GDC 2024 Session Viewer

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, a globally leading venture capital firm with over $29 billion in capital under management and more than 500 investments across the U.S., Europe, and Asia—including Epic Games, Stability AI, and Snap. Moritz loves to partner with exceptional entrepreneurs and has invested over $100 million into the gaming industry—including founders who have led the creation of games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Wild Rift, Apex Legends, Overwatch, Valorant, StarCraft II, and Warcraft III. Previously, Moritz was a partner and management team member at BITKRAFT. He personally raised over $200 million and, with the founders, scaled the firm to become the most active gaming investor of 2020, 2021, and 2022. Moritz led many of the funds’ marquee early-stage deals, including Inworld AI, Theorycraft Games, and Raid Base—achieving top-decile IRR (collective valuations over $2 billion) and attracting 9-figure follow-on investments from Amazon, Disney, Epic Games, Google, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, NetEase, Niantic, Nintendo, Riot Games, Sony, Take-Two, Tencent, and Ubisoft. Before joining BITKRAFT, Moritz was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, where he founded and led the firm's global gaming practice. During his 5-year tenure, he advised the world's largest gaming and technology corporations on over $300 billion in transaction volume across M&A, IPOs, VC, and other strategic transactions—including Dell’s $67 billion acquisition of EMC and IBM’s $34 billion Red Hat purchase. A lifelong gamer, Moritz spent his teenage years competitively playing Blizzard’s Diablo II, culminating in a global #1 ranking among over 12 million players in 2003. The first person in his family to graduate high school, he traded the digital swords and armor that he earned in-game to afford his college tuition—two decades before NFTs entered the mainstream. Moritz holds an M.B.A. and M.A. from Stanford, where he graduated as Arjay Miller Scholar and ERP Scholar ("German Rhodes"). He was recognized among the "30 Under 30" (Forbes), "40 Under 40" (Capital), "Young Leaders" (Atlantik-Brücke), and "Young Global Leaders" (World Economic Forum). His recent speaking engagements include Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., Goldman Sachs, Forbes, New York Times, SXSW, and GDC. In his personal time, Moritz is an avid Ironman and ultramarathon athlete, including the 250km Marathon des Sables and the World Marathon Challenge (7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days). With his races, he has raised over $250,000 for depression research.

Borget, Sebastien

Title: Co-founder and COO

Company: The Sandbox

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Sebastien also became the President of the Blockchain Game Alliance in 2020, a non-profit organization of 500 key members of the industry. He was recently named #4 in the Top #100 2022 most influential people in crypto by CoinTelegraph.

Bucher, Will

Title: Managing Partner

Company: Bucher Law PLLC & Chair of IGDA Business & Legal SIG

Will Bucher is a lawyer specializing in in intellectual property law, antitrust, and video games. He was the top-rated speaker at GDC in his debut GDC talk in 2018. He has worked on a range of video game matters, including defending Take-Two Interactive against a lawsuit by Lindsay Lohan over the advertising for Grand Theft Auto 5. Currently, Will serves as chair of the IGDA's Business & Legal Special Interest Group and the American Bar Association's Digital Games and New Media Committee.

Bugaj, Stephan

Title: Chief Creative Officer

Company: Genvid

As Genvid's chief creative officer, Stephan Bugaj brings a wealth of past creative and technical direction experience to creating our socially interactive streaming series like Silent Hill Ascension, DC Heroes United, and Borderlands Echovision Live. As CCO of DJ2 Entertainment he ran creative for the Hollywood company behind the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, forthcoming Tomb Raider anime, Derek Kolstad's forthcoming Coyote Blue, and many more— working with partners like Paramount, Legendary, Amazon, Netflix, Sony, and more on many film and TV development projects. Stephan has also held senior creative and creative-technology roles at a number of companies including Hanson Robotics, where he led creative and systems development of the artificial intelligence personality, physical behavior, and mind architecture of the Sophia android, and premiering his short films starring her at Cannes. At Telltale Games, he led visual and story development for beloved narrative games including Game of Thrones, Tales From The Borderlands, and The Walking Dead.

Chari, Barath

Title: Attorney

Company: WSGR

Barath Chari is a partner in Wilson Sonsini's San Francisco office. Barath represents technology companies at all stages of growth, from bootstrapped start-ups to leading global enterprises, in complex business transactions involving technology and intellectual property. He also has deep experience in assisting technology companies and their investors with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and financing matters. A Washington, D.C., transplant resident in the firm's San Francisco office, Barath understands how the federal government transacts with technology companies, and helps technology companies sell products to federal government customers and collaborate with the federal government on research and development. He also leverages his pre-law experience as a software engineer to provide informed legal advice on technical topics such as open source software.

