership Institute, a training program designed for rising leaders in the General Assembly. Allen served as a deputy whip during the 2008 and 2009 Legislative Session. And in July 2009, Allen was elected by his peers to be the Secretary/Treasurer for the House Republican Caucus. Allen has helped author and push through legislation in many diverse areas, including bills aimed at providing tax credits to rehabilitate homes and buildings with historic designations, improving adoption laws, and providing protections for Alzheimer's patients.

Sessions: S5F

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, before rejoining the Tripwire team in 2008. Adam has since then worked on the retail release (2009) of Killing Floor and Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad, due for release in 2011.  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:

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

Andrew Howe is a Senior QA Tester for CCP North America. He spent 12 years in various IT and QA capacities in the financial industry before making the shift to the gaming industry in May 2010. He currently resides in Athens, GA with his wife and two sons.

Sessions: S5F

Anna Sweet works on the Business Development team for Valve Software, focusing mainly on Steam Publishing. She works with everyone from large publishing partners to indie studios, helping them maximize sales for their products on the Steam platform. Prior to joining Valve in 2009, she worked as the Head of Project Management for MySpace and as a Software Development Engineer for Microsoft Games Studios. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Sessions: S5F

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 Cashman has been active in the IT industry for 18 years, attaining numerous certifications from many difference areas in the industry including Cisco, Novell, Microsoft, Oracle and VMware. Prior to Peak 10, Bill worked for businesses such as Craig/is and Bank of America as well as starting several ventures of his own. Since his arrival at Peak 10 in 2006, he has been instrumental in architecting and implementing the Virtualized Services division of Peak 10's Managed Services department. As Virtualized Services Manager, Bill grew the division into a successful business unit within Peak 10 and established Peak 10 as a VMware VIP Enterprise partner. Currently, as Solutions Design Manager, Bill engages directly with customers, helping them to design and implement solutions that scale with their changing business needs.

Sessions:

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

Robert S. Becker, PhD is the President of Becker Multimedia, Inc. (http://www.beckermultimedia.com) a premium custom e-learning and learning management consultancy and producer founded in Atlanta in 1994. One of Becker's first projects was a massive high-fidelity simulation of a retail system for the world's largest department store chain. He has since developed sims, scenarios and game-based learning for larger corporations in a wide variety of industries as well as leading non-profits.

Sessions: S5F

...

Sessions: S5F

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

Brandon Hembree is a Partner with Massey & Bowers LLC. He joined the firm in November, 2004. During the 1998 Session of the Georgia General Assembly, Brandon served as staff aide for the Senate Appropriations Committee. After graduating from college, he took a position with Ford Motor Company as a legislative associate. During his tenure at Ford Motor Company, Brandon researched and monitored business and manufacturing legislation for eight states in the southeast. He also coordinated state and federal grassroots initiatives, Political Action Committee efforts, and local business development projects related to the Hapeville Assembly Plant. Desiring to learn more about the political process and governmental operations, Brandon later took a position with the Georgia Department of Administrative Services (DOAS) as governmental relations manager in 2001. DOAS is the chief procurement agency for state of Georgia government. Prior to the formation of the Georgia Technology Authority, he was an IT account manager for politically sensitive agencies like the Georgia General Assembly, Supreme Court, Office of the Governor, Secretary of State, and many others. Brandon's responsibilities at DOAS also included managing the agency's legislative agenda and monitoring legislation impacting the day-to-day operations of Georgia government, as well as public affairs and marketing activities. At DOAS, Brandon was responsible for many of DOAS' business development initiatives with local governments, the business community, and special interest groups, particularly in the area of government contracts. Brandon is active on the Georgia Chamber of Commerce Governmental Affairs Committee and Gwinnett Technology Council. He also serves as Chairman of the Technology Association of Georgia Government Affairs Task Force, which is an organization formed for the sole purpose of acting as an advocate at the Capitol for the IT industry on legislative and procurement issues. Brandon was born in Georgia and has lived in and around metropolitan Atlanta his entire life. He graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in Political Science/Pre-Law. Brandon and his wife Tara currently live in Sugar Hill.

Sessions: S5F

Casey O'Donnell is an Assistant Professor in the Grady College at the University of Georgia. His research examines the complex socio-technical intersections/interactions that occur during the design and development of videogames. His research has spanned game development companies from Vicarious Visions in Upstate New York to Red Octane in India. He is the Creative Director and Co-Founder of IS3D-Online, a company devoted to creating great video games, that just happen to contain scientific learning at their core. The first such product, "Osy," is scheduled for release in January of 2011.

Sessions: S5B

Cecilia Holman is a Certified Information Systems Auditor currently working as a Compliance Systems Specialist for a large publicly traded Atlanta company with advanced experience in IT Project Management, systems development, data privacy, information risk prevention and information system compliance solutions. Prior to working in the public sector, she worked for various agencies within the U.S. Federal Government specializing in financial fraud investigations, forensic accounting and the utilization of information systems to identify fraudulent activity.

Outside of her role as an IS professional, Cecilia is the Atlanta Video Gaming Lifestyle Examiner for Examiner.com and a host of the geek culture programs Fanboys Radio and Fanboys TV. Whether she is on the on the radio live, on camera interviewing special guests or posting articles on Examiner.com, Cecilia is passionate about supporting and promoting the gaming, comic, and cos-play communities, or as she is often heard saying on Fanboys Radio, “Spreading the Nerd”.

