Games for Change Festival

Erik Huey is currently the Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).  As Senior Vice President, Erik oversees the entire federal and state government relations operations of ESA. The Entertainment Software Association is the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies publishing interactive games for video game consoles, handheld devices... Read More →

Clara Fernández-Vara is Associate Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center and co-founder of Fiction Control, a narrative design company. She's a game designer and writer as well as an academic, so her work for the last 10 years combines scholarship with the creation of narrative games both  for research and in the commercial sphere. Her first book, Introduction to Game Analysis, has been published by Routledge. |

Nick Fortugno is a game designer and entrepreneur of digital and real-world games based in New York City, and a founder of Playmatics (www.playmatics.com), a game development company. Playmatics has created a variety of digital and real-world games for organization including Red Bull, AMC (such as the CableFAX award winning Breaking Bad: The Interrogation), Disney, American Museum of Natural History, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, the... Read More →

Since 2000, Ms. Helmerson has been the Program Director for Electronic Media, Film & Visual Art at the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Her funding supports a wide range of contemporary visual art and technology across all platforms and | genres. She has authored several initiatives, research and media preservation. Her | prior work as an artist includes video art production and exhibition, media art education | and... Read More →

Ed Metz directs the SBIR program at the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, which provides seed funding for the R&D of innovative forms of commercially viable education learning technologies. Ed specializes in working with industry leaders in the development of education technology, research to test implementation in schools, and on business models for private sector... Read More →

Dr. Marc Ruppel is a senior program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Public Programs, where he specializes in digital media and transmedia storytelling. Before joining the Endowment, Marc worked on several transmedia/digital-experiential learning + gaming projects, including the Tribeca-funded Robot Heart Stories. He holds a Ph.D. in Digital Studies from the University of Maryland College Park. Marc has written... Read More →