Croswell, Mike

Title: Founder

Company: Colorado Game Coders LLC

Game creation generalist and educator, specializing in the Unity game engine.
Mike Croswell founded Colorado Game Coders, LLC in 2008. He has continued to practice and study Computer Science and Game Technology for over 40 years. He has developed software for the FAA,  US Navy,  NASA, Google, Meta, Vicon Motion Capture, Colorado Medtech, and others.  He has nearly 15 years of experience teaching Computer Science at various colleges in Colorado and Wyoming, including re-training Hewlett-Packard employees to become Software Engineers. He received his MS in CS from CSU, specializing in Computer Graphics and Artificial Intelligence. He also studied Computer Vision (abd) there. His BS is in Mathematics with CS Emphasis from Lynchburg College in Virginia.

Ding, Chenwei

Title: Senior Technical Engineer

Company: NetEase

Chenwei Ding is a Senior Technical Engineer of NetEase. He has participated in the development of recommender systems built in games such as a Chinese Ghost Story Online. With keen interests in machine learning, he has published academic papers at conferences such as Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). And he also serves as a reviewer at the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI) and the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR). In the general field of AI, he is interested in interpretable machine learning and causality-related researches. He also enjoys online video games and varies kinds of sports, especially ball games.

Farhan Hassan, Syed

Title: Software Engineer

Company: ARM

Farhan is a Software Engineer in the Developer Relations Team at ARM, where he focuses on enhancing game performance with ARM by building frameworks and integrating new technologies into game engines. He previously contributed his expertise as a Scientific Computing Software Engineer for High-Performance Computing Products in the energy industry. Now, he leverages his experience to empower developers and optimize gaming experiences. Farhan earned an MSc Artificial Intelligence degree at Queen Mary University London.

Fay-Hunt, Sam

Title: Game AI Developer

Company: Kythera AI

Sam Fay-Hunt is a AI developer at Kythera AI, an Edinburgh based game AI middleware company. He discovered his passion for all things AI during his Computer Science Bachelors Degree where he worked on systems to automate neural network compression within the Intel Distiller framework. Following his bachelors degree he joined Kythera AI developed and improved many AI solutions including navigation mesh features, new behaviour authoring tools. In his free time when he isn't learning new programming languages and software development paradigms he is travelling, playing video games, and reading fantasy novels.

Ferencz, Joe

Title: CEO

Company: Gamefam

Joe Ferencz is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Gamefam, a leading metaverse game developer and publisher that creates connected experiences with the largest gaming communities and well-known brands. He has been a business and creative leader as an artist, strategist, marketer, and producer to pop culture and gaming’s biggest brands over the past two decades. Joe founded Gamefam in 2019 and has led the company’s growth and evolution as the world’s first professionally-managed, fully-dedicated metaverse gaming developer and publisher. In his executive role, Joe oversees strategy and production at Gamefam and has developed and evangelized the company’s vision and structure, driving 14 consecutive quarters of revenue growth. His leadership style is to set goals and then collaborate with leaders within the company to find the best ways to achieve those goals - including constantly raising the bar creatively by delivering the most delightful and well-produced live operated games in the metaverse. Joe began his career as an art director on sports licensed consumer products, including NFL, NCAA, and NHL merchandise before attending business school at the University of Michigan. In the years leading up to founding Gamefam, Joe leaned into his love for video games and dove head first into the industry, soon becoming a brand strategist and marketing executive, using his creativity and innovative ideas to benefit intellectual properties such as Assassin's Creed, Subway Surfers, and Crayola. He helped each IP expand beyond its core platform into new forms of media, including tech-driven merchandising and revenue streams. Joe’s game design and producing credits include App Store Editors' Choice winners He-Man: The Most Powerful Game in the Universe, Star Wars Rebels Recon Missions, and Hot Wheels Race Off, which has over 100 million downloads. As the consulting Executive Producer for Hot Wheels video games, Joe helped elevate the brand to one of the top toy IPs in gaming today, executing 15 successful product launches between 2015 and 2018, including the Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels Expansion Pack, named the “#1 Xbox Exclusive of 2017” by Metacritic and Hot Wheels Infinite Loop, nominated for “Best Mobile Game” and “Best Racing Game” at Gamescom 2019 and named a “Best of 2019 Games” by Apple. Joe is based in Los Angeles and enjoys a fulfilling life that includes close friends and family, and a blind dog whom he proudly serves as an obsessive caretaker. He spends his time outside of Gamefam playing jazz piano, volunteering at 826LA, and deepening his love of animation and anime.

Gandhi, Rajiv

Title: Master Principal Cloud Architect

Company: Oracle

Rajiv is a skilled professional with extensive experience in AI and Machine Learning. He has worked in the AIML domain for the past two years, during which time he has demonstrated a strong understanding of AI and machine learning concepts and their practical applications. In addition to his work experience, Rajiv holds a postgraduate diploma in machine learning and artificial intelligence from the University of Texas at Austin, one of the top universities in the United States. This certification has equipped him with advanced theoretical and practical knowledge in these domains, making him an expert. Rajiv's combination of hands-on experience and academic qualifications makes him a valuable asset in AI and machine learning. He is well-equipped to work on various projects and undertake responsibilities that require a deep understanding of these technologies.