Sessions: S5F

Chad has 15 years of experience in professional software development. He recently started his own company, GlobalCove Technologies, to provide software consulting services for medium to large size companies. GlobalCove Technologies specializes in customizing ERP systems, identity services, general system integrations and custom software development for Windows, Xbox 360, Web and the phone platforms.

Chad has authored two books on the XNA Framework: "Microsoft XNA Unleashed: Graphics and Game Programming for the Xbox 360 and Windows" and "Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 Unleashed". He also holds sessions at Conferences, Code Camps, .NET User Groups, in high schools and even in virtual worlds. He can be contacted at: http://kewlniss.com/ XNA Essentials: http://xnaessentials.com/ GlobalCove Technologies: http://globalcove.com/

When Chad is not in front of a computer working with the latest technology you will find him spending time with his lovely wife and two precious daughters.

Chris DeLeon has developed many iPhone/iPad games - several blitz titles made in less than 48 hours, a few built on a modest budget, and multiple in the top charts (including Topple, Burnit, iZombie Death March, and Tumult). His experimental iPhone game feelforit was recently accepted as an IndieCade 2010 Finalist. After serving as the lead developer for 40+ freeware PC games, he created experimental gameplay projects nightly for 7 months while co-architecting the online drag-and-drop game making site at PlayCrafter.com. Chris is passionate about helping others get into videogame development, not only as a profession but as an artistic and technically engaging hobby.

Sessions:

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.

Chris Rickwood is an award winning composer known for creating dramatic musical scores for video games, film, and television.  Rickwood’s work can be heard worldwide on a variety of mediums for clients such as Activision, THQ, Microsoft, Cartoon Network, Capcom, and Nintendo.  He began his career by composing intense orchestral cues for several game titles including Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, Evil Dead: Hail to the King, BloodRayne, and Maximo: Ghosts to Glory.  Since then, Rickwood has composed over 20 scores for Cartoon Network New Media, contributed music and sound for several PC games including Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Civil War: Bull Run, and The Apprentice: Los Angeles, and experimented with other gaming mediums such as mobile phones and video poker machines.  In 2006, Rickwood was invited to the team of composers hired to produce the new Monday Night Football theme for ESPN.  More of his music was released on Associated Production Music’s Endgame music library and has been placed in television broadcasts for ABC Family, G4TV, Comedy Central, and Fox.  Currently, Rickwood is working on several projects including Hi-Rez Studio’s spy-fi MMO, Global Agenda, a next generation RPG for Microsoft, and other titles coming to XBox 360, PS3, and the Wii.

Sessions: S7E

Christopher Drummond is a classical recording and mixing engineer, music producer, composer, and session violinist. In 1996, he founded Cairo Productions, a film-scoring and audio-postproduction company. Christopher has composed and produced original musical scores for film, including collaborations with Fulvio Valsangiacomo (editor on the Eddie-winning/Oscar-nominated editing team for The Gladiator) and Ralph Farris (Grammy-nominated arranger of The Lion King NYC, Roger Daltrey, and Depeche Mode). His engineering and production style is influenced by a six year mentorship with the renowned seven-time Grammy nominated, Emmy-winning classical engineer, Edward Kelly and by electronic music pioneer and IMAX scoring veteran, Michael Stearns.

Christopher operates in Washington, DC, and Atlanta, GA, and is the Technical Director for Robert Aubry Davis’s Millennium of Music, a weekly radio program celebrating the mainstreams of European music for the thousand years preceding the birth of J. S. Bach. Millennium airs on Sirius/XM Symphony Hall, XM Public Radio and over 150 National Public Radio affiliates. Christopher has produced feature programming for XM and NPR featuring Paul McCartney, Sting, Billy Joel, Jon Anderson, The Wailers, Kiri TeKanawa, Anonymous 4, the Cistertian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz and many others.

Sessions: S5F

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

Cord Hamrick is a 12 year veteran of web application design, development, and data services integration for businesses in the Atlanta area. He does contract development through Cordsworks Consulting & Design and Horizon Technologys, with expertise in nearly all major web development technologies including HTML/XHTML, XSLST, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, ExtJS, Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Adobe ColdFusion, ASP.NET, JSP/Struts. For 10 years Cord has taught advanced training and certification prep classes for for Certified Internet Webmaster, Java OOP/SCJA/SCJP, Macromedia and Adobe web development products, ColdFusion, JavaScript, and performance SQL for Web Developers.

Courtney L. Perry is a practicing attorney in Atlanta and an adjunct professor at Emory Law School. 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, Courtney 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. She has been teaching as an adjunct at Emory since 2000 and is the author of an intellectual property law school text book. Among her clients are several local science fiction and fantasy conventions, including Play On Con in Birmingham for which she also serves as a Director.

Sessions: S7E

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

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

Dov Jacobson joined the game industry in 1979, developing online games for Time Warner, art games for NY galleries, and coin-op games for - well, the Mafia. Later, as head of Turner Interactive in the 90's, he was responsible for several briefly celebrated mainstream titles. He recently served on the game development faculty of NYU. His studio, GamesThatWork, creates specialty games for entertainment, learning, promotion and research.

GamesThatWork won a recent DARPA competition for a new approach to game development. Now they are busy building the infrastructure of a cloud sourcing platform.

