Voting for Imirt's new board members will open on Monday, December 19th and will take place until midnight on Friday the 6th of January 2023. Details of how to vote and links needed to vote will be sent to members by email.

This year, we will once again be using Opa Vote. This system ensures a secure and unbiased voting process. (make sure the email address for noreply@opavote.com is in your contacts so it’s not sent to your spam folder)

To vote you must be registered as an Imirt member in order to receive a voting link before voting starts on December 19th. You can visit the website to sign up for Imirt membership for only €20. Please sign up before Monday the 19th of December so that your membership can be processed in time to vote before the deadline.

3 out of the 7 board seats are being contested in this election. Board member Manuel Correia will be standing down while Board member Craig Stephens is going up for re-election. Many thanks to Manuel for his incredible contribution to Imirt and the Irish game developer community over the last several years! We wish him every success in future.

If you have any questions please email contact@imirt.ie and thank you for supporting Irish game developers!

The Candidates

Mariano Di Murro

I am an award-winning entrepreneur and games developer with over 10 years of experience in the games industry.

Starting off as a QA and localization tester for a large Canadian game publisher.

After that, I started and ran my own successful gaming startup where I raised venture capital funding for games startups here in Ireland, as well as in America, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

I have worked to deliver branded gaming products for international brands including Paramount Pictures, Universal Music, Netflix, Miller Beer, Aldi, Lidl, PwC, The Irish Rugby Team, Curry’s PC World, Lucozade, Kia, Ford motors, and many more. I have pitched my gaming ideas everywhere from in front of some of the biggest venture capital funds in Palo Alto Silicon Valley San Francisco, to the main stage at the web Summit. I won the most entertaining at Google Start-up Weekend and led my last start-up to be adopted by Google here in Ireland. During my gaming career I have also been part of the TechStars entrepreneur empowerment program, New Frontiers entrepreneur Program, National Digital Research Centre Gamepad, and Games Ireland’s first-ever Accelerator. In my current role, I work as a Games Engineer at Google here in Dublin. Where I am able to attend international gaming conferences like Gamescom and work closely on partnerships with the biggest game engines and publishers in the world.

What I hope to achieve

● Offering advice and best practices guidance to any independent Irish game developers on securing government funding or raising venture investment.

● Help organize community events and networking opportunities that will grow Imirt’s membership and create solid industry links.

● Creation of a workshop to highlight the Irish new tax credit and the opportunities for growth in the gaming sector.

● Exploring the possibilities of Imirt funding and sponsorship of an Irish games industry stand at international gaming events like GDC, Gamescom, and Develop.

Contact

Email: Mariano@SocialArcade.io
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariano-di-murro/

Thomas Cashman

Thomas is Director at Viridian Software and has over a decade of expertise as a programmer. At 6 years old, he was inspired to become a game developer and in 2017 he founded Viridian Software. Viridian has since grown into a development, porting and publishing studio supporting many developers and publishers worldwide. Thomas has open-sourced many frameworks and libraries and continues to contribute to several game development community efforts such as SDL and supporting C# runtimes on game consoles.

What I hope to achieve

I believe Ireland has great potential to become a key location for game development in Europe. Having lived in other EU countries for many years, I've seen how they encourage industry growth and how large game communities help each other grow and succeed. As someone who has bootstrapped their studio from zero, I understand the challenges new developers and teams are up against when getting off the ground.

If elected to the board, I intend to work in the following areas to help support developers:

Re-introduce in-person events and foster community engagement
Lobbying government to improve supports for new developers/studios
Establish a mentorship programme that Imirt members can apply to and have the opportunity to learn from experienced industry professionals.

Contact

Website — https://viridiansoftware.com/
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomascashman/
GitHub — https://github.com/tomcashman

Sean Carton

I’m a game designer and historian specialising in lane-pushing / MOBA games. I was lucky enough to be a Warcraft III modder back in 2003, and ended up making one of the original DotA maps!

That started a lifelong passion. Many years of modding later, I began to document the design and history of lane-pushing games, and to-date I’ve written over 60 deep-dive articles exploring the genre, as well as interviewing other creators.

More recently, I’m a founder and CEO at Kybolt — an independent Irish game studio where our vision is “a world where gamers recognise leadership as a learnable skill”. I lead our team and our efforts to develop future leaders through prosocial and inclusive games.

Outside games, I enjoy international culture and exchange! I’m an active committee member at the Experience Japan festival, and have been a scout leader for many years.

What I hope to achieve

As a company founder, I am strongly motivated to see the games industry in Ireland grow. I’m keen to continue IMIRT’s support for networking opportunities, and I also want to amplify and enrich the information reaching those who may not be well-networked — such as students from secondary level and up, and new businesses.

To achieve this, I plan to advance the IMIRT website as an authoritative source of information, links, and data for everyone. This is familiar territory for me — I already do content writing work for CareersPortal, where I recently championed the introduction of a new ‘esports’ sub-sector.