Harding, Russ

Title: Chief Gaming Officer

Company: Saltwater Games

Russ Harding, holding the position of Chief Gaming Officer at Saltwater Games, Maze Theory, and Nexus Labs, has dedicated nearly three decades to the gaming industry. His work focuses on leveraging emerging technologies like VR, AR, MR, AI, and Web3 to create engaging gaming experiences. Russ's experience spans various game genres, catering to different audiences. His collaborative efforts with notable brands such as LEGO, PlayStation, Harry Potter, Sony Music, Doctor Who, and Peaky Blinders reflect his broad industry involvement with leading intellectual properties.
As Chief Gaming Officer, Russ primarily engages in guiding the creative strategic direction, nurturing initial concepts, and overseeing prototype development. He also plays a critical role in maintaining the quality of the studio's game portfolio. As a custodian of the studio's creative development process, he ensures it stays relevant with evolving market trends and technological advancements.
Currently, Russ is leading several notable projects. "The Infinite Inside" is an MR/VR puzzle game that explores the possibilities of immersive gaming, while "Resurgence" is a crafting/survival game that delves into the applications of AI and Web3 in gaming, and “Celeros,” Formula One for the skies, based on the new real-world motorsport Airspeeder.

Huffman, Brandon

Title: Founding Partner

Company: Odin Law & Media

Brandon is an attorney focused on representing technology and media clients in business, intellectual property, content clearance, privacy, commercial contracts, employment and internet regulatory matters. Why? Because of a passion for creativity and technology. Brandon is a so-so visual artist, a lousy programmer and a pretty-okay film editor, but he is a great lawyer. He keeps an old comic by Barbara Smaller that features a little boy in a cowboy outfit telling his father “Well if I can’t be a cowboy, I’ll be a lawyer for cowboys.” The creative and innovative clients Brandon serves are his cowboys. Brandon volunteers as general counsel to the International Game Developers’ Association, the largest trade organization focused on supporting individual game developers. In early 2017, he was awarded the IGDA’s MVP award. When he is not working, Brandon spends time with his wife, kids and their dogs. He also accompanies his wife on her pilgrimages to Walt Disney World, attends various digital media user groups and industry events, draws, paints and tinkers in the family garage. Oh, and sometimes there is time leftover to play a video game or two.

Iantorno, Michael

Title: PhD Candidate

Company: Concordia University

Michael Iantorno is a FRQSC-funded PhD candidate in Concordia University’s Communication program whose doctoral research explores videogame afterlife, fandom, and intellectual property law. His ongoing academic projects involve studying socioeconomic class in games, cataloguing and archiving early home computer technologies, and investigating the production of bootleg Super NES / Super Famicom cartridges. He is currently a student representative for the Technoculture, Art and Games Lab, an active member of Dr Mia Consalvo’s mLab, and a research assistant at the Residual Media Depot. In addition to his academic work, Michael is also a game designer, radio producer, and writer. His first videogame hack, HyperBound, was featured in Anna Anthropy’s Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, his radio programs have earned multiple honours at the New York Festivals, and his writing has been featured in journals and magazines. To learn more about his work, visit: www.michaeliantorno.com

Kim, Keith

Title: Head of Strategy

Company: Nexpace

Keith Kim is Head of Strategy and Chief Blockchain Designer at Nexpace, who has led MapleStory Universe's economic immersion initiative since its kick off in 2021. As an avid gamer and lifelong MapleStory fan, Keith now channels his passion into developing MapleStory Universe. Prior to his time at Nexpace, Keith has led multiple projects at Nexon's Intelligence Labs, driving strategic vision with technological prowess as Senior Project Manager.

Kirby, Neil

Title: Senior Lecturer

Company: The Ohio State University

Neil Kirby is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the Ohio State University where he recently won the College of Engineering’s Charles F. MacQuigg award for outstanding teaching. At OSU he teaches the Design, Development, and Documentation of Interactive Systems class as well as the introductory database and systems classes. Before he returned to OSU, Neil was a Member of Technical Staff at Nokia, home of Bell Laboratories. There he developed .NET + database solutions used extensively in the Wireless business unit. Prior assignments included architecture consulting, speech recognition, and operations and support systems. Neil co-founded the IGDA Foundation and serves as secretary on its board. There he also assists in the selection of the Eric Dybsand AI Memorial Scholar. He also assists with the Scholars, Next Generation Leaders, and Velocity programs. Neil is a section editor in the Game AI Pro series of books. He is the author of An Introduction to game AI. His other publications include articles in volumes I, II, and IV of AI Game Programming Wisdom. He co-wrote “Effective Requirements Traceability: Models, Tools and Practices” for the Bell Labs Technical Journal. His 1991 paper, "Artificial Intelligence Without AI: An evolutionary Approach" may well show the first use of what is now known as "circle strafing" in a game.