Sessions: S0C

Ed has been a game programmer since 1982. He has been the lead programmer on ten published games, including 'Seafox' and the 'Castles of Doctor Creep.' He has published on platforms from the Apple II to the PC, with stops for Atari and Commodore along the way. He currently writes casual games under the brand of Cat's Eye Games (www.catseyegames.com).

An industry veteran with over 13 years of experience, Ed Piper is credited on over 30 products. Ed started his career in quality assurance and production, but has spent the last 6 years working as a designer under the tutelage of Sid Meier at Firaxis Games. Ed's latest product as a Lead Designer was Civilization IV: Colonization, which was acclaimed as both a critical and commercial success.

Elizabeth is an award-winning songwriter whose songs have appeared on more than ten television networks, and in numerous films. A Grand Prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Elizabeth wrote one of the highest-charting unsigned singles on commercial specialty radio show playlists, and has been a featured musician in several publications including Guitar Player magazine.

Elizabeth holds a Master’s in Mass Communication from the University of Georgia and has an extensive background in marketing and publishing.

She has more than ten years of strategic planning and management experience at one of Georgia’s largest non-profit institutions and has edited a number of regional and national magazines. She serves as a Governor on the Atlanta Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, where she is active on the Advocacy and Indie Outreach committees.

As a co-managing partner at Placement Music, Elizabeth combines her business and planning acumen with her talent and passion as a songwriter and musician.

Sessions: S5F

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

Over the years, Gary Keith Brubaker has been a development director, a manager of core technology, a lead programmer and a creative director (game play design). This breadth of experience in the game industry has given Gary a well-rounded perspective of the business, preparing him well to teach Game Studies at The Guildhall.

He began his programming career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories working on the Voyager and Galileo projects. He remembers playing one of the first (if not THE first) Pong machines in San Jose, California. Gary wanted more and quickly talked one of his friends at Cal Tech to "loan" him time on the mainframes to play other early games. His first individual game project was on the Apple II, a Lunar Lander clone in the early 80s.

Gary turned his passion for games into a career in 1992 when he joined LucasArts Entertainment. While there he worked on Rebel Assault, Shadows of the Empire, The Curse of Monkey Island, The Dig, and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

He later joined Stormfront Studios, where he worked on the EA title Lord of the Rings: Two Towers. He also contributed to a number of other titles including Lego MyStyle. Gary then moved to Dallas to join Atari/Paradigm to become Manager of Core Technology. He led a group that created the engine for a number of Atari games including: Terminator 3: The Redemption, Mission Impossible: Operation Surma, Dungeon & Dragons Heroes and Backyard Baseball.

Gary received a B.A. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.B.A from Southern Methodist University. His research includes the mergers and acquisitions of game publishers.

Sessions: S5F

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

Harrison Pink is an award-winning game designer, as well as a writer, level designer, and artist currently employed in Atlanta, Georgia. Harrison has designed and developed games for many different audiences, from child to adult. He is passionate about the immersiveness of the experience, and cites the Myst video game series as his inspiration (often and frequently!). Harrison always has more than a few board game ideas rattling around in his head, or half-prototyped on notecards scattered around his house. Harrison loves introducing people to new games, digital or otherwise. He graduated from SCAD with a degree in Interactive Design & Game Development.

Sessions: S5F

Formerly the Director of Audio Production for such companies as Disney Interactive and Knowledge Adventure, and currently the owner/operator of Greatwaves Digital Media Inc, Hamilton has music/sound/audio director credits on over 80 interactive titles, including best sellers such as SpongeBob Squarepants ”Lights, Camera Pants”, Jimmy Neutron’s “Attack of the Twonkies”, 3D Dinosaur Adventure, 101 Dalmations, Casper, Descent, and Steven Spielberg's MovieMaker. He has produced music for some of the top name music libraries in the industry, such as APM, Sonoton, 5 Alarm and Cue Source Music, where his work has been placed in nationally syndicated shows such as Desperate Housewives, CSI, Lost, Survivor, 90210, The Jay Leno Show and Teen Idol. He has been a contributing composer for popular animated TV series such as The Sitting Ducks and Jimmy Neutron, and has worked on the score for a number of independent films including Meridian, Half-Caste, Stoned Cold, and We R Family as well as a laundry list of commercial jingles/soundtracks for local and regional TV/radio.

A registered BMI/ASCAP composer, certified Pro Tools Operator and GIT graduate, Hamilton has recently joined the faculty at Clemson University, where he teaches courses in audio technology and production.

Sessions: S5F

Dr. Ian Bogost is a videogame designer, critic, and researcher. He is Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His research and writing considers videogames as an expressive medium, and his creative practice focuses on games about social and political issues.

Ian Schreiber has been in the game industry since the year 2000, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on five published titles, two serious game simulations, and several other things he can't talk about. Ian has taught game design and development courses at Ohio University, Columbus State Community College, and Savannah College of Art and Design.

Jason Bolte is an Associate Content Developer for CCP North America, focusing on games involving spaceships, laser beams, and things that go “pew.” In the past, he has published texts about sons of Vishnu, animated corpses, and the red-eyed monsters of the Ohio River Valley. Though he’s an ex-pat of the Mighty Midwest, he has immersed himself in the South’s unique culture for most of the past decade.

