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Dare Finalist Panel Announced!
Tomorrow marks a hugely significant day in the Dare Academy 2019 competition, where the 9 shortlisted teams will meet a panel of Abertay academic staff and industry professionals who will decide their fate in the competition.
Teams will have 15 minutes to pitch their project, thereafter face questions from the panel.
The finalists will be announced noon on Friday 24 May, where 6 teams will commence the hot-housing stage in July, culminating in the final at EGX in October.
With pitching less than 24 hours away we can now reveal who will be on the panel.....
Dr Lynn Love
Lynn Love is a lecturer in animation and interactive media at Abertay University who, when not teaching, makes interactive work that blurs physical and digital boundaries aiming to make the world more playful. As part of Abertay Game Lab, she is channelling these playful interventions into academic research having recently completed her PhD thesis about bringing people together through play. When she's not teaching, making game controllers out of tinfoil and kids toys, scribbling with chalk around Europe or out and about with her Beagle, Snoopy, you can find her random thoughts and adventures on twitter as @toadrick
Dr Paul Robertson
Paul Robertson graduated with an honours degree in Computing from Abertay University and went to obtain his doctorate for interdisciplinary research developing and evaluating a computer games based simulation for the firearms police. Paul has led several research projects investigating the future of self-service technology and media consumption, and providing research opportunities to local industry. He has also been involved in projects that provide real-time analytics of user interfaces for local games companies.
Paul has been a key member of the Dare Academy team and has overseen the final the last two years and will reprise his role at EGX in October.
Keeley Bunting
Keeley Bunting is a Games Designer with over 12 years of industry experience in both the UK and Canada. She currently works as a Senior Designer at Outplay leading the design for Crafty Candy, a fun free-to-play match-3 mobile game. Previously, at Electronics Arts, Nexon, Microsoft and Disney, she explored a variety of disciplines including design, technical art and software engineering. In addition to working on games for mobile, Kinect, Facebook and web, Keeley was part of an innovation team which was awarded 10 patents relating to physical-digital play. Having initially worked on Free-to-Play games in 2017, she is enjoying her returns to this space.
David Hamilton
David Hamilton is no stranger to Abertay having graduated from the University in Games Development in 2004. David teamed up alongside one of his classmates Barry Petrie and formed Digital Goldfish. They partnered up with New Zealand company Ninja Kiwi and brought their popular flash game “Bloons” to the AppStore. It went straight to number 1 in America. Ninja Kiwi subsequently bought Digital Goldfish, where David is now co-manager of the 30 man strong studio. The company has over 100 million downloads across mobile, console and Steam.
David returns to Dare Academy for the second consecutive year on the judging panel.
