GDC 2023 Session Viewer

-, Jacobc.eth

Title: Founder

Company: HyperPlay

JacobC.eth is the founder of HyperPlay, a web3-native game launcher and aggregator of game stores. HyperPlay enables permissionless interoperability and great in-game experiences. Jacob previously lead operations and product strategy for MetaMask and is a lifelong gamer. Jacob also leads product for the Game7 DAO and the Mantle layer-2 blockchain with a gaming performance focus.

Baier-Lentz, Moritz

Title: Partner & Head of Gaming

Company: Lightspeed Venture Partners

Moritz Baier-Lentz is a Partner and the Head of Gaming at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a globally leading venture capital firm with over $18 billion in capital under management and more than 500 investments across the U.S., Europe, and Asia—including Epic Games, Stability AI, and Snap. As an investor and board director, he helps emerging game studios and interactive technology companies with everything from strategy to hiring, sales and marketing, and financing. Moritz loves to partner with exceptional entrepreneurs, many of whom have been leading the creation of games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Apex, Overwatch, Valorant, StarCraft II, and Warcraft III.

Previously, Moritz was a partner and management team member at BITKRAFT Ventures. He personally raised over $200 million and—together with the founders—scaled the firm to become the most active gaming VC and lead investor of 2020, 2021, and 2022 with more than 120 gaming, VR, AR, and web3 investments. Moritz led many of the funds’ marquee deals including Inworld AI, Theorycraft Games, Raid Base, Lightforge Games, Horizon Blockchain Games, and TRIPP—attracting 9-figure follow-on investments including from Sequoia, a16z, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Sony, Intel, Disney, Niantic, Qualcomm, HTC, Epic Games, Take-Two, and Riot Games.

Prior to joining BITKRAFT, Moritz was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, where he built and co-led the firm's global gaming practice. Over the past years, he advised the world's leading gaming and technology corporations on over $300 billion in transaction volume across mergers & acquisitions, IPOs, venture capital, and other strategic transactions—including Dell’s $67 billion acquisition of EMC and IBM’s $34 billion purchase of Red Hat.

Moritz is a former professional gamer and #1 ranked player of Diablo II and was recognized among the ‘30 Under 30’ (Forbes) and ‘40 Under 40’ (Capital). He is a founding member of the World Economic Forum's Metaverse Initiative to build equitable, interoperable, and safe virtual worlds. His recent speaking engagements include the World Economic Forum, Forbes, New York Times, Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan. Moritz holds an M.B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University.

Bowers, Topper

Title: Founder & CEO

Company: Crypto Colosseum

Topper Bowers is a seasoned developer and entrepreneur who has a knack for creating fun and engaging games. With over two decades of experience building software businesses, he ventured into blockchain in 2016 and even founded a layer 1 chain focused on applications and developers. One of his games consistently ranked in the top 10 on the Polygon network. Today, he is committed to building delightful gaming experiences, always focusing on fun first.

Brink, Jason

Title: President of Blockchain

Company: Gala Games

Jason "BitBender" Brink is an entrepreneur, blockchain theorist, and avid gamer. He is currently the President of Blockchain for Gala Games, the world's leading gaming platform with blockchain integration. Known in the cryptocurrency community with the moniker “BitBender,” his involvement in the cryptocurrency market space started in 2014 focusing on the use of Blockchain for the decentralization of various ecosystems. In 2014, he won the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation / Global Development Network Prize for the creation of the "AidDollar", a novel blockchain-based solution to solve the problems endemic to foreign aid. Jason is a strong believer in the ability of blockchain to create transformative change, both in business and society. As the President of Blockchain of Gala Games, he devotes considerable resources to the creation of stable play-to-earn ecosystems as a means to generate new opportunities for gamers around the world.

Bryan, Kwame

Title: CTO / Lead Developer, Prospectors NFT and Gaming Engineering

Company: ChainSafe

Kwame Bryan is an accomplished mobile and blockchain game developer from Toronto, Canada. With a passion for developing cutting-edge games, Kwame has made a name for himself in the gaming industry, establishing a solid track record of success. 