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

I grew up in Minnesota, and after graduating high school, I moved to Dover, New Jersey, where I attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, Inc. I studied cartooning and animation, taught by professionals in those fields. In 1993, I moved to Georgia to work with Stone Mountain Productions as an animator, and eventually as the Art Director. It was there that I helped create animtions for the laser show at Stone Mountain Park, Cedar Point, Dorney Park, and many other amusement parks across the country. In 2008, I went to work with Ultimate Arcade, creating animations for some of their most popular online games, such as Monsters Gone Wild, and Turkey Attack. In 2009, I submitted a Flash animated short, " Loser Pays, Winner Stays ", to the Dragon*Con Independent Film festival, and it was one of the three finalists in its division.

Sessions: S5F

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 James Allen started at EA Sports in September 2002; since then he has been a part of thirty two video publicly released video game projects and has won nine awards within EA for outstanding achievements. He is currently the studio director of audio overseeing multiple game franchises. Jesse gained interest in synthesizers and samplers at age 13 and convinced the Yamaha Music Corp to do a MIDI/Sampling/Synthesis seminar at his high school at age 16. He studied music composition, audio engineering and physics at a magnet high school program in Denver Colorado for three years and continued his education and experience through audio engineering internships and independent studies of electronic theory and design for six years. Jesse did the opening sound design for the Garth Brooks Denver tour at age 20 and was named one of the top ten best Colorado music artists of the year in 1993 on KTCL radio. He has produced 7 albums under the alias Kid Sonic; three of them made local radio top ten charts and produced a Dance Remix for Joi Cardwell called "You Got to Prey" that hit the #1 spot on the Billboard top 100 in September of 1996. Mr. Allen Worked for ten years in the post production audio industry, credits include New Line Cinema, Lucasfilm, Disney, Discovery Channel, ABC, Donna Dewey Productions and many others. Prior to his employment at EA he was chief of audio operations at the prestigious Denver Center for the Performing Arts for three years (Live sound for theater, post production audio and large scale orchestral/choir music recording).

Sessions: S4E

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:

Joel Esperanza is a full-time faculty member at AIU-Atlanta. He teaches in the area of Visual Communication, Game Design, and Fashion Design. Prior to joining AIU, Mr. Esperanza was the Technical Support Executive for North America for 3dMD, a 3Q Company, who are the World’s leading developer of high-precision, ultra-fast 3D surface imaging technology for documenting and 3D visualization & simulation software analyzing the human anatomy and simulating treatment results. While working for 3dMD, Mr. Esperanza had the opportunity to work with creative professionals in the Entertainment Industry (Game design development and Hollywood productions).  Before joining 3dMD, Mr. Esperanza served as a Project Manager and Medical Illustrator for Adam.com, a company dedicated to creating and offering the most effective educational tools possible for teaching and learning about the human body.

Mr. Esperanza holds a B.F.A. degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in Scientific Illustration from the University of Georgia and an M.F.A from the University of Michigan Medical School in Medical and Biological Illustration. He is a Certified Medical Illustrator (C.M.I.) by the Board of Certification of the Association of Medical Illustrators (A.M.I.). Mr. Esperanza is also a Professional member of the AMI and has been a coherent speaker at their annual conference. He has also served on many AMI committees. Currently he is a member of the Artist Rights Committee, fighting to ensure copyright protection for artists and illustrators. In addition, he is a Co-Trustee for the Delta Delta Chapter of Epsilon Pi Tau, the International Honor Society for Professions in Technology. Mr. Esperanza is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Instructional Design for Online Learning at Capella University, which he plans on completing by 2011.

Songwriter, musician, engineer, composer, producer, and creative audio programmer that has always loved media and anything to do with it. Always pursuing the latest cutting edge technology, never sleeping and always working is the best way to describe myself.

I try to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions that not only answer the question but challenge myself to build something bigger. I am blessed to have many great contacts who I consider my friends and have the respect of my peers due to my constant efforts to keep pushing the media envelope in Atlanta.

Sessions: S5F

As well as freelancing under the Red Crow Studio banner, John Bridges has also held a position as art director at Holistic Design in Atlanta, where he oversaw the graphic elements of the Fading Suns game universe in all its varied incarnations, from pen-and-paper role playing game books, to tabletop miniatures battles, and a vast, epic raiding-and-trading PC game of starship action.  He is currently working full-time as a concept artist at CCP NA | White Wolf.

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:

John Foster is an information security and compliance professional. He has 16 years of Information Security experience with 7 years of experience in the gambling and casino industry. He is founding partner at Bianco Foster Group, LLC (BFG), a Georgia based management consulting firm focused on Information Security Management, Quality Management, and Environmental Management. He has prior experience as a software engineer for information security companies including IBM-Internet Security Systems and Verisign Managed Security Services. His recent gaming experience involves establishing security governance programs for organizations involved in the design, delivery, and/or operation of instant win lottery games, sweepstakes drawings, sports wagering, multi-state lottery games (Powerball & Mega Millions), Keno, and “Video Entertainments With Prizes” across the Americas, Europe, Australia, and China. He is a member of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and holds the Certified Information Security Manager, Certified Information Systems Auditor, and Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT credentials. He is also a member of The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners and holds the Certified Computer Examiner credential.

John has been involved in the indie music scene in Atlanta for 12 years as an independent booking agent and promoter. He also has been a trader of equities, futures, foreign currency, and derivatives for 12 years and currently manages the Greenergy Resources Renewable Energy and Vice Fund.

