Jury Members 2024

Bart is the author of ‘A brand new playground’ (Kluwer, 2010) and ‘Playing on the job’ (van Duuren, 2016). In these books he focuses on the power of game mechanics and how they can be applied with organisations to achieve continuous improvement. He’s been a steady force on the Global Gamification Gurus top 100 and is certainly one of the founders of gamification and game thinking in Europe. His trackrecord with his company BrandNewGame holds over twenty -often award winning – digital game innovations. The solutions provided for clients are always developed using a proven agile method that Bart developed. This method is also part of the curriculum at the University of Amsterdam and the Gamification Academy. With an average score of 8,7 Bart is a highly valued speaker both in the Netherlands and abroad.

Throughout her career, Ellis Bartholomeus has been intrigued with the value of play. She graduated from the Design Academy in 1996 as a product designer and realised that to have audiences own a message they needed to interact with it. Since then she has been designing play as a method/tool to amplify self-motivated learning and enable rich social interaction. She co-developed over 75 games and playful interactive products on a wide spectrum of topics and wrote a book Apply Play • to get ahead of the game which has been published in four languages and is being used to learn and play more worldwide.

Lindy describes herself as a curious creative for life. She founded EVRgreen Studio, an applied games studio, out of her passion for nature and her interest in gaming. From her own experience and from her education, she noticed how powerful these tools can be to raise awareness. How they can bridge the gap between science and society by simplifying and introducing a positive and playful approach. This is how she aims to make an impact with games for a green future.

During his study to become a teacher in physical education, Marcel discovered the power of play. Learning new skills, improving connectedness, addressing and motivating each other… Play facilitates and strengthens the effect. Early in his career, he transitioned to the corporate world, but the lessons from the gym-class remained. With his company AtHand Serious Gaming, Marcel was involved in the development and implementation of numerous serious games for telcos, financial service providers, customer contact organizations, and other large corporates through-out Europe. Games from AtHand have been awarded multiple times, winning the NL E-learning Award, SAN Accent, and Dutch Game Awards. After selling AtHand in 2021, Marcel founded 4Growth with the aim of making a social impact through Serious Gaming. As a jury member, he focuses on the connection between creativity, engagement, and measurable impact.

Adinda van Oosten combined her bachelor’s degree in China Studies with a degree in Game Design and Development. After joining a Game Jam in Guangzhou she came to realize that she enjoyed teaching more than making games and continued her studies with a game design and research Master in Germany.She worked in Hongkong as a service learning tutor at 嶺南大學 (Lingnan University) creating her own courses and organizing the Global Game Jam. In 2019 she started the channel “Acreates” on Youtube providing tutorials for game maker enthusiasts and interviews Indie developers from all over the world. Next to her digital journey is she also a mentor and coach for creative professionals.

Carmen is an art director and one of the founders of Roost Games, an indie game studio and cooperative with members across the Netherlands and Europe. Roost Games developed and released its first game, Cat Cafe Manager, in 2022 and is currently working on a sequel.With over 10 years of experience in the industry, Carmen has contributed to numerous indie titles as an artist and animator, including Renowned Explorers, Godhood, Reus 2, and Tracks of Thought. She also helped establish WerkPlant, an initiative sparked by Dutch indie game studios Wispfire and Roost Games that aims to promote sustainable independence in the creative industry.With a rich background in animation, Carmen is passionate about bringing ideas and concepts to life.

Klaas is co-creator of- and business developer at Representing Games, the agency label of MeetToMatch. Representing Games started in 2020 as a side activity and was born out of studios, publishers, and governments reaching out to MeetToMatch requesting active support to help set them up with connections to other companies in the entertainment games industry to secure deals and partnerships. As a natural fit with the MeetToMatch activities, this grew bigger over time, with Klaas being responsible for building this into a separate business unit and supporting today’s clients mainly by providing pitch & build related advice, establishing connections between developers and publishers & investors, and providing general consultancy & guidance along the way.

Käy Vriend is an experienced material artist/consultant with a deep expertise in Adobe Substance 3D software. He has had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects, from AAA titles to indie games, showcasing his versatility and passion for the gaming industry. Käy is dedicated to helping others succeed, actively coaching and mentoring graduates and hobbyists to help them break the ice to get into the games industry. His approachable and supportive nature makes him a valued mentor and a respected member of the game development community.

Len is a reporter for Dutch national daily NRC. Beyond answering practical questions about sustainability, privacy and lifestyle for the paper’s Slim Leven desk, she has also served as the paper’s video games reporter since 2017.  Previously, she covered tech and video games for such publications as AD.nl, NU.nl, Bright and OneWorld. As a critic, she is interested in issues around diversity, storytelling through interactivity, and the intersection of video games, art and technology.

Ressa is the CEO and founder of Gameowdio, an audio outsourcing studio based in Rotterdam. Her main focus is audio direction, visioning and management. Starting 2009, Ressa has worked as game audio generalist: freelanced, directed audio at Aterdux Entertainment (Legends of Eisenwald), worked as audio producer for TinyBuild (Secret Neighbor, Totally Reliable Delivery Service, Party Hard), now one of her biggest goals is building audio team at CM Games (Nitro Nation franchise, Into The Radius).She creates audio teams from scratch and manages them, working with outsourcing audio specialists from all over the world. Her real passion is implementation of effective and elegant audio strategies for developers to save time and money when creating great experiences.

Willem is the Media Manager for Games and Online at Het Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid. He specializes in video games, digital media and online culture. Willem is actively working on the archiving and preservation of Dutch games and collaborates with various game makers, publishers, journalists and workers in the (inter)national games industry. In his spare time he writes about games, plays boardgames and practices archery.

Back in the year 2000, Collin co-founded game developer Two Tribes together with Martijn Reuvers. The company is probably best known for the Toki Tori series of games. During its peak, Two Tribes grew in size to around 15 people was able to work with famous IP’s such as Ice Ace and Portal 2. At the end of 2016, after releasing RIVE, their last and arguably best game yet, Collin decided his spark for game development was gone and quit development to go on a trip around the world to clear his head.After returning home, he soon realised it would be a waste of his almost 20 years of experience to leave the industry. Since then he has been supporting other game developers in the Netherlands and Belgium as well as becoming Incubation Manager at Dutch Game Garden in 2023.

Martijn holds a degree in management of technological innovation and is a vivid game enthusiast with nearly 20 years experience in the industry. He initially contributed to the success of Electronic Arts as marketing lead for Southern Europe. He then was entrusted with the responsibility of managing the publishing operations of EA in the Benelux. Currently, Martijn serves as general manager of Video Games Federation Netherlands, Board member of DGA and BEN (Branchevereniging Esports Nederland) where he focuses on driving collaboration, shaping and influencing policies, regulations, and growth opportunities for the Dutch videogames industry.

Stephanie is a co-founder of Game Drive, a full-service game marketing agency for indie developers whose clients include well-known Dutch developers like BlackMill Games of the WW1 Game Series and Total Mayhem Games of the We Were Here series, as well as a variety of international studios like Pine Studio, creators of Escape Simulator, and Funselektor Labs with several hit racing games. Stephanie has experience with nearly all of the facets of marketing, but her biggest interest lies in the strategy and operations side.In her free time, Stephanie likes traveling and spending time with her two kids. Before settling in The Netherlands, she has lived in Ivory Coast, Sweden and Zimbabwe. She loves animals and spending time outdoors, which is why African safaris – Game Drives – are one of her favourite things in the world!