Knapik, Jakub

Title: VP of Art, Global Art Director

Company: CD Projekt RED

Jakub Knapik is a VFX Supervisor / Art Director and CG Artist with over 20 years of experience working in the Film and Commercial industry and over 5 years in Game Dev currently working as a VP of Art, Global Art Director at CD Projekt RED. He worked as a generalist, Compositing Artist, Lighting Artist, and Visual Effects Supervisor with clients and on set with the film crews. He had an opportunity to explore a vast world of projects and video clips starting with deeply art-driven films like Lars Von Trier’s “Melancholia”, through special projects for European Space Agency’s mission Rosetta, sophisticated commercials for BMW or “ARES” for “The Martian” movie but also video clips for rock legend like Radiohead. A few years ago, he decided to dive into the vivid world of Game Development with its fast-growing technology and visual language. He is deeply fascinated by both beautiful and intelligent visual storytelling and the complex technical side of computer graphics.

Kreminski, Max

Title: Research Scientist

Company: Midjourney

Max Kreminski is a researcher in artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, creativity, and play. Currently, they are the director of the storytelling tools research group at Midjourney and an assistant professor of computer science at Santa Clara University. They have published over 50 papers at AI, HCI, and games venues, including at highly selective conferences such as NeurIPS, CHI, and AIIDE. Max holds a PhD in Computational Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Lanois, Paul

Title: Director

Company: Fieldfisher

Paul is a European technology and privacy professional at Fieldfisher and am an attorney admitted to the bar in California, New York, the District of Columbia (DC) and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). His practice focuses on advising companies on data privacy and cybersecurity matters drawing on my international experience, having lived and worked in the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Hong Kong and the United States. Paul helps companies – ranging from startups to large Fortune 500 multinationals across a range of industries – to develop data protection and privacy strategies for new products and services. He advises clients on complying with evolving global privacy and data protection laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the ePrivacy Directive, as well as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) / California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) and similar data privacy laws passed in Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah. In particular, he advises clients in relation to their cutting-edge B2B and B2C offerings, such as connected products and services (Internet of Things) including virtual reality, mobile apps (including augmented reality apps), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) as well as cloud-based integrations. Paul also advises on cybersecurity matters, including on data breaches and incident response, risk assessments, policy development and compliance with industry standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). He coordinates large projects spanning privacy law requirements in a large number of countries to provide clients with a consolidated advice that is practical and actionable. In 2018, he was selected for inclusion on the list of arbitrators developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the EU Commission and the Swiss Federal Administration as part of the Privacy Shield Framework Binding Arbitration Program. Before joining Fieldfisher, Paul was Vice President and senior legal counsel at a leading international bank, Credit Suisse, at its headquarters in Switzerland as well as its Hong Kong office. Before that, he worked on technology transactions at large international law firms in London (UK) and Luxembourg, and was an Associate Professor at the University of Cergy-Pontoise Law School in France.

Lopez Malet, Mélanie

Title: Senior Data Scientist

Company: Ubisoft

Mélanie Lopez Malet is a senior data scientist, with a focus on natural language processing (NLP) and human-machine interfaces. After her first career as a literature associate professor, she focused her work on the synergy between human creativity and machine intelligence. Her passion lies in crafting new fictional and immersive experiences powered by AI, building technical pipelines that open new creative horizons to the Ubisoft designers .  

Lynch, Tess

Title: Privacy & IP Associate

Company: Premack Rogers P.C.

Tess is a licensed attorney with Premack Rogers P.C. with a focus on intellectual property (IP), commercial, and privacy matters for video game studios and online creators. Holding International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) certifications in U.S. and European privacy law (CIPP/US/E), she specializes in developing privacy processes and standards from the ground up.

