Jury Members 2026

Arjan is a (serious) board game designer, educator and didactics trainer at the Hanze Applied University and board member of SAGANET, an association for serious game professionals in the Netherlands. He is the founder of the 'Spellenmaakgilde', a Dutch tabletop game design guild and has several (applied) tabletop games published.

Karen Sikkema is an entrepreneur, designer and expert in game-based learning with over twenty years of experience creating serious games and meaningful experiences. As CEO and co-founder of Living Story, she develops serious games for learning and behavioural change — for businesses, government organisations and cultural institutions. She is author of Playing Works (Spelen Werkt), awarded Management Book of the Year 2023 in the Netherlands, and developer of the Game-based Learning Design Wheel, a design framework for building effective serious games. As a guest lecturer, she shares her expertise at various game and design programmes nationally and internationally, and as a keynote speaker she challenges audiences to rethink the power of games and play as the most powerful tools we have for learning and transformation. As a jury member, she will bring a practical and critical perspective: does the game actually work? How does it motivate, engage and immerse? Where is the learning, and is the learning behaviour truly an integral part of the game? And of course, how can the game be used in an organizational or other real world context?

Sophie is an innovation specialist at Hulan, where she drives the development of digital health solutions that create real-world impact. She has played a key role in applied games such as Freequency - an AR-based app helping people manage tinnitus - and Pillo, a game-based tool designed to support children in healthcare settings. With a background at the intersection of research, technology, and implementation, Sophie brings both hands-on experience and a sharp eye for what makes applied games truly work in practice.

Jingtong is a Director of Business Development at Griffin Gaming Partners, one of the world's leading venture funds focused exclusively on gaming, where she focuses on discovering indie games and getting them funded. Before moving into the investment side, she spent six years as a publishing producer at indie publishers across China and Europe, working on over a dozen award-winning titles across multiple platforms and regions. Her cross-cultural background and career have given her a special interest in cultural differences in games and games that resonate across borders.

Producer at Iceberg Interactive I help developers punch above their weight by finding solutions to unique problems in their creative process. I use my technical knowledge and deep love for games in combination with my background in Film and Theatre to find cross-discipline angles to approach situations. The past 5 years, I worked on about 30 titles from various genres including; Puzzle games (Strange Antiquities, Strange Horticulture, and Allogloom), Shooters (Blazing Sails, Hellbreach: Vegas, and Heroes of Valor), Strategy games (Land of the Vikings, Circle Empires, and Star Dynasties), Narrative Games (Sacred Fire, Radiolight, and Recursive Ruin), and Simulators (Airportsim, Railroad Corporation, and King of Retail).

Pinar Temiz (they/she) is a sound designer and exploratory researcher whose work bridges game audio, interactive arts, and creative technology. As a Senior Sound Designer at Guerrilla Games, they were responsible for the audio design of the machines across the Horizon franchise (Horizon Zero Dawn [2017] and Horizon Forbidden West [2022]), and also contributed to Killzone: Shadow Fall (2013).

Robin-Yann Storm is a freelance Workflow Consultant. He has worked as a full time Tool UX Designer in the AAA games industry on the Glacier editor on which the Hitman series was built, the Decima editor on which the Horizon series was built, and at Apple on AR creation tools such as Reality Composer and Reality Converter, which has made him well acquainted with the workflows of Pixar's USD framework. He has consulted companies both big and small on workflows, tools, and UGC. Next to that, he created and organizes the Tool Design Roundtables, talks at conferences around the world, and has contributed a chapter about Tool Design in the book ‘An Architectural Approach to Level Design, Second Edition’.

Sonja has been working as a freelance 2D game artist and art director since 2012. Some of the games she's worked on are Lake, Stratego Online and Uno and Tetris AirConsole. She knows all about digitizing board and card games, and creating stylized (cozy) games.

Esmeralda is a Freelance Producer in Video Games. She likes to connect the dots and most importantly people. She has worked on various Indie and AAA titles across all major platforms in both development and publishing environments. She’s always keen to help developers find their way in the industry.

Krish Raghav is a comic book artist and community manager based in Amsterdam. He co-organizes [untitled games event], a monthly showcase of experimental games and playable arts. In 2025, he created and released "Don't Get Your Hopes Up", a game about the Amsterdam housing crisis that was a 2025 Indie Game Awards nominee and Game Devs of Color selection. Krish's writing and illustrations have appeared in TANK Magazine, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Real Life, Topic, and Al-Jazeera.

Zuraida Buter is an award-winning playful arts curator based in the Netherlands. She curates, initiates, consults and documents events focused on playful arts, digital culture and games. With her international network she brings people together for creation and playful experiences. She is founder of playful culture organisation zo-ii, founder of WiGNL and co-founder of Playful Arts Festival. As a curator she is involved in curating talks, play and game exhibitions at different festivals, events and institutes such as Sickhouse / The Overkill, Incubate, Tweetakt and De Brakke Grond in the Netherlands and Screenshake and IndieCade Europe abroad. She is currently the program curator for A MAZE. / Berlin. In 2020 she won the IndieCade Game Changer award and in 2024 she won the Inclusion Award at the Dutch Game Awards.

I'm the General Manager of Behaviour Interactive NL in Rotterdam and one of the people who originally started Codeglue. After spending more than 20 years building the studio as CEO, I helped guide it through its next chapter when it joined Behaviour Interactive. I've been lucky to work across indie, services, and now AAA projects throughout my career, and what still excites me most is working with people, growing teams, developing leaders, and building studio cultures that are both ambitious and healthy. I'm also actively involved in mentoring and supporting the Dutch game development community whenever I can.

Richie de Wit is a consultant who supports independent game developers in building leverage, clarity, and long-term independence through ongoing business support. He also serves as Senior Business Development & Partner Manager at indie publisher Raw Fury, where he drives strategy, partnerships, and sales across multiple platforms. Richie has supported many titles over the years including Gemporium, Blue Prince, Cassette Beasts, Among Us, and Vampire Survivors.

I am a business development professional with experience across publishing, content acquisition, partnerships, and investment in the global games industry. I currently work in game investments and developer relations at KRAFTON, supporting studios across Europe with a focus on long-term partnerships and sustainable growth. Before KRAFTON, I held roles at United Label, Kepler Interactive, and Utomik, working with independent and mid-sized studios across the full arc of a deal: from first pitch through negotiation, due diligence, signing, and launch. Beyond deal-making, I am deeply invested in the wider games ecosystem. I regularly serve as a jury member and mentor for international programs including SpielFabrique and AfriGames, supporting indie developers in refining their pitches and navigating the publishing and funding landscape. I value strong creative identity, transparent communication, and partnerships built on trust rather than short-term outcomes.

Céline is an artist and game developer based in Utrecht. She previously worked on Hidden Folks, The Merlies and Sokpops Grail. Her new game Curiosmos, is a cute and cozy space sim about creating your own solar system.

Michiel Roza is optimization programmer at Nixxes Software

Sasha Lewis is a game designer at Twirlbound with a focus on level design and world-building. She has spoken at multiple industry events and is also an ambassador for Women in Games.