Sessions: S5F

Jon Selin entered the video game industry in 2003 as one of the founders of Swedish studio Lockpick Entertainment. He was the lead designer for their flagship product, “Dreamlords”, an MMORTS launched in 2007. Mr. Selin joined CCP later that same year, taking on the role of senior designer for World of Darkness and helping to refine internal game design practices, adapting them to operate smoothly within an agile framework. Jon has a B.A. in Media specializing in Game Design from the University of Skövde in Sweden.

Sessions: S5F

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

Karl Kapp, Ed.D., Professor, Instructional Technology and Assistant Direct of the Institute for Interactive Technologies, Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA. Karl has been researching and studying 3D virtual immersive environments for a number of years and the culmination of his efforts is the book he co-authored with Tony O’Driscoll titled Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration published by Pfeiffer. A noted writer and expert on the convergence of learning, technology and education, he is author of four books, including the widely-read Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning and most recently (2010). In 2007, Karl was named one of the Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals by TrainingIndustry, Inc. and in 2008 he received the Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Technology Award from the International Conference on College Teaching and Learning and the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.

Karl frequently speaks at industry events, conferences, government workshops and professional organizations. He has spoken about technology and education on radio and television programs and has been published in dozens of magazines. He advises Fortune 500 companies, government organizations, workforce investment boards, community colleges and start up organizations on the use of technology to encourage, promote and foster learning and innovation. Karl earned his doctoral degree at the University of Pittsburgh and has been a professor of instructional technology for over twelve years. You can read Karl’s blog Kapp Notes where he discusses the convergence of education, technology and learning at www.karlkapp.blogspot.com

Sessions: S5F

Kelley Barnes has been with CCP since November 2005 – first as the Marketing Director for White Wolf, then adding duties as the Global Event/Conventions Manager for several years, to Include supervision over CCP’s annual Fanfest for EVE Online. In the last twelve months, Kelley has taken on a new role in the company as a Corporate Recruiter, helping CCP to hire over 175 new employees since January in Iceland, China, the United Kingdom and in Atlanta, GA.

In her time with the company, Kelley was a member of the design team for Changeling: The Lost and Scion. As a writer, her contributions to White Wolf’s most recent releases include: City in the Sand and the SAS Group Kit: Legacy Security and she was a mission writer for the EVE: Apocrypha expansion in March 2009.

Sessions: S5F

Koreen Olbrish, CEO, founded Tandem Learning to address an unmet need in the learning space. Applying her background in experiential learning and technology for education, Koreen advocates new ways of leveraging technology for enterprise learning with emphasis on performance improvement and behavioral change. Koreen has strong ties to education, having received her MS in Curriculum and Instruction from Penn State University and helping start Freire Charter School in Philadelphia in 1999. The majority of Koreen’s experience has been in the development of enterprise learning solutions, with particular expertise in simulations, serious games and the application of virtual worlds for learning.

Sessions: S5F

Leland Scali worked as an environmental and texture artist on Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, creating a large number of art assets for the game’s retail release.  After being given a full time position at Tripwire Interactive, Leland took the role as lead environment artist on their hit zombie-killer, Killing Floor, released in 2009.  He is now Lead Environmental Artist on Tripwire’s next title, Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad - due out in 2011. In addition he doubles as Concept artist, Graphic designer and Audio engineer for the studio.

Sessions:

Lincoln is the co-founder of Blue Mammoth Games, an independent MMO company that is currently developing their first title, Dungeon Blitz. Before Blue Mammoth, he started and sold his first web business, Arena Junkies, in 2008. His expertise is in MMO server achitecture, networking, and gameplay. He has been in the game industry for five years, working at Cryptic Studios and CCP.

Loretta Lepore is the founder and president of Lepore Associates, LLC, a strategic communication and government relations firm based in Atlanta, Ga. Among Lepore’s talents is her ability to move and operate seamlessly amid the worlds of government, politics, public relations and journalism in order to translate a strategic vision into a tactical blueprint on through to successful implementation. Simply stated, she is a media expert who understands the political/public sector environment rather than being a political expert who understands media.

Her career spans more than 20 years as a journalist, CNN anchor, gubernatorial spokeswoman and lobbyist. Lepore started Lepore Associates after working in the government affairs practice of Atlanta-based law firm, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP. In that capacity, she provided crisis and issues management counsel as well as guidance on navigating state procurement, regulatory and legislative processes.

Lepore has been in the political trenches with government experience serving as the press secretary to Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue as well as director of marketing and communications for the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Among her most notable achievements while working with the governor was serving as the state’s chief communications liaison with the White House for the planning of the G8 Sea Island Summit. In that capacity, she oversaw the state’s media outreach to international journalists on security, environment and economic developments issues and built and managed the communications infrastructure inclusive of various state agencies and local authorities.

Lepore spent 11 years at CNN covering politics and international affairs. She anchored CNN Headline News for six years, which included reporting live coverage of the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton and the U.S. bombing raids on Iraqi no-fly zones. She earned a national news Emmy for her role in CNN’s coverage of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing She is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in government and foreign affairs, specializing in Latin American studies. She received a Media Fellowship from Vanderbilt University on the Culture of the South. Lepore is married and the mother of two.

