Judges

Kris Piotrowski
Creative Director
Capybara Games
Kris Piotrowski co-founded Capybara Games in a sweaty Toronto pub and has since acted as the studio's creative director. He has created a long list of mobile games, including the 2008 IGF Mobile Award winning Critter Crunch. Kris and the Capy team are currently working on a super-secret DS game, an ultra-secret Wiiware game and a mega-secret PSN game.

Alan Yu
Vice President
ngmoco
Alan Yu is vice president, artist & repertoire and a founder of ngmoco. As the company's liaison to the creative community, his responsibilities include evaluating and signing game concepts and ensuring ngmoco's collaboration with the best and most innovative gamemakers. In 2004, Alan joined Neil Young at Electronic Arts. He was the director of creative affairs for EA Blueprint, a creative management group focused on developing and producing new properties across various media in a coordinated and connected fashion. Prior to Blueprint, he was director of artist & repertoire at E A Los Angeles and Maxis. He worked for the Game Developers Conference from 1995 to 2004, and was executive producer and director the last five years of his tenure. Alan is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in New York. He's obsessed with and always looking for the next great idea.

Paul Farley
CEO
Tag Games
CEO and founder of Scottish mobile games developer and publisher, Tag Games. In a previous life Paul was a talented game designer with credits including the Grand Theft Auto series and State of Emergency. Having spent the last eight years creating games for the mobile platform at I-play and now Tag, Paul knows what constitutes great mobile gaming and just as importantly what doesn't...

Brandon Boyer
Editor
Offworld
Brandon's wild, pure, simple life has seen him at various times acting as artist, programmer, and indie record label head, as well as writer, columnist and editor for web and print publications like Edge magazine and Gamasutra.com. He currently serves as editor of Boing Boing's new games site Offworld.

Liz England
Designer
5TH Cell
Liz is a designer at 5TH Cell, the developers of Drawn to Life, a finalist in last year’s inaugural IGF Mobile competition, and Lock’s Quest.  Focused on original IP, 5TH Cell has push the boundaries of innovation in handheld gaming by providing unique experiences on the Nintendo DS that cannot be found elsewhere.  Before joining 5TH Cell, she graduated with a degree in English literature from Marist College and a Master’s in Digital Game Development from the Guildhall at SMU.

Neil Trevett
Vice President Mobile Content
NVIDIA
Neil Trevett has spent over twenty years in the 3D graphics industry and joined NVIDIA in May of 2005 where he is responsible for enabling and encouraging compelling applications on non-PC platforms, including mobile handsets.  Previously, as Vice President of 3Dlabs, Trevett was at the forefront of the silicon revolution bringing interactive 3D to the PC.  Mr. Trevett is currently the elected President of the Khronos Group where Trevett initiated the OpenCL, OpenGL ES and OpenKODE working groups that are defining industry standards in fields such as general-purpose parallel programming of heterogeneous systems and advanced media processing on embedded devices. Trevett was also the elected President of the Web3D Consortium for eight consecutive years dedicated to creating open standards for communicating real-time 3D on the Internet.

Stuart Dredge
Writer
Pocket Gamer
Stuart has been covering the mobile games industry for six years now, including both consumer and industry publications. This includes working at Informa Telecoms & Media, where he edited the Mobile Games Analyst publication, co-wrote the company's Mobile Games Report, and put together the programme for a spin-off conference. He is currently freelance, but this includes writing the news, features and some reviews for Pocket Gamer, the UK consumer-focused mobile games site ( www.pocketgamer.co.uk). Other past jobs include T3 magazine, Official Dreamcast Magazine and Mobile Choice.

Tommy Palm
R&D Manager
Jadestone
Tommy started programming games for Commodore 64 back in 1985 as a hobby, and it continued to be a hobby until 1999 when he founded Jadestone. Since then he has been working as concept creator and game designer on seven mobile game titles including Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol and Kodo. During the seven years developing mobile games his team have been awarded six awards and numerous nominations latest Nokia Innovation Challenge, IMGA and IGF Mobile. He enjoys teaching in his spare time, writes articles and is a regular speaker at conferences like the Game Developers Conference. He holds lectures at The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and has been a member of the jury for Swedish Game Awards for four consecutive years.

Rob Podoloff
Vice President of Research and Development
Zeemote
As Vice President of R & D, Rob is responsible for the overall technical direction of the company and for development of initial product concepts and enhancements. Before joining Zeemote, Rob was Chief Engineer and Senior Consultant at Product Genesis, a world-class product design and development firm.  He was also a Founder, President and CTO of Slingshot Game Technology, an interactive game development company specializing in unique peripheral control devices and software.  Rob has held numerous senior positions in the field of human-machine interface and sensors, including being an early investor and consultant to CyberGear, an exercise/game company that was later sold to Cybex.  He was also a Founder and Director of Engineering of Tekscan, Inc., where he was one of the inventors of their patented, tactile sensor technology.  Rob holds ten U.S. patents with multiple applications pending.  He is a member of ASME and Sigma Xi, and serves on the steering committee for the MIT Enterprise Forum's Interactive Entertainment SIG. 

Steve Palley
Editor
Slide To Play
Before founding Slide To Play, a web site dedicated to iPhone games coverage, Steve spent two years as Chief Editor of Wireless Gaming Review and GameSpot Mobile.  During that time, he reviewed and previewed hundreds of mobile games from around the world, moderated many important panels at industry events, and administered The Mobies, the first international awards show for mobile games.  After leaving GameSpot, he founded an independent consultancy, Foci Mobile, to work with mobile games publishers on design, marketing and localization issues.  More recently, he served as Vivendi Games Mobile's Editorial Guru, where he developed new concepts, conducted competitive research, produced several games, and wrote episodes for the award-winning Surviving Hollywood and Surviving High School franchises.  Steve holds a BA in History from Dartmouth College, and an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago. 

Tobin Lent
CEO & Founder
Punch Entertainment
As CEO of Punch Entertainment, Tobin is responsible for the overall strategy and direction of the company. Tobin is a veteran Silicon Valley executive drawing on over 15 years of industry experience in business development, finance and production in the interactive entertainment industry. Tobin has been in the mobile games industry for over 8 years. Tobin received a BA in economics from Stanford University.

Blake Patterson
Editor
Touch Arcade
At age 7 (or thereabouts) Blake received his first game console, an Atari 2600, and has been gaming ever since.  He has owned over 100 machines during his nearly life-long stint as a geek and is presently more avid a gamer than ever, both on modern hardware as well as “they just don’t make ‘em like they used to” retro gear.  While Blake’s computer room is host to computers of most every make and model, he is at heart a Mac guy - an Apple devotee.  Blake (along with Arnold) attended the Macworld Expo 2007 keynote where Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone and he spent 12 hours in line at the Apple Store in late June on iPhone launch day.  Blake is never without his beloved iPhone.

Supervising Judges

Mathew Kumar
Content Director
IGF Mobile
Mathew Kumar is a journalist based in Toronto, Canada, serving as Editor of WorldsInMotion.biz, a Contributing Editor for Gamasutra.com, and has written for websites as diverse as CBC.ca, Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun and Twitch Film, and for publications including Edge, The Globe and Mail and Plan B Magazine. He graduated from the The University of the West of Scotland with a degree in Computer Games Technology.