Kwame is the Lead Developer of the highly acclaimed Prospectors NFT game, recently launched on the SKALE network. Under his leadership, the game surpassed 10,000 transactions in the first week of a closed private beta, showcasing his exceptional expertise in the field and ability to create sound blockchain game mechanics.

In addition to his work on Prospectors NFT, Kwame is also a core developer at ChainSafe, where he plays a vital role in developing web3.unity, an SDK for building web-powered games in Unity3D. His contributions to the platform have helped position it as a leading solution for developers seeking to create engaging, interactive games for web3 and mobile platforms.

Twitter: @ElijahNomad 
GitHub: https://github.com/kbryan
Discord:  kwame#6442

Casamassina, Johnny

Title: CCO

Company: Plai Labs (Champions Ascension)

Johnny is a games industry veteran with several decades of experience, having built a career working for different game studios overseeing the development and launch of hit titles across multiple genres including RPGs, puzzle, storytelling, and social casino. He currently manages all creative initiatives for Champions Ascension, the ambitious game in development by Plai Labs and backed by a16z.

Prior to Plai Labs, Johnny was Head of Design at Jam City, where he led creative on all titles across their portfolio and spearheaded the company’s charge into blockchain gaming, designing the foundational concepts for Champions Ascension.

In the past, Johnny was a GM at Scopely, launching and managing the chart-topping mobile game Yahtzee with Buddies. He also held senior level leadership positions at Playtika, managing the design and production of the top-grossing bingo game of all time Bingo Blitz, and DoubleDown Interactive, leading the design and production of the world’s most successful mobile casino product, DoubleDown Casino.

Chang, Henry

Title: CEO

Company: Wemade

With over 27 years of experience in the game industry, he is one of the most successful CEOs in South Korea. He started his career at Nexon in 1996, when the game industry was still in its early stage. After Nexon, he continued his career as the CFO of Neowiz, Head of Strategic Planning Division of Neowiz Games, and CEO of Neowiz Mobile. At Neowiz, he successfully sealed many M&As and contributed to the growth of Neowiz. He joined Wemade in 2013 as the Head of Strategic Planing Division and was appointed as CEO in 2014, the role he's been devoted to ever since. With a new P&E(Play and Earn) paradigm, he is now focusing on transforming well-made games to blockchain games and servicing them on WEMIX, the global blockchain gaming platform.

Colins, Stefan

Title: Head of Marketing + Community

Company: Venly

Stefan is the Head of the Marketing + Community at Venly, a developer-friendly blockchain technology provider specialized in Wallet, NFT and Marketplace solutions.

As a strategic and technology professional he has a great passion for Metaverses, (blockchain) gaming, NFTs & new technologies. Stefan is convinced that creating the right Metaverse strategy will be one of the biggest challenges for many games, companies and brands.* 

He strongly believes in the powerful combination of blockchain, gaming technology and cryptocurrency. Blockchain gaming in "the metaverse" will become huge the upcoming years...and it's here to stay.

Grodzki, Adam

Title: CEO

Company: 3S Game Studio OU

Adam Grodzki is a game developer with a background in software engineering, network programming, and blockchain technologies. He's passionate about using innovative technologies to improve the player experience and streamline game development. Adam also creates high-quality learning materials on YouTube for advanced game development.

Hwang, Sunyoung

Title: Production Director

Company: NEXON

Sunyoung Hwang is a Production Director who has spearheaded live operations for numerous online games and led multiple new game development projects in his career. Having served as the LiveOps Director for NEXON's tentpole titles MapleStory and Mabinogi, Sunyoung has been committed to scaling NEXON IPs with a focus on sustainable management. Continuing this mission, Sunyoung is now in charge of directing MapleStory Universe, a blockchain game project based on the MapleStory IP.

Hwang, Sean

Title: Global Business Development Lead

Company: Netmarble- MARBLEX

Sean Hwang is the Global Business Development Lead of MARBLEX. MARBLEX is a subsidiary of a global game publisher, Netmarble Corp., and is focusing on building a game-base blockchain ecosystem for gamers. Sean is a lifelong enthusiast of games, and started his career as a game business PM in Netmarble. He was then transferred to MARBLEX when it was first founded, and as one of the founding members, he has been utilizing his experience as a lifelong gamer to create a blockchain ecosystem that is easy to use even for traditional web 2 gamers.

