MAKE GAMES AFRICA SPEAKERS
Quentin Staes-Polet
Unreal Engine, EPIC Games
Managing Director, International Operations
Location: Berlin, Germany
Quentin Staes-Polet serves as Epic Games’ Managing Director, International Operations and is leading the company’s expansion into emerging markets. Epic is a leading interactive entertainment company and provider of 3D engine technology. A data-driven business leader, passionate about creative content, social media and disruptive technologies,
Quentin has over 25 years of experience at the intersection of media and technology in Asia. Prior to joining Epic in 2019, he held regional roles at Unity Technologies, Improbable and Ankama. In his varied career, Quentin has even founded his own VC-funded game company, Kreeda Games India. Before joining the gaming world, Quentin held strategic leadership roles at IBM and Universal Music Group. Quentin holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the Solvay Brussels School.
Shruti Verma
Unreal Engine, Epic Games
Business Lead
Location: Uttar Pradesh, India
Veteran marketer with over 15 years’ experience, bringing a strong understanding and working history of planning and implementing marketing campaigns across Asia. Business lead for India and ASEAN at Epic Games, I am responsible for expanding our brand awareness and adoption in the region. This includes designing and executing marketing campaigns that educate communities on the latest development tools that Unreal Engine provides, as well as constantly evaluating new, interesting market opportunities.
Saishree Ashwin
Epic Games
Business Development Lead Games, India/ SEA
Location: India
Saishree Ashwin leads the Business Development team for Epic Games in ASEAN and India since April 2021.
Prior to Epic Games, she began consulting independently in 2017 and worked with companies like Kinsane Inc for gaming and Redmorph for internet privacy and has also created Spotify’s podcast ‘Special Mission’.
With over 17 years of experience in gaming, she was a community manager for the first ever MMOG in India – Ragnarok by Level Up, and then part of the core team at Zapak, India’s largest gaming portal after which she became the Country Head at Disney in India, for Club Penguin.
Jason Eyre
Unreal Engine, Epic Games
Senior Manager, Unreal Engine Geo and Tech Partnerships
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
Jason is currently Senior Manager for Geo and Technology Partnerships at Epic Games. Jason has a long history working in video game middleware and 3D start-up technologies.
Jason began his career at Hansoft, a company focused on Agile Project management methodologies and the software platform (Hansoft) to help game dev studios implement and track their projects. A successful period for hansoft, led to a role deeper within technology and the world of 3D content optimization at Simplygon.
Having experienced the difficulties studios go through in merely optimizing content for games, his interest in the initial creation process led him to Quixel, a company focused on 3D scanning and building a library of assets for creators to consume in their process of delivering content to the world.
Finally, Jason is at Epic Games, where he is part of the partnership team with a focus towards technology partnerships that can drive the future of creator tools and help everyone become a creator for the future.
Alfredo De Francesco
Google
International Growth Consultant
Location: Ireland
Alfredo is an International growth consultant at Google. He has over 6 years of experience helping app customers grow their apps in different regions of the world.
During the session, he will show how to have a successful international expansion strategy along with best practices and what to avoid when exploring new markets.
Sherif Aoun
Strategic Partner Manager within the Apps & Gaming Global Partnerships
Location: Ireland
Sherif is a Strategic Partner Manager within the Apps & Gaming Global Partnerships team.
He works with developers across Africa, France, Spain & Middle East with the goal of helping them grow their business to the next level and maximize their monetization potential with Google AdMob and Firebase, as well as advising them on maintaining and sustaining a healthy and successful apps business.
Dasom So
Global Business Strategy Consultant, Apps within the Global Business Solutions
Location: Ireland
Dasom works with global app developers with the goal of facilitating their international growth by advising them on go-to market strategy and operations to maximize export impact.
Elif Kahyaoglu
Gaming Growth Manager
Location: Ireland
Elif is a Gaming Growth Manager at Google. She began helping web & app publishers to monetise their content and creating educational video series for YouTube.
She’s now works with leading French & Turkish Gaming companies advising on user acquisition strategy with Google Ads.
Spot her at AGW & ask anything from policy to Google monetisation & advertising solutions!
Barış Renda
Location: Ireland
Barış is leading Google’s app analytics and growth practice in EMEA. He helps app developers and publishers optimize their apps using 1P data and set up a healthy balance between monetisation and core app engagement metrics.
Barış is the right person to ask any questions on what Firebase is and how it can help your business.
Javier Castro
Lead AppDev EMEA Gaming
Location: Ireland
Javier is leading the AppDev EMEA Gaming team working with gaming companies across EMEA. He helps them to acquire profitable and sustainable users. He spent the last 5 years working within the Google Cloud team and working as a Growth Manager.
With a BSc in computer engineering and a Masters in Business, Javier worked at Oracle and HP in programming and sales before joining Google.