I feel I would make a great board member because I’m aligned on values of inclusion, uplifting people, and representing Ireland. I have a growing international network — which I hope to draw upon to support IMIRT’s future training workshops.

I'm also close to academic research as a member of the international 'Esports Research Network', which I believe can help me bring some fresh perspectives to the Board.

Contact

Game Design Writings — lanepushinggames.com
Company Website — kybolt.com
Esports sub-sector — careersportal.ie/sectors/subsectors.php?sub_sector=200&sector_id=18
LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/sean-carton

Steven Humphreys

Hi, I’m Steven and I’ve worked in gaming at Google for more than 5 years working across some of the largest gaming companies in the world across console and mobile. I currently lead the large customers apps & gaming team for the UK market and a strong network in mobile gaming in particular across EMEA. My favorite part of my current role is working with game developers to help them create, design and market their new title launches. This has given me a great appreciation for the hard work and expertise involved from all the teams in different departments when launching a new game.

What I hope to achieve

Marketing games is my area of expertise and I think this would be a really strong complement to the skills of the other board members. If elected, I plan to provide increased support and expertise to all members in the marketing of their games and bring the best of the wider industry to all game developers in Ireland through workshops, webinars and other scaled learning opportunities.

Contact

Linkedin — ie.linkedin.com/in/steven-humphreys-a71b11a7

Patrick O'Donnell

I am an experienced equity analyst with a deep focus on the video gaming segment. I have covered the U.K. listed ecosystem since 2018.

The companies include Keywords Studios; Codemasters: Team17; tinyBuild; Devolver Group; Frontier Developments; My experience includes the organisation of specialist events in the space covering key themes dominating the industry; quarterly reports on the global games industry; and stock recommendations and investor interaction on U.K. listed and global games companies. I am also a qualified chartered accountant having trained at Deloitte 2010-2014.

What I hope to achieve

I bring a strong understanding of the video games industry coupled with a broad network of executives across the sector. I can bring a commercial focus to the Irish games association and an ability to leverage my network of both private and public games companies to raise awareness of the opportunity set of setting up here. I also have a deep awareness of how video games tax credits have benefitted other jurisdictions and I have the right blend of skills to liaise with government and companies to achieve a material uplift in relocations here.

Overall; I would hope to bring an increasing commercial focus to IMIRT and an increased awareness of the opportunities at play in an Irish context.

Contact

LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/patrick-o-donnell-81831a1b

Craig Stephens

Originally from the UK, I’m Founder & Director of video games PR agency Kartridge. We have been delivering highly successful media and influencer communications campaigns since 2015. Our clients have ranged from AAA publishers - such as Hi-Rez Studios and Square Enix - to one-person indie developers.

My professional life began in the QA teams of EA and Jagex, which provided a solid understanding of the mechanics of games development. Nurturing a keen interest in Public Relations I then worked with Jagex’s freshly-minted PR team on early RuneScape promotional campaigns. Jagex lead to NCSOFT and several multi-year MMO campaigns. My time there culminated in heading up EMEA PR operations. Prior to Kartridge I was headhunted by Gamer Network to promote their network of brands, including GamesIndustry.biz, Eurogamer and EGX.

In 2018 my Irish wife and I married in Dublin, where we now live and work.

What I hope to achieve

As a member of Imirt’s board I would hope to increase the organisation’s standing, both nationally and internationally, so it is better able to achieve its strategic goals in the short and long term. I would develop mechanisms to fuel the growth of the industry to strengthen its role economically, socially and culturally.

My ideas range from lobbying trade and government to improve on recent tax incentive announcements with more investment and financial aid, developing Imirt’s online resources (for would-be employees, employers and consumers), supporting industry and educational networking opportunities, plus championing Imirt’s goals and initiatives with the press.

A key to identifying opportunities and measuring success is to better understand the scope and value of the industry. I would look to develop a foundation of financial and demographic knowledge on which Imirt can plan its activities.

This will cement Imirt’s key position in this thriving creative industry.

My experience working closely with international trade associations (such as Ukie) on events and initiatives, plus tireless networking with developers, publishers and supporting services would make me a great board member. I bring a lifetime of gaming passion, well-honed PR creativity and (as a company director) a highly flexible timetable.

