Nick Rackley is currently a Social Studies teacher at Bluffton High School. He is in his 5th year teaching and 4th year as their Esports Director. Currently he is Vice President of Esports Ohio, under the direction of President Nick Rider. Esports. He currently resides in Pandora, Ohio with his wife Britney and puppy.
Read MoreFounder of Esports Ohio and Experienced educational director of technology with a passion for teaching and learning. Geek, Educator, Administrator, Outdoorsman and Student Advocate.
Read MoreLifelong developer and software engineer making high fidelity gaming experiences, beautiful environments, and industry standard virtual reality simulations.
Currently I work for Boeing Research and Technology on VR / AR Simulations in the aero and defense space.
Read MoreNicholas Compton is a graduate of Shawnee State University with 7 years of military experience that ultimately helped drive him towards the Government sector of serious games. This is where he spent the last 5 years helping to create award winning military training applications. Prior to that, he worked 2 years on the commercial title Second Chance Heroes while at Rocket City Studios. He also co-started and runs After Hours : Game Developers, the largest game developer community in Alabama.
Read MoreTom Caprel is a marketer for games, tech enthusiast, and trained opera singer. In 2013, Tom and his co-founder started a big-data website to analyze virtual markets with the goal helping players get the most out of their time in-game. In 2015, Tom started a dedicated marketing company, Hyperion Marketing, to help small game/software developers show their success to the world. Tom is on the board of IGDA Chicago, and has been the Communications Director and Expo Director at the Video Game Art (VGA) Gallery since February 2016. Tom has been in marketing for 9+ years, and regularly works with Chicago startup incubators.
Read MoreRoss is the Founder of Loading Law, a Chicago-based law practice, and provides legal counsel to video game developers and entrepreneurs in the tech sector. Ross is also the Organizer of the Chicago Video Game Law Summit and an Adjunct Professor of Video Game Law at DePaul University. He speaks frequently on hot topics in law and technology. Ross also serves as the Chair of IGDA Chicago, Chair of the CBA YLS Creative Arts Committee, and Vice Chair of the ABA Digital Games and New Media Committee.
Read MoreMatthew is the Founder & CEO of eFuse, a professional hub for Esports & Video Games. In the form of a mobile & web application that validates gamer information and incentivizes professional collaboration in the Esports and Video Game community. eFuse connects gamers, creators, & business professionals with limitless opportunities.
Read MoreZac Pierce is an independent game developer who specializes in programming, UI/UX, and product management. He's the lead developer on BOMBFEST, a party game set for release in January 2019.
Read MoreBastien Lecouffe Deharme was born on the shores of Brittany (France) at the beginning of the eighties. His artwork evolves at the crossroad of modern and ancient myths and legends, forgotten tales and tragedies. Bastien creates dark and symbolic pictures, blending a contrast of beauty and decadence.
Bastien’s traditional and digital work can be seen in publications and exhibitions worldwide, including the cover of the emblematic Spectrum Fantastic Art book, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, ImagineFX, SFXMagazine, etc
Today, Bastien lives in the USA and works as a freelance artist for companies such as Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, National Geographic, Adobe, Random House, Penguin Books, Harper Collins, Orbit books, Applibot, Riot Games, and many others.
His work is represented by the NYC agency Shannon Associates.
Read MoreTroy has twenty + years of experience in the gaming, learning and design industries and is an entrepreneur at heart. His work experience roles have grown from an animator, to lead application engineer, head of project management, director of global production and C-Level Leaderships. His experience began in the seminal days of virtual reality in the mid ‘’90s. Troy helped to spin out a company from the Virtus Corporation that focused on creating business applications using gaming engine platforms and Virtual Reality applications. In 2001 he became founder and CEO of a creative and digital agency, Bluemoon Design, which created interactive media, e-learning applications, simulations and serious game platforms. After Bluemoon’s main client expanded their operations, they acquired Bluemoon to run the global productions division. Through the years, Troy saw a gap in the marketplace for experts needed in the industries of learning, design, and gaming. To meet the demand, Troy built a consultative practice for a national consulting firm Vaco that supported those industries in building strategies and team structures with that core expertise. As the practice accelerated, more clients were tapping into the expertise that Troy provided to strategize and create solutions. Troy spun out the division and launched BLDG-25, Inc. in 2015 as a Software and User Experience company creating leading-edge digital strategies leveraging their gaming, learning and design expertise.