Johnson, Dallas

Title: Chief Engineer

Company: Dacoco (Alien Worlds)

Dallas Johnson is the Head of Engineering at Daoco GmbH, working on Alien Worlds, the largest blockchain-based game in the world by the number of daily active users (according to dappradar.com). Previously he worked with the team that built one of the earliest DAO projects on any blockchain (EOSDAC) 5 years ago, which provided a lot of the foundation on which Alien Worlds is now based. He also has a number of years of development experience with iOS mobile and NodeJS software development at various Fintech and banking organisations in the UK and Australia.

Kukka, Elizabeth

Title: Vice President of Business Operations

Company: ChainSafe Systems

Elizabeth (Liz) Kukka is Vice President of Business Operations at ChainSafe Systems, one of the only blockchain R&D firms with a multi-chain perspective. ChainSafe is home to mission-critical infrastructure spanning web3.unity, an open-source library connecting games built with Unity to the blockchain, as well as an NFT minter and in-game marketplace. Web3.unity makes it super easy to build a blockchain-enabled game from scratch or add blockchain/NFT capabilities to an existing game. With an open, developer-first approach, we're building the future of gaming alongside our community. Liz leads multiple facets of operations within ChainSafe Gaming driving successful partnerships, acquisitions and funding. She is deeply entrenched into the world of gaming and is enthusiastic about building phenomenal experiences, co-creation opportunities for gamers, and enabling studios to realize the full potential of web3 gaming. Liz is passionate about business growth and brings over a decade of experience and expertise as an operator, investor, and mentor. She speaks internationally on blockchain, cryptocurrency, women in tech, future technology, and investing. Before joining the world of blockchain, she was Head of Operations at Plug & Play Tech Center, one of Silicon Valley's earliest and most respected tech accelerators. There, she supported startups in Healthcare & Wellness, Insurance, and Risk & Fraud and expanded the Sunnyvale office to 6 additional global locations.

Laidacker, Aleissia

Title: Head of Product & Technology

Company: Open Meta

Aleissia Laidacker is a Product & Technology Director with over 20 years of experience in the Immersive Technology space. She is a leader in AR/XR, where she was Head of Developer Experience at Magic Leap. Working with numerous partners to find creative and technically innovative ways of pushing the boundaries of interactions and storytelling using Augmented Reality. She led as the Global Director of Creative Technology at The Mill working with teams to build world-class Experiences and Branded-Content for AR, XR, Virtual Worlds and LBEs. She currently works with a number of startups, focused on building the future Open Metaverse through technologies such as Web3, Blockchain and XR. She currently leads as Head of Product and Technology with the Open Metaverse Association. And is a Metaverse Strategist for Mona. Previous to working in the XR space, she worked in Game Development for over 10 years. Having led the Technology, Gameplay and AI Direction on some large game franchises such as Assassin’s Creed at Ubisoft.