Contact

Email — craig@kartridge.co

Website — kartridge.co

Darren Kearney

Darren Kearney is a community leader in the Galway game development scene, and has been running game jams, workshops and other game community events to support and maintain the community since 2015, with a view to helping shape the community on a grassroots level to go against the status quo and be much more inclusive and welcoming. See https://galwaygamejam.com/jam-archive/

Darren is co-founder, director and game programmer of micro indie game studio *Portal Punch*. Their first game(s) are in development. More here: [https://portalpunch.itch.io/](https://portalpunch.itch.io/) and [https://www.instagram.com/portalpunch](https://www.instagram.com/portalpunch/)

Darren is the co-founder of monthly game developer meeting, 1GAM Galway Meetup in 2017, inspired by 1GAM in Dublin and the online challenge. 1GAM Galway takes place on the first Tuesday of each month. This casual (now virtual) meetup provides a platform for local developers to get constructive feedback on their projects, practice giving presentations, pitching their games, and generally talk about game development news and learnings. See: [https://www.meetup.com/1gam-galway/](https://www.meetup.com/1gam-galway/)

Darren is Global Game Jam Site Organiser for the Galway jam-site, having taken on the role back in 2019. He successfully adapted the annual event to an online-only event during the pandemic, and is now evolving it into a hybrid event for 2023 based on the success of hybrid Galway Game Jam events in 2022

Darren has provided training with Unity game engine as part of the *Count Me In* programme facilitated by the Western Care Association in Castlebar, Mayo. Darren delivered two iterations of the course to students who have specific learning needs or who previously struggled with lack of supports or resources in national education. The outcome is that the students each made a game with Unity. Darren adapted the course materials and methods to suit the learning needs of the students, and make learning Unity more delightful and something that fits in your brain, rather than a confusing chore. Darren is in early discussion around establishing a Mayo jam-site for Global Game Jamin 2023, which Darren will support in an effort to continue the great work of the *Count Me In* programme, to include the students into the wider game dev community.

## GDC

Darren was awarded the Global Game Jam GDC Scholarship in 2022, which enabled him to attend to GDC and share his thoughts and experiences at the Global Game Jam panel discussion. https://globalgamejam.org/news/announcing-our-2022-class-gdc-scholars

Darren took this opportunity to inform the audience of game jam organisers about the

diversity research findings of Dr. Aphra Kerr, Joshua Savage and Vickey Twomey-Lee from their paper titled "Decoding and Recoding Game-making events for Diversity, Inclusion & Innovation". This research identified many problem areas with game jams and proposed a series of steps to run better, more inclusive events, backed by evidence from several events. If you run game jams, you ought to read it too: [https://gamedevelopers.ie/diversity/](https://gamedevelopers.ie/diversity/)

Darren used his time at GDC to explore and learn about game development. On returning to Galway, he informed the community about his findings through publishing blogs and discussing his experience at monthly game dev meetups. While there were many positive learnings, two key pain points for our national game industry emerged, along with an obvious solution:

- There was that there was no Irish presence at GDC (while there was a strong presence from other small countries in Europe like Wales and Switzerland)

- Unfortunately it appeared Darren was the only person in San Francisco telling people about the Irish Tax Credit for digital games.

- Both of these could be solved by the establishment of an Irish Games Pavilion.

Throughout the second half of 2022, Darren has been reaching out to game studios in the Republic of Ireland to gather data about interest in an Irish Games Pavilion project. With a solid understanding of the needs of our game studios, Darren hopes to put an Irish Games Pavilion trade mission on the agenda for 2023, connecting the studios and stakeholders needed to make this a reality. (In general, making a lot of noise about it!)

From August 2022, Darren worked in collaboration with Ardán and CREW staff to facilitate the *Wild Galway Games Initiative* (WGGI) through a game jam event, and as a speaker and volunteer mentor. This initiative is noteworthy as the first directly funded game development project in Ireland to date, with funds specifically for creation of digital games. More details here: [https://ardan.ie/funding/wrapping-up-the-wild-galway-games-initiative-wggi-2022/](https://ardan.ie/funding/wrapping-up-the-wild-galway-games-initiative-wggi-2022/)

What I Hope to achieve

Build and maintain relationships with stakeholders in various adjacent sectors and public funding bodies.
Clearly communicate the needs of the games industry in Ireland across the board.
Establish the first ***Irish Games Pavilion*** at GamesCom 2023 with the following features:
Operate similar to other national booths; hosting multiple game studios, agencies and services, a shared meeting room which can be used for pitch meetings and networking, and various booth events to attract people to the pavilion.
Support game developers by having a subsidized booth space.
Provide a platform for game developers to showcase their games and services, pitch to publishers, make industry connections, and learn about what is happening in the wider industry.
To build the framework of the project in such a way as to create a lasting relationship with key stakeholders to ensure this project is repeatable.
Establish an Irish Games Pavilion team to ensure the project can operate independently for years to come and that the team can learn, grow and adapt the project with each occurrence.
To assist with the existing Imirt events, and with organising and promoting Imirt workshops/masterclasses.
To establish and support game-making events like workshops, courses and game jams to under-represented regions in Ireland.
To help maintain the Imirt Directory.
To help promote supports for small game studios in Ireland, such as the creation of a First-Playable-Prototype fund or similar, as exists in many other countries.

Contact

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenfkearney/

Email (specific to this): imirt.service@mindcauldron.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/darrencearnaigh

Mastodon (rarely): https://mastodon.ie/@darrencearnaigh

You can also find me on the Imirt Discord server.