Mantegna, Micaela

Title: Lawyer and Researcher

Company: Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

Known as the 'Abogamer', Micaela stands as an international authority on digital ethics, XR policy, and the intertwining of generative AI with creativity and copyright. With an unique intersection of expertise, she is recognized as a videogame scholar and activist who brings a powerful voice to the frontier of digital realities. As a TED Fellow, she challenged the world with the question, "How to stop the metaverse from becoming the internet's bad sequel?" in a TED talk that garnered over 1.5 million views worldwide. A very sought after speaker, she has presented in conferences like GDC, TED, GamesBeat Summit, Ada Lovelace Festival, More Than Just a Game, RightsCon and many more, reaching audiences in over 28 countries. Micaela currently serves on Chatham House’s AI Taskforce, and as a member of the World Economic Forum’s 'Global Council on the Future of the Metaverse'. As an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, she started and is co-leading the “Video Game and XR Policy Working Group”. Result of over 6 years of research, her debut book, "ARTficial: Creativity, Artificial Intelligence, and Copyright" (2022) is a deep dive into the intricate world of AI, art, ethics, and copyright law, which accurately predicted a lot of the current questions and problems posed by the rise of Generative AI. Her forthcoming book, "Braindancing in the Metaverse : a capitalism of cognitive surveillance" (2024), unpacks the trajectory of the metaverse as an evolution of digital capitalism, -as opposed to the post-scarcity future promised by generative AI and web3 ideals-; connecting the dots between neurotechnology, XR, AI and the role of intellectual property in regulating digital ownership, to paint the picture of a dystopian future that challenges human agency, mental privacy and dignity. Her work and insights echo across global platforms, having been featured in prestigious outlets like The Verge, WIRED, GamesBeat, IGN, DW, Gamernet Japan, and Le Monde. Micaela holds a Master's degree in Intellectual Property from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and San Andres University, where she also teaches AI Governance and Ethics at San Andres' Center for Technology and Society (CETyS). She has been recognized for her research on algorithmic governance, with the 2017 Google Policy Fellowship. Micaela's unique blend of expertise is frequently sought after by institutions and governments, being the lead drafter of Argentina's National AI Plan's “Ethics and regulation” chapter in 2019. She has also contributed to OpenAI's DALL·E 2 external red teaming process in March 2022. A passionate advocate for inclusion, she founded Women In Games Argentina (WIGAr), aiming for a more equitable gaming industry. For her trailblazing career, she was honored by Women in Games International (WIGJ) as their 2021 “Outstanding Individual Ambassador of the Year”, being also spotlighted as a 2021 “Gamechanger” by GamesIndustry.biz. Proving the transformative impact of video games on her journey and her profound connection with 'Mass Effect' , one of the highlights of her career as the Abogamer is being featured by EA Games in their 'Legendary Edition Community Tribute'. The game's exploration of synthetic life and the profound quote 'Does this unit have a soul?', has been the catalyst for her pursuit of AI ethics, guiding her academic and professional trajectory. Aligned with her admiration for the ethos of Star Trek, Micaela advocates for a future where artificial intelligence can lead us towards a post-scarcity society. She underscores the need for diligent governance and ethical practices now to steer our path towards such an equitable future, a message she passionately communicates through her work.

McGrath, Sam

Title: CTO

Company: Thatgamecompany Inc

Sam started his career as cofounder of S2 Games, creating the game engine for the innovative title Savage: The Battle for Newerth (released 2003), which won both the technical achievement award and audience award at the 2004 Independent Games Festival. He then went on to create the Offset Engine, which pioneered the use of advanced graphics and shader effects. In 2008, Intel bought Offset Software as part of their "Larrabee" project, and Sam continued his work on the Offset Engine from 2008 to 2010. After Intel, Sam founded Fractiv LLC with brothers Travis and Trevor Stringer, shifting his focus to mobile game development and releasing the successful iOS and Android title Lane Splitter, among other titles. In 2018, Jenova Chen, CEO of thatgamecompany, brought McGrath onboard during development of Sky: Children of the Light, which has seen over 200 million downloads and multiple awards since its debut in 2019. McGrath became CTO of thatgamecompany in 2021.

Mori, Yusuke

Title: AI Researcher

Company: SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.

Yusuke Mori received Ph.D. in the field of Information Science and Technology from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2021. In his doctoral program, he worked on the application of natural language processing (NLP) to storytelling. He mainly worked on story understanding with taking into account emotions, story generation and completion, and development of a creative writing support system for novelists. Currently, as an AI Researcher in the Artificial Intelligence Division of SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD., he is working on the application of natural language processing techniques to Game AI.

Mulay, Amit

Title: Senior Software Development Engineer

Company: AMD

Amit Mulay is a Senior Software Engineer at AMD's Developer Solutions group. He is currently working on Radeon GPU Detective (RGD) and focused on helping developers resolve GPU crashes. Amit earned a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence at Northeastern University, Boston.

Oratz, Lisa

Title: Senior Counsel

Company: Perkins Coie LLP

Lisa Oratz has represented clients in matters involving technology, IP and entertainment law for over 35 years. Her practice includes product counseling and complex agreements with a focus on IP, content liability and privacy. She has advised clients from Fortune 500 companies to cutting-edge start-ups on artificial intelligence issues for over 15 years and is a frequent writer and speaker on AI.

Orkin, Jeff

Title: CEO

Company: Bitpart AI

Jeff Orkin is Founder & CEO of Bitpart AI, a Boston-based company providing characters as a service for games.  Prior to Bitpart, Jeff developed the AI for FEAR and No One Lives Forever 2, founded a conversational AI startup called Giant Otter, and earned a Ph.D in AI from the MIT Media Lab.  Jeff's research demonstrated how to create embodied conversational NPCs using data captured from thousands of human players interacting online. Jeff has served as an Author and Editor of the AI Game Programming Wisdom book series, Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, and has published 25+ peer-reviewed articles about AI. Jeff holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Tufts University with a minor in Studio Art.

