@Mass Digi #GC16
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Event Program February 26 & 27, 2016 Microsoft New England Research and Development Center Cambridge, MA @Mass_DiGI #GC16 Wifi – Network: Cambridge Password: md0227 Schedule Friday, February 26 9:15 – 10:00am +Registration and Networking+ 10:00 – 10:15am +Overview of the Game Challenge: What to Expect+ 10:15- 10:30am +Welcome from the Commonwealth+ Helena Fruscio, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology, MA EOHED 10:30 – 11:00am +Creating a New Category: Innovating as an Indie+ Seth Sivak, CEO, Proletariat, Inc. 11:00 – 11:30am +From Student to CEO: The First 10 months of a New Company+ Ryan Canuel, CEO, Petricore Games 11:30 – 12:00pm +Getting Your Game Noticed+ Dennis Scimeca, Writer, The Daily Dot 12:00 – 12:45pm +Indie Showcase opens and Lunch+ 12:45 – 1:15pm +Keynote: On Player Engagement+ Nathan Richardsson, Senior Producer, Behaviour Interactive 1:15 – 5:00pm +Mentor and Peer Sessions+ 5:00 – 5:30pm +Closing Remarks and Charge to the Teams+ 6:00pm +VIP Reception+ Saturday, February 27 8:30 – 9:30am +Registration and Networking+ 9:30 – 11:30am +Initial Judging (see assigned schedule for your team; up to 8 minutes with each judge) and Supplementary Activities: Sponsor Talks, Indie Showcase or Peer Meetings+ 11:30 – 12:30pm +Lunch+ 12:30 – 1:00pm +Finalists Announced+ 1:00 – 1:15pm +Break and Set-Up For Finalist Pitches+ 1:15 – 3:15pm +Finalists Elevator Pitches (5 minutes each)+ 3:15 – 4:15pm +Lightning Talks+ 4:15 – 5:15pm +Awards Ceremony+ Mentors Kellian Adams – Green Door Labs Kellian Adams Pletcher is the Founder and Mastermind of Green Door Labs, a company that focuses on educational games for spaces like museums, cities and libraries. Among other things, Kellian has worked as a middle school teacher, senior producer for Active Chinese in Shanghai and the director of cultural projects for SCVNGR in Boston. Green Door Labs has built games and playful experiences with great big organizations like Education First, The University of Arizona and the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as great tiny organizations like single-founder startups, house museums and nonprofits helping them discover their new media capabilities and tell their story through games. Green Door Labs is also known for its Edventure Builder, a platform to building mobile scavenger hunts, interactive fiction or choose-your-own adventures. Check out Kellian’s adventures and follow the blog at www.greendoorlabs.com or www.edventurebuilder.com. Kellian likes tater tots and peas. Elicia Basoli – Disruptor Beam Elicia has over a decade of PR, marketing and events experience under her belt specifically focused on the games and interactive entertainment industries. She has helped to promote numerous games and the people that make them from companies such as Disruptor Beam, Demiurge Studios, Roadhouse Interactive, Turbine / Warner Bros., Disney Interactive Media Group, gamerDNA, Wizards of the Coast and Upper Deck Entertainment. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Elicia is an avid supporter of the games business in the New England area and she thinks MassDiGI is the bee’s knees. Michael Carriere – Zapdot Michael Carriere is the founder of Zapdot, the creator of the Indie Game Collective and a leader of the Boston Indies. The Indie Game Collective aims to help local indies develop their studios and games through criticism and mentorship. His studio, Zapdot, has collaborated with multiple studios building serious, free-to-play, PC and mobile games. Jack Dalrymple – Cap and Cut Jack Dalrymple is an industry veteran at marketing video games and producing game trailers; SVP of Marketing at Ape Law, VP of Marketing at Bit Fry, and founder of Cap and Cut the Boston based trailer house and creative design studio. As Lead Editor and Technical Director at WB Games’ Turbine Studio from 2004 to 2014, he developed and edited more than $10 million in marketing trailers and ingame cutscenes with over 9 million views online. Jack continues to lead the marketing initiatives for AAA and indie developers worldwide with an all encompassing approach to design, presentation and consistency across brand. Alex Engel – Disruptor Beam As a Product Manager for Disruptor Beam, Alex helps guide the product development for Game of Thrones Ascent and Star Trek Timelines. As Product Manager for Game of Thrones Ascent, he was responsible for the financial results, development direction, and performance of an online mobile game downloaded and played by millions. As a Product Manager on Star Trek Timelines, he guides ongoing product development for the launch and deployment of Star Trek Timelines. David Lennon – Proletariat Games Following a career of professional business software development and consulting, David saw a path to combine his passion for games with his chosen vocation and jumped at the opportunity. The subsequent decade plus in the video