Liao, Rebecca

Title: Co-Founder & CEO

Company: Saga

Rebecca Liao is Co-Founder and CEO at Saga, a Web3 protocol for launching the next 1000 chains in the multiverse. The Saga platform allows developers to take a single tenant VM and automatically launch it on a dedicated blockchain, complete with fully provisioned validators and an optimally incentivized security structure. She is also a Co-Founder, Advisor and former COO at Skuchain, a currency agnostic blockchain for global trade and a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer for 2019. In 2020, the World Trade Organization named Skuchain one of the top three blockchain companies in trade and supply chain finance. Under her leadership, Skuchain’s platform grew to $5 billion+ in annual volume. She is currently Advisor to Sommelier Protocol, where she is designing their DAO to optimize for governance, platform growth & regulatory compliance. She is also a Fellow at the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology, where she produces and hosts the #global-public-policy podcast. She was a member of President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, advising on China, technology and Asia economic policy. She also served on Secretary Clinton’s foreign policy team for her 2016 presidential campaign, responsible for Asia trade and economic policy. Prior to Skuchain, Rebecca was Director of Business Development and Head of Asia at Globality, Inc., a Softbank-backed B2B unicorn for AI-powered procurement of professional services. She began her career as an international corporate attorney at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP and Fenwick & West LLP. She represented clients in Asia, North America and Europe across a variety of industries, including Internet, mobile, semiconductors, enterprise software, energy, advertising technology, consumer technology and finance. Her work focused on domestic and cross-border transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity investments, venture financings, debt financings and public offerings of debt and equity. She also regularly advised public and private companies on corporate governance and securities law compliance. Rebecca is also a writer and China analyst. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Nikkei Asia, The National Interest, Bloomberg View, n+1, Democracy Journal, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Times Literary Supplement, Chinafile, The Diplomat, Huffington Post, Dissent Magazine, The New Inquiry, the LA Review of Books, The China Story Journal, Tea Leaf Nation, San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Classical Voice. She regularly comments on China for Politico, Deutsche Welle and Channel NewsAsia and has also appeared on HuffPost Live and SiriusXM Radio. A graduate of Stanford University, where she studied Economics, and Harvard Law School, she serves on the Board of Advisors of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and is a Co-Chair of the Brookings Society. In the wake of rising anti-Asian hate, she co-founded, chairs and serves as an Executive Producer at The ACTION Project, a creative agency of Asian American Academy and Emmy Award-recognized creatives and leaders in entertainment, law, technology, business, education, and journalism leveraging our creative talent to shape the national narrative around our diverse community. She is also on the Board of Directors of Words Without Borders, Voices of Music and the Wagner Society of Northern California. She is also a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations. Rebecca is a jazz and opera singer and tweets at @beccaliao.

Maier, Domenik

Title: CEO and Co-Founder

Company: iBLOXX and 0xBattleGround

O'Holleran, Jack

Title: Co-Founder & CEO

Company: SKALE Labs

Jack O'Holleran is the CEO & Co-founder of SKALE Labs, and a veteran entrepreneur with a deep background in machine learning, AI, security, and blockchain. Prior to co-founding SKALE, Jack was a founder at multiple Silicon Valley enterprise technology companies including Aktana and IncentAlign, and held executive positions at Good Technology and Motorola. His first work with digital currencies was in 2008 building a digital currency platform for Enterprise Resource Allocation. He has been an active cryptocurrency investor and an evangelist for decentralized systems since early 2013.

Pathak, Parth

Title: General Manager, Polygon Supernets

Company: Polygon

Parth Pathak is the General Manager of Polygon Supernets @ Polygon Labs. Polygon Supernets is Polygon’s industry-leading application-specific (dedicated) blockchain solution that is powering the world’s leading gaming, entertainment and enterprise giants for their Web3 ecosystems. Parth is a lifelong passionate gamer: he started modding games from the age of 9, which brought him into computer science. He is a Deep Tech product builder with prior CTO experience in creating startups and R&D leadership - across AI SaaS, Fintech, Geospatial tech, in Singapore, Netherlands and India.

Qiang, Ella

Title: VP Ecosystem & Partnerships

Company: Cronos Labs

Ella Qiang is VP of Ecosystem & Partnerships at Cronos Labs. Cronos is a public Layer 1 blockchain that interoperates with both Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems. It is backed by Crypto.org, Crypto.com and more than 400 Dapp developers, and ecosystem partners. Ella is a veteran in the web3 industry since 2016. She was Director of Partnerships at Stellar Development Foundation, followed by various roles in investment, advisory and DeFi. Ella has a background in banking and corporate finance, and holds an M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Ryan, Sean

Title: CEO

Company: AQUA.xyz

Sean is a senior technology operator and Partnerships executive with extensive global experience in Online Payments & Blockchain, Gaming & Metaverses, E-commerce & Marketplaces, Ad Networks, Developer Ecosystems, and SAAS platforms.

Sean has been the CEO at AQUA.xyz for the past year with an aim to build a Player-first marketplace for the growing web3 gaming community, preceded by nearly 11 years as the VP and Director of Games and Platform Partnerships at Facebook.