Paniewski, Chris

Title: Partner

Company: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Christopher Paniewski is a partner in the technology transactions practice in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s Palo Alto office. He focuses his practice on strategic commercial transactions, investments, and mergers and acquisitions for technology companies. Chris is a founding member of the firm’s electronic gaming group.
Chris’s clients range from multinational enterprises to cutting edge start-ups in various industries, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomous vehicles, electronic gaming, fintech, and software and hardware, among many others. Chris is able to address a number of intellectual property-based and complex transactions, such as cloud computing agreements, software licensing agreements, outsourcing relationships, intellectual property and technology licensing agreements, supply agreements, joint ventures, and agreements for many other types of commercial and strategic transactions.

Perony, Nico

Title: Director of AI Research

Company: Unity

Nico Perony is an artificial intelligence researcher and behavioral scientist leading AI Research at Unity. In this role, he oversees various teams and applied research agendas aiming to explore novel use cases for Generative AI within the Unity ecosystem.  Prior to joining Unity, he was the founder and CTO of OTO - an AI company acquired by Unity in 2021 to enable safe interactions in online games. Prior to founding OTO, Nico led the AI team at HyperloopTT, and held various data-oriented roles in industries ranging from blockchain to sustainability.  Nico is a leader with a techno-utopian bend – one of his driving passions is to enable a safe and sustainable future for humanity. Trained as an electrical engineer and behavioral scientist, Nico completed his doctoral and post-doctoral training at ETH Zurich in the study of complex social systems. He has authored highly cited publications, published 2 books, given public talks at venues including TED and TEDx, and co-founded 3 companies and an NGO. He is passionate about making technology a force for good, and views the ongoing AI revolution as a critical juncture propelling humanity towards the next stage of its evolution." 

Peterson, Latoya

Title: CXO

Company: Glow Up Games

Latoya Peterson lives at the intersection of emerging technology and culture. Named one of Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 rising stars in media, she is best known for the award winning blog Racialicious.com - the intersection of race and pop culture. She is cofounder and Chief Experience Officer at Glow Up Games, a game studio focusing on telling beautifully crafted stories using mobile, AR/VR, AI, and other emerging technologies. Previously, she was the Deputy Editor, Digital Innovation for ESPN's The Undefeated, an Editor-at-Large at Fusion, and the Senior Digital Producer for The Stream, a social media driven news show on Al Jazeera America. In 2018, she soft launched AI in the Trap, a collaborative art project that explores the future of artificial intelligence and predictive policing through a hip-hop lens. In 2016, she produced a critically acclaimed YouTube series on Girl Gamers that was highlighted on Spotify. Known for bringing a hip-hop feminist and racial justice framework to technological and cultural analysis, Latoya’s perspectives have been widely published in outlets like Wired, Teen Vogue, NPR, ESPN the Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence, Spin, Vibe, Marie Claire, Kotaku, The Atlantic, The American Prospect, and The Guardian. She was a contributor to Jezebel.com. Her essay, "The Not Rape Epidemic" was published in the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (Seal Press, 2008). She also contributed "The Feminist Existential Crisis (Dark Children Remix)" to the anthology Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism (CCPA, 2011). She is often asked to speak about technology, race, gender, and pop culture. Her past engagements include the Harvard Business School Tech Summit, FEST Peru, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) R & D Lab, The European Journalism Centre, Media Party Africa, and The Conf in Sweden. She is a frequent panelist at conferences like the Global Editors Network, the Game Developers Conference, Confab, Online News Association, South by Southwest Interactive, and the American Anthropological Association. As a keynote speaker, she’s led workshops and addressed students at institutions like Princeton University, Texas A & M University, Swarthmore College, Kenyon College, Harvard’s Black Law Students Association and MIT’s Graduate Women Symposium. As a digital media consultant, Latoya Peterson has worked with brands like the Lean In Foundation, NPR, the Wikimedia Foundation, and Weber-Shandwick to provide demographic analysis, ideas on improving user experience, and specialized outreach. As a media personality, she has provided expert commentary for outlets like CNN and C-SPAN. She was also a guest host for WEAA’s The Michael Eric Dyson Show and a contributor/substitute digital producer for Al-Jazeera International's version of The Stream. She is currently on the advisory board of the Data & Society Institute and the board of visitors for The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships. She is a US-Japan Leadership Foundation Fellow and a USC Civic Media Senior Fellow. She served as a Harvard Berkman Center Affiliate, a Poynter Institute Sensemaking Fellow, and one of the inaugural Public Media Corps fellows. She is also part of the selection committee for the Museum of Play’s World Video Game Hall of Fame.

Pilski, Mateusz

Title: Co-Founder and COO

Company: Ice Code Games S.A.

