Art Director, Demagog Studio
Nikola Stepković is an architect and art director who lives and works in Belgrade. He completed his undergraduate and master's studies in architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade. He primarily works in the fields of digital art, animation and architecture. He is one of the founders of ToBlink studio and the author of several short films, awarded in the country and abroad. Within the Demago Studio, as an Art Director and designer, he participated in the development of the games Golf Club Wasteland, The Cub and Highwater.
Co-Founder, Nova Iskra
Nana is the co-founder of the first creative hub in the Balkan, Nova Iskra, which is one of the initiators of the European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN). She designs and implements mentoring programs, trainings and workshops for organizations, startups and companies interested in transforming their business, as well as improving the overall experience of collaboration and innovation.
She is a member of the Advisory Board of Creative Mentorship program, and supports numerous startups and teams in programs such as Ninja Accelerator, Venture an Idea, Idea, Smart Start, D Incubator, Raising Starts, Upgrade, Playing Narratives, Route2Launch... Nana provides support in domains such as team capacity building; mapping the values of the organization; team culture design, and many more.
Senior Manager, Games/Digital Productions, Unity Technologies
Mike is the leader of Advocacy and Community at Unity Technologies, where his passion for educating and inspiring creators can shine. Prior to joining Unity in 2013, he experienced life through the lens of an indie game dev, a university educator, and even briefly a wedding DJ. A gamer at heart, Mike loves being an advocate because he gets to build awesome and absurd Unity projects while making game development fun and accessible for everyone. His favorite questions are ones that make him say, “Wow, I have no idea... let’s find out!”
Design Director, Rovio Entertainment Corporation
Michael has been making video games for nearly 30 years and playing them for even longer. After working across console and PC, he's spent the last 15 years in mobile: designing, consulting, running companies and studios and most recently as Design Director at Rovio (Stockholm).
Advocacy Manager & Evangelist, Unity Technologies
Mark is the manager of Advocacy at Unity Technologies, with a strong technical background in 3D animation and rendering of film, video games, and industrial applications. Being a VFX industry vet with almost 30 years experience, Mark has had a front-row seat from the humble beginnings of time-intensive ray tracing all the way to today’s multi-GPU real-time LED megawalls. Adding to this vast knowledge of 3D game tech, Mark is an award-winning presenter with an engaging style of showcasing complicated technology. When not a stage presenting, Mark enjoys Formula 1, sim racing, photography, and virtual reality experiences."
CEO & Creative Director, Nacon Studio Milan
Marco Ponte, Nacon Studio Milan CEO and Creative Director, has over 20 years experience in the game industry, and a portfolio counting more than 25 published titles. His company Nacon Studio Milan (70+ employees) is currently working on Terminator: Survivors, a survival open world video game set in the universe of the famous movie franchise. The company also fully owns a division specialized in racing video games: RaceWard Studio.
Author of the book “UP DOWN UP”
Kim released his first game on Commodore 64 in the early 90's as a teenager. Spent every awake moment in the demo scene until he turned 20. Went on to learn everything "digital" he could find in his early 20’s. When he was 25 he decided that creating games was (still) his passion and started his first game studio. 10 years later as a founder and young leader of several studios he sold everything and moved to California with family to build the 1st PlayStation phone.Instead, ended up shipping PlayStation 4.
Later headhunted by King to lead "Pet Rescue Saga" franchise. Generated $500M+ in revenue and grew the studio to 100+ employees. Ventured into the land of business innovation and strategy at Paradox Interactive focusing on creating live experiments to improve engagement and monetization. At the age of 45, he spent most of his time on his core interest of "how can I help you grow your game company" in a way that is successful for you. All in all, shipped 50+ games and 100+ projects on 10+ platforms during the past 20 years. Find more about him in books "Generation 64" by Jimmy Wilhelmsson and "The Dream Architects" by David Polfeldt.
In short, Kim is experienced and passionate about building products and studios. Strong understanding of mixing business, operations and people foundation for establishing company strategies. Excellent knowledge of game development. He considers himself an Intrapreneur rather then an Entrepreneur. Good team-player who thinks stakeholder management can solve almost everything in large companies. Collected 8-bit consoles, still codes from time to time and sometimes stays up late to do pixel art.
Founder / XR Director & Producer, Film XR / VRrOOm
Georgy Molodtsov is an Award winning XR&Film Director/Producer, as well as XR Festival curator. His works were participating in Cannes XR, nominated for PGA Innovation Award and received Webby Award, European XR Award, Raindance Immersive Award.