Sessions: S5F

Lukas Bradley is President of Thrust Interactive, specializing in multiplayer games, virtual worlds, and Rich Internet Applications. Executive-level manager that excels in product vision and software architecture.  A programmer since age 8, Lukas has designed and developed systems on numerous platforms.  With over 17 years professional experience in the software industry, he has traveled world-wide as a corporate and independent consultant. 

Lukas has worked for IBM for 3 years on a cadre of educational games for children.  Starting in 1996, he concentrated on high volume enterprise software systems with MCI and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.  In 1999, he joined Arthur Andersen as a senior consultant with the Advanced Technology division.  Since 2000, Lukas has started three companies concentrating on high-volume Internet-based software. 

Sessions: S4E

Mani’s love affair with the internet and programming began in the 80’s punching BASIC commands into a Pet Machine. An interactive developer and serial entrepreneur for over a decade, Manuel has focused on the Unity 3D Engine, Adobe Flash/Flex Interactive applications. He has developed applications for companies such as Eyewonder, National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, Toyota, and other Fortune 100 companies. Mani founded Infinite Unity3D (http://infiniteunity3d.com), a rapidly growing network of “marvelopers” (marketers and interactive developers) and devotes the lion’s share of his attention to helping grow that community and educating independent developers about opportunities to increase the visibility of their work.

Sessions:

Dr. Mark Riedl is an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing. As director of the Entertainment Intelligence Lab, Mark's research focuses on the study of artificial intelligence and storytelling for entertainment. Dr. Riedl's research addresses the question of how intelligent computational systems can reason about and autonomously create/enhance/control/modify engaging experiences for users of virtual worlds and computer games. Research projects include intelligent virtual cinematography, story generation, interactive storytelling, and adaptive games for entertainment, education, and training.

Sessions: S5F

Matt Woomer is co-founder of Blue Mammoth Games, an Atlanta based game developer. He's currently developing Dungeon Blitz, a browser-based action MMO. Matt has been programming massively multiplayer online games for ten years. Matt served as lead graphics programmer on City of Heroes at Cryptic Studios, a senior programmer at Hi-Rez Studios, and a consulting programmer at CCP Atlanta. Matt is teased by fellow programmers because his degree is in American History.

Sessions: S5F

Michael Ayers is the Lead Cocoa Developer for eVille^TM, a location based game where you play an evil genius bent on taking over the world. eVille^TM is being created at extrafeet, where Michael is a co-founder. Prior to working on eVille^TM, Michael innovated new products while working for Fox Interactive Media and MySpace, focused on the SpringWidgets web platform, created and deployed many successful social media campaigns for clients such as General Motors, Target, and Disney. In addition to being the owner of the SpringWidgets web platform project, he was also strategically involved with the MySpace Mobile team on their iPhone, Android, and Blackberry initiatives. Michael holds a BFA in Media Arts and Animation for the Art Institute of Atlanta. When not writing code, he enjoys thinking about how to optimize previously written code and solving problems in his sleep.

Sessions: S5F

Michal's project and team management skills are crucial to her role as the Associate Producer on Global Agenda™, along with her main responsibilities at Hi-Rez of managing the press and public relations for both the Studio and Global Agenda. Michal honed her experience in public relations with her work for the Israeli Foreign Ministry where she coordinated press conferences for upper echelon international politicians and executed programs for public events relating to affairs in the Middle East. Michal is also a member of the Atlanta Entertainment Society's DigiTainment board, a collaborative initiative to band together Georgia's growing entertainment industry. Michal graduated with a BS from the University of Arizona's Honors College where she majored in International Studios, Communications and Journalism. Michal also does all of the motion capture for the female characters in Global Agenda (look out for her signature drop-kick action in the game!). Little known fact: Michal is a semi-pro Ms. Pacman player with high scores in small pubs throughout the country.

Michelle Menard is a writer/designer currently at Firaxis Games, based out of Hunt Valley, Maryland. Previously she has worked as an editor and associate producer, and then for a brief stint as a UI programmer. When not attempting to finish her book on the Unity Engine, she procrastinates by breaking various body parts on her spinning wheel, or by making Pokémon catch-rate charts in Excel. She has not, yet, caught them all.

Michelle holds an MFA in Game Design and Development from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and a double BA from Brown University in Applied Mathematics and Music. On the side, she has worked as an art contractor and masters-level course developer for SCAD, and will accept an event Regigigas or Darkai in payment for any future contracts.

Sessions:

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

As part of the Content team for EVE Online, Nathan is tasked with developing missions, writing fiction, and running live events, but he often finds time to do level design and even a little game design. Though the majority of the EVE team is in Reykjavík, Iceland, he lives right here in Atlanta, working out of the CCP office in Stone Mountain. In his spare time, Nathan enjoys motorcycling, reading, video games, hockey, and writing short autobiographical summaries.

Sessions: S1A

Nettrice Gaskins' work explores the intersection of art, technology, and community. In both real and virtual worlds her work is about extending notions of the inter-medial by breaking down the boundaries between various art forms in radical ways. In fact she chooses not to distinguish her work in one area or space. In Second Life , as the avatar Nettrice Beattie, she has created several immersive and artistic installations including a recent one for IBM's Exhibition Space. Nettrice received a BFA in Computer Graphics, with Honors, from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Art & Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago . This Fall she enrolled in the Digital Media PhD program at Georgia Institute of Technology .