Julie Bonnecarrère
Northern Lights Entertainment
Co-Founder & Chief Content Officer
Location: France
Co-founder and CEO of Nothern Lights Entertainment which publishes Nebulae, a multiplayer online strategy game. Politics and video games are two passions shared by former Sciences Po students Julie and her partner and co-founder. Their management video game was created from this ingenious mix, letting players manage their galactic universe from a political and economic point of view.
Davy Chadwick
Location: France
Davy Chadwick founded PopScreen Games, a Paris, france-based mobile game studio, in 2018. An industry veteran, he has 20 years of experience in mobile game development. He has previously worked in leadership positions at companies such as SNJV, gumi, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Vivendi Games Mobile.
Philippe Tesson
Location: France
Phillippe has worked and taught in the video game industry in France for 30 years. He is currently the director of Year 1 -3 at Rubika’s Video Game school.
Years 1 through 3 are purposed to provide the student with the cultural and artistic fundamentals, the development of creative techniques and the mastery of the tools needed to create video game projects. A substantial part of the course is devoted to project management and learning studio work methods. Starting with the entrance exam, students can choose to specialise in Game Art, Game Design or Game Programming.
Katleen Evers
4EversGames
CEO
Location: France
Katleen Evers is an entrepreneurial driven Senior Business Developer Director with proven abilities to create, maintain and enhance cross-continental and cross-level client relationships. Katleen has 20 years of experience in expanding businesses within the gaming industry, handling projects and teams, and is an Advisor and Advocate of the Gaming Industry.
Her company 4EversGames assists and advises Studios with their games and the digital distribution of their PC content. Chasing investments, scouting games and Evangelism for Third Parties (Genvid Technologies, Nutaku) is also part of 4EversGames’ activity. Creating a unique partnership, heading for prodigious, future adventures, that’s the goal of 4EversGames.
Temi Afolabi
Xbox
Global Expansion Incubator (GXI) Manager, Africa
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Temi works at Xbox where he leads their global expansion efforts for Africa, focusing on bringing more African developers into Xbox’s ecosystem. He is passionate about the continent and is eager to show the gaming industry and the world at large just how much creative talent resides in Africa.
Pieter Koornhof
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Pieter is the Chief Operating Officer of 24 Bit Games. He is a practising attorney and holds a variety of degrees and professional accreditations in the field of law, economics and education, including a doctorate on the regulatory framework for internet monopolies in competition law. He has also taught at both South African and UK universities on undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA level.
He has published in the fields of competition law, intellectual property law, ICT law, labour law and video games. He is also a recognised expert in various fields of intellectual property by the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Jesse-Lee Wrensch
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Jesse is an Admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and an Associate at Michalsons. He focuses on solving legal problems with simplicity and speed. An academic at heart, Jesse is always trying to explain complicated concepts in simple terms for anyone to understand. He believes that we should draft the law in plain language for everyone to understand.
Jesse has gathered a variety of different work experience working as tech support in the university computer labs, a researcher and tutor while studying his masters and even a brief stint as a corporate zombie. He uses these experiences and skills to assist and support clients for their different needs.
He has also been published in South African Intellectual Property Law Journal, titled Video Game Modifications in South African Law.
Luke Lamothe
24BitGames
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Location: Ontario, Canada
Since graduating from DigiPen with Distinction in 1998, Luke has been working in the game development industry as a Programmer / Technical Director as well as Studio Director.
He has been involved in various company startups, as well as having development experience across all aspects of game programming, from AI to Tools to Graphic Pipelines to Mobile Hardware Optimisation. In addition to programming, he also has lots of experience in running the day to day operations of both a company and a development team. This includes, but is not limited to, dealing with publishers, clients, and stake holders, organising operational and production budgets, and managing team tasks on a daily basis.
When not drowning in running an company and doing business development, his personal game development passions are centred around game performance optimisation, as well as pushing graphic techniques on closed hardware systems (ie. mobile & consoles) to test the bounds of what can handled visually for games.
Olivier Madiba
Kiro’o Games
Founder, CEO, GameDesigner, Programmer
Location: Cameroon, Africa
Olivier is the founder of Kiro’o Games, the first video game studio in Cameroon. The studio has released Aurion l’Héritage des Kori-Odan, the world’s first African fantasy video game for PC. Aurion is also adapted into a comic book for the general public (already 2 volumes on Amazon) and a cartoon.
Born in Douala in 1985, he holds a secondary school diploma (Bac C) from Joss High School and a degree in computer science from the University of Yaoundé 1, MADIBA Olivier is self-taught in his current profession (Video game designer).
Today, he and his team are creating the Most Scalable Gaming Catalogue from Africa. Kiroo Games makes video games to entertain and inspire users.
Stewart Stanbury
Location: London, England
Stewart is the Director of Business Development at Jagex Partners, one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers, overseeing the 3rd Party Publishing, Franchise Strategy and IP Licensing.
As with our other esteemed showcases, Stewart comes from 17+ years with Google, IPG and WPP, working across global tech, B2B and entertainment brands with an eye for data, strategy and business opportunity. Worth noting that he says, “I have a passion for mentoring small business and indie developers.”
