Guha Bala is President of Velan Studios, Inc., a discovery focused game studio. The company recently released its second title, Knockout City under the EA Originals label in May 2021, garnering more than 5 million players within its first 10 days. Previously, Guha co-founded Vicarious Visions with his brother, Karthik, in 1991. Vicarious has since grown to become an industry-leading game developer, helping to shape popular culture around the world, and is now part of Blizzard Entertainment. The two led Vicarious until its 25th Anniversary in 2016. Guha enjoys mentoring start-up ventures and was honored as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2013.  He is a Board Member of St. Peter’s Health Partners, and the Albany Symphony.  Guha holds an AB in Chemistry from Harvard College, and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. 

Josef Fares is the Founder and Creative Director at Hazelight Studios. His early career started in filmmaking where he released five feature films and a few shorts over the span of ten years. Since then, he’s transitioned into the games industry where he developed the critically-acclaimed It Takes Two, A Way Out, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. He’s been a major advocate in the industry for creating innovative co-op adventures that uniquely blend emotional storytelling.

Melissa Phillips is the Head of Studio at Silver Rain Games Studio - an independent games studio that has just announced they are making an EA Originals title in partnership with EA. She previously worked for BAFTA - developing their Games Programme focusing on the BAFTA Young Game Designers Competition, launching the BAFTA Crew Games Programme and producing large scale events for BAFTA Members across the UK. In 2019, Mel was named one of the ‘100 Most Influential Women Working in Games’ (Gi. Biz) and was one of ten people awarded for her ‘Services to Games’ by the H100 Club. Previously, she has been nominated for collaboration in the ‘Future Stars of Tech’ Awards (2018), ‘Digital Leader of the Year’ (2018) and was nominated for ‘Games Campaigner of Year’ at the MCV Women in Game Awards (2018) as well as securing a place on the Gi.Biz 100 Future Talent of the Games Industry List. 

Olov Redmalm is the Creative Director and Lead Writer of Lost in Random. Originally a comic artist/writer and short filmmaker, he joined Zoink to work on such acclaimed titles as Fe, Flipping Death, and Ghost Giant through story, art, and storyboarding. He worked on Ghost Giant as Creative Director and Art Director, and then went on to direct Lost in Random and co-write its narrative with Klaus Lyngeled and Ryan North (Marvel's Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Adventure Time comics, the Bravest Warriors). In his free time, he works on his own obscure comic projects, meditates, and watches Star Wars to death, sometimes all at the same time.

Abubakar Salim is the CEO and Creative Director at Silver Rain Games. A BAFTA nominated actor, Salim has recently starred in the coveted role of ‘Father’ in Ridley Scott’s 10 part sci-fi drama series RAISED BY WOLVES, which premiered on HBO Max. Within the games industry, his work spans from Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, and most notably playing Bayek in Assassin’s Creed: Origins.  In 2020 Salim was chosen as one of BAFTAs Breakthrough Brits and was revealed at the London Games Festival as one of eight industry faces of Games London Ensemble. This year, Film London had named Salim as one of their Lodestars, which tips him as a future star of the industry.