SHERI GRANER RAY, MARY FLANAGAN & APHRA KERR TO KEYNOTE WIG CONFERENCE
We are delighted and honoured to have three of the most influential women in games providing keynote talks at next week’s Women in Games 20th Anniversary Global Annual Conference.
Sheri Graner Ray has been designing computer games since 1989. She has worked for such companies as Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, Sony Online Entertainment, and Cartoon Network, and has worked with such licences as Star Wars, Cartoon Network, Ultima, and Nancy Drew. She is author of the book ‘Gender Inclusive Game Design-Expanding the Market’, which was nominated for an IGDA Game Developers Choice award. In the late 1990’s, she founded both the IGDA’s Women in Games SIG and Women In Games International and served as executive director for each for many years. She has been recognised internationally for both her game design work as well as her activism. This includes the 2005 IGDA’s Game Developers’ Choice award.
Sheri will present the keynote ‘A Letter to my Earlier Self’, looking at what would she tell the young her as she started into this crazy adventure.
Mary Flanagan is recognised as an international expert in game design and social impact. Since 2004, she has led a prosocial game design research laboratory, Tiltfactor.org, where the team has conducted scores studies about effectively using games as positive forces for change. Flanagan was named a distinguished scholar in the Digital Games Research Association, and was part of the early ‘games for change’ community in New York City in the 2000s. She has received an Honorary Degree in design at IIT and has spoken at institutions from the Sorbonne to the World Economic Forum at Davos on the transformative power of play. And perhaps most importantly, she is a practitioner. She makes games every day and teaches the practice of game design and has over 30 games to her credit. Flanagan is also a scholar of games and play. Her Critical Play (MIT 2009) revealed the incredible art history of games, and Values at Play in Digital Games (with philosopher Helen Nissenbaum, MIT 2014), demonstrates that thinking about values in games is key to innovation. Her last book with Mikael Jakobsson, Playing Oppression (MIT 2023) has been featured in podcasts ranging from postcolonial studies to design.
Mary will present the session ‘Play is Never Neutral’. She will uncover even more unexpected ‘Values at Play in Digital Games’, reveal even more sites for the expression of values and show how colonialist ideas and biases enter the playspace.
Dr. Aphra Kerr is a Professor at the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin and a Senior Advisor at the UCD Centre for Digital Policy, both in Ireland. She is also co-PI at the ADAPT Centre, a national research centre on AI and digital content, where she is scientific lead of the Transparent Digital Governance strand. Aphra has over 20 years’ experience researching digital games as a cultural industry, a form of work and a part of everyday culture. She is the author of over 100 publications and two monographs on digital games, most recently: ‘Global Games: Production, Circulation and Policy’, Routledge, 2017. She has held visiting fellowships at the University of Edinburgh (2019) and the University of Pennsylvania (2011). In 2021 she was invited into the Academy of Europe on the Film, Media and Visual Studies panel. In 2016 she received a Distinguished Scholar award from the international Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). She has a PhD in Communication Studies (DCU, 2000).
Aphra will present Beyond Leaky Pipeline and Towards Inclusive Work/Play Spaces. This talk will look back to the early days of the Games industry and game play culture but then move swiftly to current academic research, and give some suggestions as to how to move forward towards more inclusive work/place spaces.
Women in Games CEO Dr Marie-Claire Isaaman said: “We are incredibly excited to have Dr Aphra Kerr, Mary Flanagan and Sheri Graner Ray take part in our 20th Anniversary Global Conference. To have these three incredible women at one event is unprecedented and we are looking forward to hearing their unique insights.
“These keynote speakers are headlining what is a full day of inspiring and insightful sessions by women from all over the world, who are experts in many different fields. Our line-up is truly fitting for our 20th Anniversary conference, and we look forward to welcoming our community to this brilliant event.”
Taking place on Friday October 11th, the Day of the Girl, our virtual conference has a focussed theme of PLAY GROUNDED: An Exploration of Play Landscapes, which is curated through the lens of Women in Games. It is also 20 years since the first Women in Game Conference took place.
Tickets are priced from just £20 for a full day of inspiring talks and panel sessions, plus networking opportunities with women and allies around the world.
Don’t miss out! Secure your ticket today – https://events.ringcentral.com/events/the-2024-global-women-in-games-20th-anniversary-conference/registration