Sessions: S5F

Paul Carahan is the Art Director at World Touch Gaming, a software company dedicated to bringing fresh new games for the Class II and Electronic Sweepstakes markets. Websites, games, motion graphics, and animation in 2D or 3D - all are delivered reliably and precisely to the technical standards required by the rest of the team. Leveraging his expertise in a variety of tools, Mr. Carahan can build anything he wants a user to see - and in record time. His focus on process and efficiency gives the company a massive boost in productivity while never compromising the attention to detail needed to deliver content of the highest quality. Mr. Carahan has contributed in developing online poker and mobile sweepstakes projects.

Sessions: S5F

Freelance game writer Rafael Chandler has worked for Sony, Sega, Ubisoft, Zipper Interactive, Edge of Reality, Slant Six Games, SouthPeak Games, NHN Corporation, XLOC, and 1C Company. His games include M.A.G. (Massive Action Game), Cipher Complex, SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, SOCOM: Confrontation, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, Ghost Recon 2, and various unannounced projects currently in development. Rafael is the author of The Game Writing Handbook (which was a finalist for the 2007 Game Developer Front Line Awards), and he writes Screen/Play, a column at Gamasutra.com. He has been a speaker at the 2006 Game Writers Conference, the 2007 Russian Game Developers Conference in Moscow (where he taught the six-hour master class), the 2008 Montreal International Game Summit, and the 2009 Carolina Games Summit (where he co-delivered the keynote). For more information, please visit www.game-writing.com.

Sessions: S1A

Rene Archambault is responsible for the admission process for, and the recruitment of, all potential students for The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University. In her role, she also serves as a liaison between the graduate program and its' alumni. She joined The Guildhall at SMU in March 2004. A graduate of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, Rene' began her career in Marketing as an intern with both Publicis Bloom in Dallas, Texas and KRLD News Radio 1080 in Arlington, Texas. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in Marketing, she joined the team of Gleason Calise Public Relations. Prior to SMU, Rene' was Director of Client Services with McSearch Personnel Consultants in Highland Park, Texas where she served as top producer for four years. She began her time at The Guildhall at SMU as a recruiter and now serves as the Manager of both Admissions and Alumni Affairs. She resides in North Dallas with her husband and their daughter, Zoe.

Rich Taylor, a former senior executive with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and aide to Congressman Jim Chapman (D-TX), is the Entertainment Software Association’s (ESA) new Senior Vice President for Communications and Research.

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.

Sessions: S7E

Rob Kischuk recently joined Menue Americas, a subsidiary of Japan's largest mobile content provider, as CTO, and is the Executive Producer of the company's second title, an unannounced Facebook social game. He was previously CTO and Executive Producer of Xeko, an MMO for children connected online play to real world charities, and has been involved in the technical leadership of several other Atlanta startups. He holds a Bachelors of Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Georgia State University.

Sessions: S5F

Robert Minnear has nearly 20 years of experience in the IP networking and CDN industries. He is currently with Internap as their vice president of engineering. Previously, he led engineering initiatives at Asankya, a cloud-acceleration services company. Over the course of his career, he has held numerous development and leadership positions, including overseeing the IP routing team at Ipsilon Networks, an early developer of tag switching capabilities that were the precursor to MPLS routing. He founded Springbank Networks, a startup company focused on developing CDNs for ISPs, which was later acquired by WAN application delivery leader Blue Coat Systems. He also spent four years at Tall Maple Systems, where he led the development of application management platforms for Internet appliances. Minnear began his focus on IP networking while obtaining his master’s degree at Purdue University, continuing this emphasis at MIT where he worked to address quality of service for IP infrastructures with some of the experts that were key to defining the early TCP/IP protocol.

Scott Steinberg is the CEO of video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, and founder of GameExec magazine and Game Industry TV. Hailed as a top technology and video game expert by dozens of publications from USA Today to Forbes and NPR, he’s covered the field for 400+ outlets from Playboy to Rolling Stone. A frequent on-air analyst for networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, he’s also the author of Videogame Marketing and PR the creator and host of online video series Game Theory.

...

Sessions: S5F

As both an artist and a business professional, Simon has over 20 years experience in the music industry. He began as a performing musician and writer in Detroit, and relocated to Chicago to study music business in the Columbia College Art’s Entertainment and Media Management Program. While in the program, he began creating and selling tracks to House Music legend, Larry Sherman, and writing songs for the Latin Dance group TKA. Shortly thereafter, Simon negotiated and signed a production/publishing deal with Chris Blackwell for Island Records. After 5 records and 8 years of nationwide touring with Capricorn Recording artist The Freddy Jones Band, Simon transitioned from artist to manager, handling on behalf of Alliance Artist such clients as Survivor, Bad Company, Wayne, Blue Epic and the Grammy-nominated Howard Tate. Since 2004 he has been entrenched in Atlanta’s Urban music scene as a management consultant for Multi-Platinum and Grammy-nominated artist Ciara, and as General Manger for Upfront/Universal Records where he spearheaded projects for four-time 2008 Grammy nominee Akon and Chilli (TLC).

Simon Is Co-Founder of Affix Music, an Atlanta-based music licensing company specializing in placing quality independent Urban Music in Television, Film, Advertising, Games and Digital Media. Affix uses the term "Urban" to represent the broad spectrum of today's cutting edge sounds and their lineage- Rap/Hip-Hop, R&B/Soul, Pop, and Electronic, as well as Jazz, Blues and Gospel. The company has placed Urban Music with some of the biggest brands in the world, including The Walt Disney Company, HBO, Clear Channel and Verizon, and the company’s work recently helped garner a prestigious 2009 Silver Promax Award for WLS-TV ABC 7 Chicago and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. In November of 2009 Affix launched its music licensing platform that greatly simplifies search, audition and music licensing process for media clients. He is also a member of the Atlanta chapter of NARAS (The Grammys).

