Commissioning Editor, Education
Channel 4

Alice Taylor commissions cross-platform educational content for 14-19 year olds, aiming to get useful, life-helpful information to teens via their most favoured platforms and formats. She specializes in videogames and virtual worlds, and Channel 4 Education’s 2009 slate includes Routes, a cross-platform game tackling DNA and genetic testing, Smokescreen, a cross-platform game on the subject of privacy, online security and surveillance, and 1066 The Game, a web game depicting the events of the battles of 1066. Bow Street Runner, C4 Education’s first game commission, won the Children’s interactive BAFTA in 2008.

Alice was a judge for the 2006 & 2007 Independent Games Festival as well as D&AD 2008 and Dare to be Digital 2008. Alice founded the gamecentric blog Wonderland and writes about gaming for sites and magazines, including The Guardian, New Statesman, and Kotaku.

Dr Richard Wilson is CEO of Tiga. Richard was previously Director of Communications at the Royal Academy of Engineering (2006-2008). Prior to this, Richard was Head of Business Policy at the Institute of Directors (1998 – 2006), one of the UK’s leading business representative bodies. At the Institute of Directors (IoD) Richard played a key part in developing the IoD’s policies and representing the membership vis-a-vis Government, the media and other interested third parties.

Richard has a strong interest in politics. He has taught politics at Reading University and was awarded a PhD for his thesis in political theory.

Richard has served as a non-executive director of Improve, the sector skills council for the food and drink industry (2004-2007). He also served as a non-executive director of the Adult Learning Inspectorate (2005-2007). He was Chair of the Better Payment Practice Group (2004-2006). He has also served as a member of Edexcel’s Qualifications Committee (2006-07).

Head of Interactive Technology, Newport Business School, University of Wales Newport.

Mike is the Games and 3D modelling side of the teaching team for BSc Games Development and Artificial Intelligence, responsible for links with Industry. His research borders on social, ethical as well as technical developments of Future Technology (”Futology”). This work encompasses engineering, computer science, and pedagogical practice, and includes international collaborators, such as NASA’s CoLab Project. His main inspiration in developing the link between learning and situated technology have been Paulo Freire and bell hooks, as well as Vygotsky’s Activity Theory. All of which emphasise the breaking down of traditional educational power structures, and recognition of the role of environment and community in educational practice.

Dr. Reddy studied Maths and Physics at Durham University, then worked as a school teacher in Leeds, before taking a Masters in Computation at the University of Manchester. He became a full time lecturer in 1994. During 12 years at the University of Glamorgan, he taught on a range of innovative courses, including the World’s first BSc in Science Fiction, while on a two year secondment to the internationally recognised Centre for Astronomy and Science Education. During that time, Dr. Reddy visited over a dozen countries, representing the British Council in children’s workshops on Science, Robotics and Global Warming. He is a Science Ambassador for Setpoint Wales, and makes regular appearances on TV, Radio and in print, discussing a wide range of topical education and technology issues and their effect on Society.

Kim Blake joined Blitz Games Studios in 2006. She has worked in the games industry since 1993, starting as a designer and then working as a project manager for various independent development studios, among them Gremlin Interactive, Particle Systems and Argonaut. Amongst her work with Blitz’s various educational activities, Kim is heavily involved in the organisation of the Blitz Games Open Days, which have been a huge success with both students and lecturers since their inception in 2006.

She feels very strongly that training offered to people who want to work in the games industry needs to fit them for that role and also believes that more people would want to work in games if they had a clearer understanding of how games are made.

Sarah joined SCEE in 2002, to support the ‘Linux for PlayStation 2′ development system, which in turn drew interest from universities. Sarah is now responsible for the support sites run by SCEE R&D, but is still heavily involved in lending support to academic courses throughout the UK and Europe, having set up a PSP development scheme for academia. She still acts as the main academic contact point for SCEE, having taken an active part in Skillset’s accreditation scheme, degree course validations, and many visits and talks.

Saint John Walker is the Computer Games, Animation and Facilities Manager at Skillset, and has been brokering new animation and computer games talent at the interface of education and industry for over ten years, joining Skillset from FDMX, the Film and Digital Media Exchange, where he was a founding member of ‘Games Eden‘, the East of England’s games business networking organisation.