Mateusz is the technical-minded hemisphere of the brain that co-manages Ice Code Games. His degree in Mathematics was a passion, just like his work in game development. He co-founded the studio as a lean start-up and took part in building it into a publicly listed company with a 40-strong team. Mateusz pushes ICG to be data-driven as much as possible, with various playtests, focus tests, and other means to gather feedback or measure efficiency. Serving as Game Director on the studio's debut title, Re-Legion, and recently as Chief Technology Officer on Hard West II, Mateusz's goal is to maintain a sharp increase in quality and experience for ICG's next showing. Privately he's a man of many hobbies, from historical re-enactment to emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.

Sainsily, Manuel

Title: Senior Advocate, AI

Company: Unity Technologies

Scuri, Maria Laura "Lulu"

Title: VP Labs & Community Integrity

Company: ESL FACEIT Group

Maria is the VP of Product - Game Integrations and Community Integrity at ESL FACEIT Group (EFG), the leading competitive games and esports company. Maria joined FACEIT, the biggest platform for competitive online multiplayer games, with over 30 million users, in 2013 as an intern assisting with everything from customer support through to event management. Her passion for data, machine learning and artificial intelligence as well as her knowledge and passion for videogames saw her quickly rise through the ranks to her current position, leading six business efforts being Game Integrations, Community Integrity, Voice, Chat, Tech Platform and Next. Maria works side by side with some of the biggest tech companies & game publishers in the world including Google Cloud, Tencent, Blizzard. She is the lead on a number of initiatives including the inception of Minerva, an Artificial Intelligence Admin that fights toxicity, which won her a Women in Games Award for Technical Innovation. Maria is responsible for integrating new games to the FACEIT platform, and keeping it safe and friendly through our Community integrity framework.

Silk, Joel

Title: Senior Director Trust & Safety Operations

Company: Roblox

Joel is a seasoned leader dedicated to shaping a safer digital environment for everyone. Currently serving as Senior Director of Safety Operations at Roblox, he spearheads moderation efforts for over 70 million daily active users, driving proactive measures to enhance user safety and platform integrity. Before this, Joel led security and risk management strategies as Principal Product Manager at Veritas Technologies, ensuring compliance with federal and international standards. Joel also served as an Air Force Intelligence Officer, commanding an elite special operations intelligence unit and advising senior leaders on intelligence and threat mitigation strategies. With a deep passion for keeping users safe and systems secure, Joel brings together his varied expertise to strengthen digital spaces and safeguard millions of users across the globe.

Storm, Heather

Title: Manager, Creator Evangelism

Company: Epic Games

Heather Storm is driven by a passion for exploring the convergence of technology and learning. Her diverse expertise spans robotics, artificial intelligence, video games, community, and marketing as she continually seeks unconventional avenues to enhance people’s lives and foster enjoyment. With a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from CU Boulder, Heather has firmly established herself as a tech-savvy professional with a strong educational foundation. Her relentless pursuit of innovation led her to acquire a robotics patent. She currently helps people make engaging games with UEFN at Epic Games.

Tao, Jianrong

Title: CTO

Company: NetEase

My name is Jianrong Tao, but you can call me WindSky. As the CTO of Game Dpt. at GrowEase Div., NetEase, I am a technical expert with extensive knowledge and practical experience in game AI. I am passionate about using artificial intelligence technology to empower the game industry, reduce costs, and increase efficiency. My goal is to unleash the creativity of game developers and enhance the gaming experience of players. I have developed an artificial intelligence solution that encompasses the entire game development process, from R&D to testing and operation. This solution includes competitive bots, anti-cheating mechanisms, intelligent matchmaking and recommender systems, intelligent NPCs, intelligent testing and art asset generation. My research results have been used in popular games such as "Justice", "A Chinese Ghost Story", "Revelation", "Naraka: Bladepoint", "World of Warcraft", "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive", "Dream of Three Ancient Kingdoms 2", and "Slam Dunk". I have applied for more than 40 invention patents and developed more than 10 software works. I have a Ph.D. in computer science from Zhejiang University and currently serve as an off-campus tutor for Zhejiang University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). I have extensive research experience in reinforcement learning, imitation learning, data mining, and user modeling, and have published nearly 50 papers in prestigious journals and conferences such as KDD, AAAI, WWW, IJCAI, and TKDE. I have won the best paper awards of Ubicomp2016, CoG2020, and SMDS2020. Additionally, I serve as a member of the program committees of ACM Information and Knowledge Management Conference, ACM Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Conference, and IEEE Data Mining Conference. I am also a member of the Executive Committee of ACM Hangzhou Branch. I am dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what is possible for game AI and I am excited to see what the future holds for the intersection of AI and gaming.