Sessions: S5F

After graduating from SCAD with a B.F.A. in Interactive Design and Game Development, Stephanie began working at Games That Work, both as an artist and a designer. In her time here, she has helped develop internal systems, tools and pipelines. Since Games That Work installed a motion capture system in 2008, Stephanie has worked with the technology and developing the motion capture workflow for various projects.

Sessions: S5F

Stewart Chisam is Vice President, Game Operations for Hi-Rez Studios, an independent developer of on-line games based in Alpharetta, GA. He is responsible for IT Operations, Support, Community Management and Financial Operations/Billing for Global Agenda, a massive, multi-player online game currently in early end-user testing. Prior to joining Hi-Rez, Stewart spent 12 years in the enterprise software space. As Chief Technology Officer of BlueCube Software, and subsequently Senior Vice President of Technology at RedPrairie Corporation, Stewart built the global hosting and support operations for a software-as-a-service merchandising and workforce management solution used by many of the world's largest retail and hospitality companies. At Radiant Systems, Stewart served in a variety of senior technical roles as the company expanded globally and grew from under $30 million in annual revenues to over $150 million.Stewart holds a bachelor of arts in Economics from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He lives in Forsyth County with his wife Amy, and two children, Ben, 6, and Meredith, 4.

Susan Drescher is currently the Chief Herder of Cats and President for the game start-up, extrafeet, inc. (see http://extrafeet.com/eVille) Drescher keeps the wheels on the wagon by bringing more than 20 years of enterprise, academic and start-up experience to her role of creating an innovative and productive culture. She has previously held such positions as COO, VP of Operations, Director of Client Development, and Director of Client Services, to name a few.

Prior to extrafeet, inc., Drescher focused all of her attention co-leading FIMLabs in Atlanta, GA, an innovative R&D team for Fox Interactive Media and MySpace, overseeing the necessary supporting functions (HR, finance, customer support, client development, project management, IT, and Legal) to “keep the wheels on the wagon” of an independent division operating as a start-up.

A native of Wisconsin, Drescher earned her Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts Degrees in Communication from the University of Wisconsin -- she is also a Six Sigma Black Belt.

Sessions: S5F

Suzanne Meiler has over 10 years experience in the game industry. Most recently she was the Lead Environment Artist at Atomic Games. Suzanne has focused on managing a large team, hiring, scheduling, art critiques, and producing documentation. She also possess a wide range of environment art and level design skills and understands the trials involved in shipping games on schedule and the challenges of developing art assets for console hardware. Suzanne has created environments on AAA titles such as the Ghost Recon series, Rainbow Six, and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. At Atomic she worked on the highly anticipated and controversial game Six Days in Fallujah. Currently, Suzanne is a contract artist for Centerline Digital Productions in Raleigh, NC.

Sessions: S5F

Tanya has spent 19 years in corporate working as a system analyst, project leader and information system consultant in the IT industry for General Electric Company, PaineWebber Brokerage Firm and MetLife Insurance Company before coming to DeVry University as a Professor in the College of Engineer and Information Sciences. She has taken her many years of experience in industry into education where she has found her passion. In her 10 year career at DeVry University she has received several awards demonstrating excellence in and outside of the classroom. Tanya is very active in the Game and Simulation Programming development process and specifically in teaching the software engineering for game development course ensuring that DeVry students get a well round background in quality game development best practices based on established software engineering principles to complement their extensive technical and programming skills.

Sessions: S5F

Sessions: S7E

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

Toby is the Project and Operations Manager for Thrust Interactive. He is a technical project manager with over 10 years of software development and project management experience at a top tier international consulting company. He specializes in Microsoft Project and CMMI process improvement techniques to ensure projects deliver quality products on time and within budget. This helps both Thrust Interactive and Thrust clients succeed in an industry plagued with scope creep and lagging timelines.

Toby also provides concrete experience with Java, C#, Unity3D, as well as Oracle and MySQL database management experience.

Sessions: S5F

An art director, game developer and educator, Tony has worked as an animator for Acclaim Entertainment, as a web designer and application developer for New York government, and as an art director for American Museum of Natural History, Aura Interactive and Nohero Interactive. He now focuses on teaching and developing interactive applications and games, and holds the position as the studio director at Nohero Interactive. He is also a professor at Savannah College of Art & Design (Atlanta campus), where he teaches interactive design and game development courses. He is an avid gamer and active member of ACM SIGGRAPH and IGDA.

Sessions: S5F

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:

Zach Bishop is an attorney with Wyrick Robbins in Raleigh, North Carolina. His 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, venture capital financings, 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, and he frequently speaks at gaming industry conferences on legal issues facing gaming companies.  Prior to practicing law in North Carolina, Zach practiced in the Atlanta office of a large national law firm, and he is licensed to practice law in North Carolina and Georgia. Zach received his B.A. in Economics from Duke University and received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane University Law School. He was listed among North Carolina Super Lawyers "Rising Stars" in 2009 and 2010.

Sessions: S7E