David Olamide
Location: Nigeria
David is a self-taught indie game developer from Nigeria. He co-founded an independent game studio, Dimension11, with some fellow Nigerian game developers to promote African stories through games. His team is currently working on their first title “Legends of Orisha: Blood and Water”, which is scheduled for release in 2023. He is also the lead gameplay programmer at Spheriearth Studio in Germany.
He is currently studying Computer Engineering at the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria; where he is the Game Development Lead of Google DSC (Developers’ Student Club).
He has 3+ years of experience in game development in Unreal Engine and develops 3D games.
Michael Oscar Esio
Africacomicade
Founder & Programs Coordinator
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Michael is a creative entrepreneur with about 6 years in the Games industry. He is an alumnus of MEST Africa, where He learned software Entrepreneurship, and is an IGDA Foundation NEXTGEN leader alumnus for the 2021 Virtual Exchange program. He is the Founder of Africacomicade – A platform that celebrates the African creative community, showcasing their works, and connecting them to opportunities for collaboration, jobs, skills acquisition, and funding.
Alongside this, he is also an activist for the SDGs and volunteers at Ambitious Africa as the Country lead for Ambitious Nigeria.
Sunday Akor
Honest Chronicle Studios
Founder, CEO, Game Designer, Programmer
Location: Lagos, Africa
Sunday is the founder of Honest Chronicle Studios, which he established in 2019 as a hobby. Honest Chronicles published its first game, Virago, in March 2022 as an indie company and they have since gained over 1.6 million followers across social media.
Virago was the first paid game in Africa to reach the Top 10 in the US and UK App Store and Google Play Store, while also being the first game in Africa to reach the top trending games on Steam. It has sold over 4000+ copies and amassed over 100,000 downloads.
Danny Day
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Danny Day is the founder of QCF Design, a Cape Town-based game studio that developed and released Desktop Dungeons.
Desktop Dungeons won the IGF Award for Excellence in Design in San Francisco in 2011, the first South African game to be nominated at the IGF. Day is outspoken, and as a local development community founder and studio head he has a lot of insight to offer on game development on the continent.
Vipin Dhunnoo
Location: Mauritius
Vipin Dhunnoo is a cross-reality [XR] architect with backgrounds in architecture, urban design, and immersive tech development. He experiments with emerging technologies [VR, AR and AI], as a medium to understand, fabricate and represent space. He investigates the potential of such technologies in visualising resilient built environments, via ludic game design, research and publications.
Having a multi-disciplinary approach to his work, he composes and visualises spatial realms: blurring distinctions between physical and virtual. Generative Arts is an indie game developer, based on the island of Mauritius making games and immersive experiences.
Raymond Lebwaba
ITTHYNK Smart Solutions
CEO
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Raymond is the CEO of ITTHYNK Smart Solutions, an award winning software development and consulting services firm. Raymond recently co-founded ITTHYNK Gaming, an incubator and academy that supports young game development professionals and indie game studios with funding, mentors and training. ITTHYNK Gaming has been appointed by a leading South African university to lead the University’s video game incubation programme.
Raymond is a Chartered Accountant by profession and holds an MBA from the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. He is a Mandela Washington Fellow, former President Barack Obama’s flagship programme for young African leaders.
Antonio Papa
SRI
Global Platforms, Gaming & Technology Partner
Location: London, England
Antonio joins SRI after 4 years of leading executive recruitment, globally, at award-winning gaming and technology pioneers, Build a Rocket Boy, as well as Epic Games, where he established end-to-end recruitment processes.
Antonio has 19 years of strategic search experience in industries including fashion, retail and media. He has partnered with many world-renowned brands, including Nike, Adidas, Puma, Tommy Hilfiger, and ASOS. He is a recognised leading recruiter across converging industries, and his extensive knowledge, as well as strong relationships with CEOs, MDs, boards and executive teams, make him a valued partner for his clients.
Teninke Camara
Location: Paris, France
Odile Limpach
Location: Cologne, Germany
Melissa Neu
SpielFabrique
AGCM Project Manager
Location: Berlin, Germany
Mélissa Neu is Project Manager for the African Games Co-production Market. She’s in charge of the selection, follow-up and coordination of the studios’ mentoring. Mélissa also participates in the projects related to Africa. She joined an industry and a market she’s always been passionate about.
Shane Marks
RenderHeads South Africa
Managing Director
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Shane Marks has a background in both art and programming, having worked in both the animation industry and software development industry. He started the South African branch of RenderHeads in 2015 and oversees all aspects of development within the team he manages, and is able to serve as a bridge between the aesthetic and technical aspects of a given project.
Yves Le Yaouangq
Location: Paris, France
Yves started his career 25 years ago in the games industry, first on MUDs and MMORPGs, then joining Ubisoft for 11 years in strategic positions to help expand the PC and Online expertise, while building bridges with external developers.
In 2021 Yves joined Focus Entertainment as Chief Content Officer, to lead the Publishing and Acquisition Portfolio transformation, welcoming new games, talents and studios from across the world.