San Luis Obispo, USA — April 1st, 2021 — International nonprofit organization, Global Game Jam, Inc® announced today that it is welcoming five new members to its board of directors, Hiroki Omae (Tokyo, Japan), Dr. JC Lau (Seattle, USA), Dr. Loretta Cheeks, (Arizona, USA), Nourhan El Shereif (Cairo, Egypt) and Taha Rasouli (Tehran, Iran). In what is a regular director turnover event, with individuals serving two year terms, the organization also bids a fond farewell to retiring board members Ashley Brown, Foaad Khosmood and Houssem Ben Amor.
“We’re excited to welcome our next cohort of members to the board of directors of the Global Game Jam organization and look forward to leveraging their individual talents and expertise in continuing our work in empowering individuals worldwide to learn, experiment and create together through video games,” said Joseph Olin, GGJ Board President. Kate Edwards, Executive Director of Global Game Jam, Inc. added, “We are incredibly grateful for the service of our departing board members as well and bid them a very fond goodbye as we look forward to crossing paths with these great industry veterans regularly. We especially thank Foaad, the last co-founder of the GGJ to be departing their role in the organization.”
As of today, the departing GGJ board members will officially pass the torch to the incoming group of industry veterans. The GGJ board is responsible for helping the organization maintain financial stability and supporting the Executive Director’s mission to forge new strategic partnerships and build relationships with current and future sponsors. As a non-profit organization, the GGJ also supports its community through local site grants and through its accessibility fund to enable more people to participate around the world and eliminate any barriers to developing and uploading their creations to the global GGJ network.
The Global Game Jam® (GGJ) is the world’s largest game creation event taking place around the globe, typically at physical locations. In January 2020, GGJ had a record-breaking year with 934 locations in 118 countries creating 9,601 games in one weekend! One year later, in January 2021 GGJ shifted to an online-only format due to the global pandemic but still hosted a great event with 585 virtual locations in 104 countries which made 6,383 games!
The jam is known for helping foster new friendships, increase confidence and opportunities within the community and is always an intellectual challenge. Participants are invited to explore new technology tools, try on new roles in development and test their skills to do something that requires them to design, develop, create, test and make a new game in the time span of 48 hours.