Sanders, Michael

Title: Co-founder & Chief Storyteller

Company: Horizon Blockchain Games

Sarrosa, Myrtle Abigail

Title: Streamer/Creator/Actress/Cosplayer

Company: Wemade

Myrtle Sarrosa, one of the leading figures in show business throughout Southeast Asia, is well known for her creative activities in various areas. She holds multiple titles as an actress, cosplayer, singer-songwriter, gamer, and streamer for more than 14 years throughout her career. She is also an active ambassador to multiple AAA games and top game companies, including MIR 4 Global and MIR M Global of WEMADE. Since 2021, she has been one of the pioneers showcasing blockchain games through her streams for fans in the Philippines. With more than 6 million fans and followers around the world, Myrtle has been working to build an active community focused relationship with her fans. She is the first creator to issue her Fan Token, MYRTLE, on WEMIX PLAY.

Seo, Robin

Title: Head of Business Creative Center

Company: Wemade

Rob joined WEMADE in 2019 as part of the Game Strategy Department responsible for strategic planning of contents and services in preparation for live game publishing. He is now dedicated in his role as the Business Head of Business Creative Center to communicate the vision of WEMIX and its mega-ecosystem to the global community. WEMIX PLAY is the world's largest blockchain gaming platform offering numerous game titles to gamers all over the world. Rob genuinely seeks to impact the lives of gamers everywhere by introducing the benefits of blockchain technology in games.

Singh, Nayana

Title: General Manager, Product

Company: ConsenSys

Nayana Singh is a General Manager/Head of Product at ConsenSys responsible for the developer strategy for NFTs, Higher level API’s, SDK and other developer investments. Before ConsenSys, she worked at Microsoft for 10+ years in Product Management and Product Planning focused on building new products/businesses from scratch including blockchain services. She has nearly two decades of experience in product management and software development. She holds an MS in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and an MBA from University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

Takei, Alexandra

Title: Host

Company: Naavik Gaming Podcast, Stanford MBA

Alexandra Takei is a current MBA at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and the host of the Naavik Gaming Podcast, a lead games industry research and consulting firm focused on helping developers master the business of gaming. She has a robust background in games, hailing from Blizzard where she worked on franchises like Overwatch, Diablo, Hearthstone, and Starcraft in business model design, revenue strategy, and finance as well as the Activision Blizzard Partnerships team on enterprise deals. She has spent summers at System Era Softworks (ex-343 founded studio) and BITKRAFT Ventures. At school she is the President of the Stanford GSB Video Game Club, a Stanford Blockchain Accelerator Advisor, and a member of Stanford Women on Boards. In her free time, she loves high brow electronic music and athletics.

Vereecke, Nicolas

Title: Investor at BITKRAFT Ventures, and Founder at Future of Gaming

Company: BITKRAFT

Nicolas ("Nico") is an investor at BITKRAFT Ventures, where he identifies and evaluates new investment opportunities with a particular focus on the intersection of blockchain and games. Prior to joining the BITKRAFT team, Nicolas invested in and built multiple crypto startups. He also spent a few years as a software engineer. He currently hosts two podcasts, The Metacast and The Wiser than Yesterday Podcast. Nicolas holds a Master's in Economics from the KU Leuven and an M.B.A. from Vlerick Business School. Most weekdays at 7 am, he can be found either coaching or training crossfit. Nicolas enjoys collecting generative NFT art, cooking healthy food, and convincing people that esports will overtake traditional sports in the next few years. If you ever need help getting your first Warzone win, he is your man.

Yong, Zhen Yu

Title: CEO, Co-Founder

Company: Web3Auth

Zen (Zhen Yu) Yong is the CEO and Co-Founder of Web3Auth, the leading non-custodial auth infrastructure that enables Web3 wallets and applications to provide seamless user logins to both mainstream and native Web3 users. Formerly from Visa and Accenture, Zen embarked into the world of decentralised finance, blockchain and Web3 as he saw the potential for innovation and progress. He is passionate about empowering users through self custodial ownership of assets, and is a firm believer in making the process as secure, seamless and convenient as possible. Zen built one of the first cross chain bridges (Peace Bridge), and worked on different Ethereum Foundation projects researching off chain scalability before culminating in the establishment of Web3Auth. His vision is to provide the best UI and UX for all users by leveraging the familiarity of Web2 processes and social logins, without compromising on safety or security.