As XR Festival curator he organised over 50 different XR film festivals and events in Europe and CIS. Graduated from documentary direction department of VGIK (All-Russian State Insitute of Cinematography, 2003-2008, Moscow Russia), worked as a freelance commercial and PSA director, as well as a programmer of the documentary sections of the Moscow International Film Festival (2008-2017). Master of Arts in Film and Video (American Unversity, School of Communication, 2013-2015, Washington, D.C.), Fulbright Graduate Fellow. Starting from 2016 became on of the leading experts in VR/360 video production, as well as producer and curator of various VR Film Festivals and showcases.
In 2018 became curator of the Open Frame VR Award within the goEast Film Festival (Wiesbaden, Germany), as well as a jury member for various international events (Geneva IFF, Raindance Immersive, Lichter Filmfest, etc). Organised various events such as VR_SciFest (Sweden), Russian VR Seasons initiative (over 30 international showcases of the best Russian VR content).
In 2019 founded Film XR, Georgian/Estonian company dedicated to the production and organization of international social VR events and projects, as well as animated VR&Film projects.
Starting from 2020 collaborates with VRROOM on the organization, producing and directing of online/ metaverse VR social events, including virtual concerts of Jean-Michel Jarre.
Co-Founder, Untold Games
Passionate about video games from an early age, Elisa graduates in Computer Science from the University of Genova. During her postgraduate studies, she begins working as a freelance developer and in 2008 founds Foofa Studios. In 2013 the studio teamed up with actor and director Flavio Parenti and created Untold Games with the aim of developing immersive experiences with a strong storytelling component.
In 2018 Elisa Di Lorenzo was awarded for her work in the videogames industry the award the international Tecnovisionarie from Women&Tech – Associazione Donne e Tecnologie. The Tecnovisionarie award is awarded every year to women who in their professional fields have demonstrated vision, social awareness and transparency in terms of behaviour and ethics. Untold Games is currently working on TerraMars, a resource management/survival game with an adapting environment and AI driven storytelling.
General Manager, Flemish Games Association
David Verbruggen has almost 30 years of experience in the videogame sector. He represents videogame developers, publishers and platforms in Belgium. Working closely with his local and international colleagues. David sits on the board of Video Games Europe, the European trade federation for publishers and platforms. He grew up with videogames and is now a dad of 2 teenagers playing games.
Head of Ad Monetization, Gamebiz Consulting
Working in the mobile video games industry for more than five years, with a focus on ad monetization in the last three years. Currently heading Ad Monetization Team at GameBiz, helping game developers such as Wargaming, Goodgame Studios, Lockwood Publishing, Pixel Federation, BytroLabs, Nanobit, Two Desperados, Webelinx, etc. monetize their games with
ads, significantly increase their ad ARPDAU and revenue. Previously worked as a Business Development Manager at the most successful video games studio in Serbia, Nordeus, (now part of Take-Two Interactive),
managing ad monetization and key football partnerships for the flagship game, Top Eleven.
Head of DIGIC Studios
Attila began his DIGIC career 12 years ago as a coordinator, then 4 years later became the Director of Character Division. 4 months ago, he was appointed as Head of DIGIC Studios to our expanding Studios branch, created to leverage the maturing engine-based technologies in high-quality animated content creation for the gaming and entertainment industry.
Senior Developer Relations Manager, Intel
Associated with the gaming industry since 2009. Member and founder of the Indie Games Polska Foundation. He started his work in the industry as a QA tester and translation and localization specialist. Then he was responsible for level design and production of, among others, Shadow Warrior and 2, and then for over 1.5 years he was involved in business development consulting. Mentor in ARP Games acceleration programs.
In recent years, he has been involved in the technology industry in the field of developer relations, first at AMD, currently at Intel as Senior Developer Relations Manager.
Environment Artist, Ebb Software
Andrea started working in game development after finishing studies in architecture. She co-founded indie studio Phobos where she focused on worldbuilding, overseeing the development of the game's open world map from initial conceptualization and level design to the final realization in game. She currently works as an Environment Artist at Ebb Software.
KEYNOTE PROGRAM
We’ll kick things off in a beautiful theater venue, followed by a welcome cocktail for speakers, partners & guests. Leaders, or even legends of the industry – right in front of us.
GAMECAMP / APP HUB
We bring back this special collaboration into a bigger room! Leading speakers from the domain of mobile development will share their valuable experiences with our audience.
B2B “CORE” TRACK
Production, art direction, studio management, leadership, publishing and many more topics covered in our core b2b track – from indies, over AA all the way to AAA, beyond & back.
ECOSYSTEM TRACK
We welcome our peers, representatives of European game dev ecosystems, NTAs and European networks such as EGDF & Video Games Europe.
SHIFT2GAMES [STUDENTS’ TRACK]
Yet again, we open the program to students.
We offer them amazing talks & let them get a taste of our dynamic industry, plus meet the people involved in it.
ASK THEM ANYTHING
All the delegates will be able to claim their own fre, 10-minute consultation slots with selected experts from the domains of legal, IP, taxation, & other relevant fields!