Titre-Montgomery, Lisette

Title: Co-Founder / Studio Art Director

Company: Cornerstone Interactive Studios

Lisette Titre-Montgomery is an Art Director with over twenty two years of industry experience and 14 shipped titles. Specializing in creating studio cultures where art and creativity thrive. She has led art studios large and small in the US, Japan, China, Australia, India, and the Philippines. Lisette has contributed to some of the industry's highest profile games, including Tiger Woods Golf, The Simpsons, Dante's Inferno, Dance Central 3, SIMS 4, South Park, and Transformers Age Of Extinction for Android and iOS. Her most recent project was Psychonauts 2 with Double Fine Productions. She is currently working on an unannounced project. Lisette's list of personal achievements are just as impressive. She has been featured on CNN, invited to The White House, and a member of the US Department of State's Speakers Bureau. Mrs Titre-Montgomery has been a featured keynote speaker at N.A.S.A., Goggle, Intel, Black Girls Code, Girls Who Code and more. She has also been named One of the Most Powerful Women in Tech by Business Insider.

Togelius, Julian

Title: Research Director

Company: modl.ai

Julian Togelius is co-founder and research director at modl.ai, and associate professor at New York University. He has worked on procedural content generation and other approaches to AI in games since 2004. He is a co-author of two textbooks, Procedural Content Generation in Games and Artificial Intelligence and Games, and was editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Games. His research has been cited more than twenty thousand times. At modl.ai, he leads the development of human-like game-playing for customers including one of the world's most popular team shooters.

Warner, Samuel

Title: CEO

Company: Well Told Entertainment

Sam Warner is the CEO and Game Director at Well Told Entertainment, a Playstation Partner company founded by himself and a group of friends from college that pretend to know what they're doing in game development. He has spent over a decade immersing himself in various trades and professions across game development to better communicate with members of each discipline, only to discover that there's a reason why people usually just do one or maybe two things in this industry at a time. With his hair firmly on fire, and an even more fiery flame of passion for game development burning in his heart, Sam is really, ultimately, just excited to meet people that are significantly more talented and intelligent than he is.

Youichiro, Miyake

Title: Lead AI Researcher

Company: SQUARE ENIX

Youichiro Miyake is a general manager of AI Division, SQUARE ENIX. He is also a project professor of Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), the University of Tokyo. He has been developing AI of digital games in game industry as AI technical director while researching game AI technologies as lead AI researcher in a digital game company in twenty years. He developed the technical design of AI for the following game titles: CHROME HOUNDS (2006, Xbox360), Demon's Souls (2009,PlayStation3), Armored Core V (2012, Xbox360, PlayStation3) developed by FROM SOFTWARE, and FINAL FANTASY XIV, FINAL FANTASY XV, and Kingdom Hearts III developed by SQUARE ENIX. He is also a board member of Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) JAPAN and a chair of SIG-AI in Japan Chapter, International Game Developers Association (IGDA Japan) from 2006 to resent. He researches the technical design of combination of smart city and metaverse by using game AI system “Meta-Character-Spatial AI dynamic cooperative model”. He published more than 10 books of game AI, and many academic papers. He had many lectures in international academic conferences such as SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH ASIA, IEEE Conference On Games, and ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, and international industrial conferences such GDC and CEDEC.

Zaman, Talha

Title: CTO

Company: Meshcapade GmbH

Talha is an experienced engineering leader who helped build Kyruus, an enterprise startup transforming healthcare through big data, and earlier worked at Google. Prior to Meshcapade, he focused on turning research into production quality software at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems.

Zheng, Chen

Title: Senior Director, Product

Company: Roblox

Chen is a former Scientist and Analyst, now an entrepreneurial growth product leader at Roblox with passion for changing the world with technology and product philosophy. Most recently, Chen was at Netflix leading AI-empowered innovations for both consumer experience and content creation. From 2017 to 2019, she was at Wish building merchant platform. In 2017, she led the Facebook B2C Commerce team to help merchants excel at Mobile Commerce via building mobile presence (Product Catalog and Page Shops) and promoting products on social media (Product Tagging, Pixel, Live Shopping). She also started a company-wide initiative on emerging markets by building an open marketplace tailored to the local dynamics. Prior to 2017, Chen worked on Instagram Search & Explore and then Feed ranking & experience, helping users share and engage with world's moments more effectively. As a result, Instagram Time Spent increased 20%. Prior to 2015, I worked on Google Shopping Express in a variety of areas, including improving search quality and experience, bootstrapping a scalable recommendation system, enabling special product assortments, building core e-commerce experience on both Desktop and Mobile, and establishing retail data intelligence. Prior to 2013, I worked as both a Business Analyst and a PM on Google's Enterprise Apps, developing product vision and strategy for internal BI systems like data-warehouses, access management tools, and compute resource budget apps. Outside work, she led entrepreneurial competitions and meet-ups. She graduated from Stanford in 2009 with a Ph.D. in Physics (special focus on Astrophysics) and co-authored thirteen publications.