game industry has brought no regrets. A Software Engineering career has helped him appreciate the patterns that make good software – good GAMES – not just possible, but rewarding. Those patterns are only possible through people and the team dynamics that drive them. David enjoys working with strong engineers, setting up productive environments, and helping teams make great products. He is presently working in the code mines on Proleteriat’s newest game, Streamline! Streamline is designed to let streamers play together with their audience in new ways. http://playstreamline.com Tom Lin – Demiurge Studios Tom is the Creative Director at Demiurge Studios. He’s been making games for over 15 years and has contributed to a diversity of franchises, including Bioshock, Borderlands, Mass Effect, Medal of Honor, and Rock Band. Recently he’s focused on mobile development and UI/design challenges on mobile/portable devices. Tom helps oversee the art and design departments at Demiurge. Tom holds a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University. Jonathon Myers – Ear Play Jonathon co-founded Earplay to pursue his interests in simulated conversation, interactive systems design, and narrative entertainment platforms. As a games industry thought leader and an expert on interactive story and narrative design, he has spoken at local, national, and international conferences on these topics. Formerly a professional playwright, screenwriter, and student Academy Award nominee, Jonathon received his MFA in creative writing from Boston University. He spent summers in the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive and studied with Nobel laureates Elie Weisel and Derek Walcott. In his prior work in the games industry Jonathon led the adaptation of major story properties into mass market casual games. As a freelance narrative designer and writer, he was first the writer for Zynga Boston’s Indiana Jones Adventure World, named a top-five social game of 2011. Jonathon next designed and led implementation of narrative content for Game of Thrones Ascent, an adaptation of the HBO and George R.R. Martin property, produced by Disruptor Beam. He enjoys collaborating with high-profile authors to care for their property in a new interactive medium. Jeff Orkin – Giant Otter Technologies, Inc. Jeff Orkin is Co-founder / CTO of GiantOtter, a company developing conversational AI for games and chat messaging. Jeff holds a PhD from the MIT Media Lab, where his research focused on simulating social interaction and dialogue from crowdsourced data in virtual environments. Prior to MIT, Jeff spent a decade working in the videogame industry. At Monolith Productions, Jeff led the development of award winning Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems for No One Lives Forever 2 (Computer Games Magazine: Best AI 2002) and F.E.A.R. (Gamespot.com: Best AI 2005, AIGameDev.com: #2 most influential AI game). Jeff has served as a Contributing Author and Section Editor of the AI Game Programming Wisdom book series, and Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. Widely recognized as a leader in the field of AI for games, Jeff regularly speaks at academic and industry conferences, 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. Jay Piette – Turbine/WB Games Jay grew up playing many, many computer and video games in nearby Smithfield, Rhode Island. After attending the University of Rhode Island, he landed a TV Production internship at Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet network in Bethesda, Maryland. But still, gaming called! Jay got his start in the Game Industry in 1997 working at Discovery Channel Multimedia. After having shipped what should be anyone’s limit on edutainment titles, in 1998 he moved on to manage the QA Team at online gaming pioneer Kesmai in Charlottesville, Virginia. Kesmai was acquired by Electronic Arts a year and a half later. Over his 6 years at Kesmai/EA, Jay served as QA Manager for such projects as The Sims Online, Online Game Web Portal EA.com, Air Warrior 3, Aliens Online, Majestic, Legends of Kesmai and many other online games. In 2003, Jay returned to his old stomping grounds of New England to take on the role of Director of Quality Assurance at Turbine. In his ten years at Turbine/WB Games, Jay has led the QA teams responsible for Infinite Crisis, The Lord of the Rings Online™, Dungeons and Dragons Online®, Asheron’s Call® 1 and 2, Expansion Packs, in-house Billing System Infrastructure, Turbine’s transition to a free-to-play model and more game content updates than he can still count. In his spare time Jay enjoys, shockingly, playing tons of video games! Although he owns many consoles past and present, he’s quite insistent that PC gaming will never die. He also frequents the Boston club scene, enjoys watching/attending Red Sox games and is always willing to debate why Star Wars is better than your favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy story.