Saint writes regularly on New Technology for IMAGINE, the animation professional’s magazine. In 2007 he was nominated for the Times Higher Education Awards in the Widening Participation category and prior to Skillset employment finished terms as external examiner for MA courses at two Skillset academies, the University of Wales (MA Animation) and University of Hertfordshire (MA Film and Media).

Susan Gold recently joined the faculty of Full Sail University’s Graduate Program. Susan’s personal focus is on collaboration in game development, which resulted in the 1st Annual Global Game Jam, an experiment in creativity and innovation with 1650 participants in 53 locations in 23 countries which inspired 370 games.

Professor Gold serves as chairperson of the IGDA Education SIG and sits on a number of university advisory boards worldwide. Susan’s work with the IGDA Ed SIG has created many resources for instructors in game education. Currently, she is leading an outreach campaign to meet the needs of educators worldwide as well as develop tools and resources for educator professional development.

Susan is an artist, teacher, and activist with a specialization in digital art, new media and videogames. Her artwork and writing has been featured in numerous galleries, museums and publications.

Gregor White is Director of Academic Enterprise for the Institute of Arts, Media and Computer Games at University of Abertay Dundee. Gregor joined University of Abertay in 2002. He was appointed as Divisional Leader for Computer Arts and Media in 2004 and Director of Academic Enterprise in 2009. Gregor has led the integration of knowledge transfer and enterprise into the learning environment and is responsible for developing this approach to teaching and learning within the Institute. He has introduced a number of industry related projects including, BBC Prototype and White Space Solutions, and has contributed the the establish the Scottish Centre for Excellence in Computer Games Education and the Skillset Media Academy at Abertay.

Andy can claim one of the more interesting routes into the software industry. A doctorate in Pharmacology led to a number of academic positions where he had to extol the usefulness of software to university students and staff alike. Since leaving his ivory tower, Andy has worked variously as a Technical Writer, Consultant and Software Developer on a wide range of projects and products – from scientific data capture and analysis through to .NET-centric data synchronisation. Luckily his software efforts are scattered far and wide – Bristol, Brisbane, and Belfast take care of the B’s!.

More recently Andy was a Team Leader and Software Architect for a data solutions company, and introduced .net as a way to produce great applications for UK and US Retailers.

His role at Microsoft sees Andy working with University faculties, schools and departments to build long-term relationships that will ensure the best and most appropriate use of emerging Microsoft tools and technologies.

Since he likes the rain, Andy lives in South Wales with his wife and three children, all of whom are rather patient with him.

He can be reached at asithers [@] microsoft.com, twitter.com/sithers, blogs.msdn.com/sithers, or for the playful, found lurking on Xbox Live.

Philip Bourke is an ICT Specialist with Tipperary Institute with responsibility for academic delivery and services provisioning. Philip has over 21 years industry experience in developing products for worldwide organisations in security, industrial control, banking and financial services sectors. He is a keen advocate for the adoption and use of technology in industry and education and has organised a number of conferences and events to encourage industrialist and educators to maximise the benefits from selection and application of appropriate technologies. He recently spoke at the UAE 2015 Challenges Conference series on ICT based collaboration and world class ICT sourcing. He has also presented at the Develop Conference on Emerging Issues in Game Design, at the IMTC Conference on opportunities for Independent Game Developers.

Philip is an advocate for using gaming technologies in education. He is founder of the computer games festival, Games Fleadh, which includes games design and programming events such as Robocode Ireland, SchoolBots and the XNA Ireland Challenge. The XNA Ireland Challenge has celebrated the 30th Anniversary of SPACE INVADERS © Taito Corporation 1978, 2009 and Asteroids © Atari Interactive Inc. 1979, 2009. Philip has won the N-Gage Challenge mobile game design contest. He is also course coordinator for Tipperary Institute’s Computer Science Degree (Honors) in Games Design and Development. He received Microsoft’s XNA/DirectX Most Valuable Professional award for July 2008/2009.

Philip is a Computer Science graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and holds a Masters in Software Engineering from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.