Troy has led and served on several boards such as the American Marketing Association, the North Carolina Advanced Learning Technologies Association, North Carolina Contemporary Art Foundation and has served as the industry cluster lead for Wake County Economic Development in gaming. As an advocate for the gaming and immersive learning industries, Troy co-founded the Triangle Gaming Initiative and the annual international East Coast Game Conference, held in Raleigh and now in its tenth year. This influential conference now reaches audiences on a global scale.
In 2011, Troy won the Triangle Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 elite class for up-and-coming entrepreneurial leaders under the age of 40.
Read MoreChris Volpe is the co-founder of Multivarious Games, the leading game development company in Columbus, Ohio. The President and Co-Founder of the Ohio Game Developer Association, leading a dynamic team of dedicated individuals to create novel gaming experiences and further the game development industry within Ohio. He is also the Director of Operations for Game-U, an educational company where industry professionals teach kids how to develop video games using industry software, STEM learning techniques, and soft skill development. Lastly, Chris is a co-founder of GDEX, the Midwest’s largest gaming expo that brings together people from across the country, to learn, connect, and share, at a Weekend Celebration of Games!
Read MoreTim Aldridge is the Director of Game Mods/UGC at Twitch, where he is responsible for the game mod platform, CurseForge. Before coming to Twitch, he was the Director of Web for the Curse App and built Gamepedia at Curse. Tim started out modding StarCraft before jumping to Neverwinter Nights, and recently Stardew Valley. His passion is to help developers bring their creations to the world.
Read MoreMark Stefanowicz has been in game development for 22+ years. He has worked on all types of games including Epic Mickey and Epic Mickey 2: The Power Of Two, NCAA Football, Madden, numerous children’s games, mobile games, and more. For the past 3 years he has been with Lost Boys Interactive where he is a Co-Founder and Studio Art Director in Madison, Wisconsin. Lost Boys Interactive has worked on Call of Duty Online, Survived By, LOTR, Rune and PUBG as well as their own original IP ZPOC and Neverland. Mark also works in comics and has done work on George R.R. Martins The Hedge Knight, Image Comics and his self-published title Waterdogs.
Website: https://www.markstef.com
Jason Conaway is a Co-founder of Exultant Games, a new game studio working hard on creating something special for strategy-minded players. For more than two decades, Jason Conaway has been a Software Engineer and Technical Director in the video games industry. Jason’s developer credits include engineering roles on more than a dozen blockbuster video games, including League of Legends for Riot Games, Star Wars: The Old Republic for BioWare, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 for EA Los Angeles, Bulletstorm for People Can Fly, Golden Eye: Rogue Agent for EA Los Angeles, Return to Krondor for PyroTechnix, and several titles in the Medal of Honor series for DreamWorks Interactive and Electronic Arts. Jason is also a Senior Instructor at Game-U, where he teaches students how to design, build, and program their own video games using professional tools and methods.
Website: http://www.exultantgames.com/
Read MoreMimi Page is a singer, songwriter, record producer, sound designer and composer. Her cinematic music and ethereal vocals have been featured in a multitude of well-known titles and platforms, including network television shows, video games, film scores, solo albums, and multi-genre artist collaborations. Mimi's music is a transformative and emotionally captivating experience. While her unique sound compliments visual media, it also inspires listeners to go inward and explore the expansiveness of their own imagination.
Website: https://www.mimipage.com/
Read MoreDustin was raised in rural Utah, where his imagination was his most constant companion. A reader, artist, and gamer from an early age, Dustin was encouraged to mine his talents, follow his passions, and find the fun in everyday life. Dustin studied art in college and entered the exciting world of video game development in 1994. His career has taken him and his family from coast to coast, but he always considered the small town he grew up in, Ephraim, Utah, his true home. After spending two decades with AAA publishers like EA, Sony, and Hasbro, Dustin, his wife, and four kids moved back to Ephraim, where he lives today in the shadows of a fine mountain, writes books about video games and dinosaurs, and takes long walks with his dog, Rusty. Dustin is currently working as a game director for Amber Studio, one of the most exciting international games service companies on the planet. Dustin's creative bounds are put to the test daily as he leads the new projects pitch team in over one hundred game concepts a year...and counting. Oh, and he loves the Utah Jazz, but that's another story altogether.
Read MoreRichard is Managing Director of Hitmarker, the largest video game industry jobs platform in the world.
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