LearnDistrict Inc. is the educational media company behind Girls Make Games. Founded in 2013, LearnDistrict aims to create meaningful video games and experiences that empower and educate its audience.
In the annals of gaming history, no genre has been more maligned than the educational game. It is the ultimate black sheep of the gaming family. The stigma isn’t hard to understand – most educational games amount to little more than ‘gamified lessons’ with little thought towards game mechanics or fun.
There is a misconception that educational games are the only “games that teach”. The truth is, all games teach. Every game from League of Legends to Angry Birds is based on a system of players learning and adapting a certain amount of information to win. If the player is invested in playing, the learning will come naturally.
Who says that aliens, knights, and angry furry critters can’t teach us real-world knowledge? We say you can have your cake and eat it too (we promise the cake isn’t a lie).
Move aside conventional wisdom – it’s time for this black sheep to get some attitude (and maybe a jetpack).
FOUNDING VISION
Imagine a world where a high school student’s grades could be improved by a $10 game instead of a $70 book.
Students now more than ever are bombarded with all kinds of immediate distractions outside of school. Even in the classroom, they have access to laptops with an entire world of entertainment at their fingertips.
Instead of competing with these distractions, let’s embrace them. Let’s give them a game that teaches them everything a book could in a context that appeals to this generation’s growing need for kinetic stimulation.
GIRLS MAKE GAMES
In 2013, LearnDistrict founders and husband-wife duo Laila Shabir and Ish Syed witnessed the scarcity of women in the video games industry while recruiting a small team of game developers. An education-first company, they recognized the gap existed due to a lack awareness and ill-informed stereotypes about the medium and the industry.
Shocked and determined, they created Girls Make Games: a program that inspires and educates young women about careers and opportunities in the video games industry. In 2014, Girls Make Games came to life and has continued to grow ever since.
TEAM
Laila Shabir
CEO/Founder
Laila Shabir is the co-founder and CEO of Girls Make Games. A Pakistani immigrant raised in the United Arab Emirates, Laila attended MIT and pursued finance at BlackRock followed by economic research at The Brookings Institution. She eventually found her passion in video games while watching her husband, Ish, play Halo competitively. By seeing the skills he acquired through playing, she realized that a connection between education and video games needed to be formed.
In 2014, GamesIndustry.biz named Laila the Games Industry Person of the Year, and in 2018, she received the Visionary Award from the ESA. A game developer and proud gamer herself, Laila has set a personal goal to teach one million girls how to make games through her work.
Favorite Game: League of Legends
Ish Syed
Curriculum Lead/Founder
Ish’s passion for teaching began when he found himself tutoring friends and friends-of-friends after school. He hasn’t stopped since, and continues to learn and teach everything from game design, programming, mathematics and even badminton!
At Girls Make Games, Ish leads curriculum design and development. He is patiently waiting for Laila to get back to making educational games with him.
Favorite Games: Deus Ex, Red Dead Redemption
Isra Shabir
Director of Programs & Business Development
A graduate of MIT’s Computer Science program, Isra joined GMG after a few years in the tech industry, writing code and figuring out how to design software its users wouldn’t hate using. In 2019 she decided to make a few changes, and was shocked to learn that designing and running a program that teaches girls how to make video games proved to be a better fit!
At GMG, she helps manage our various offerings including our flagship summer camp, Demo Day, and virtual workshops.
Favorite Games: Detroit: Become Human, Counter Strike Global (CSGO)
Sabina Khan
Head of Operations
Sabina has always been fascinated by how we perceive, understand and interact with the world around us. This interest was nurtured at MIT, where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Biology, and honed at UTD, where she received her Master’s Degree in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience. Since then she has pursued a professional career across many industries, from Education to Healthcare, all devoted to understanding the human / technological relationship and designing experiences to improve the human experience. In each role she has striven to understand the problems at hand, create solutions that cut to the core of the issue and remove barriers to access.It is for these very reasons she joined Girls Make Games! She leads operations at the organization, working hard to ensure that GMG continues to provide access to key educational opportunities to girls around the world so that the next generation of problem solvers and innovators have all they need to thrive!
Maimuna M. Hossain
Admin & Coordinator
Maimuna (Mini) has been working as a primary level teacher since 2011. She believes her dedication towards learning, shaping and guiding young lives has helped her keep calm while tending to her mommy duties to 2 little ones. Mini accidentally stumbled on GMG when she was offered to run a workshop in Bangladesh and she was more than ecstatic to do it! She hasn’t looked back since and continues to bring game development workshops to her school and community.
Courtney Clark
Executive Administrative Assisstant
A graduate of Berklee College of Music’s Video Game Scoring program, Courtney has always been interested in game music and audio. She joined GMG the summer after graduating in 2018 as a Camp Counselor. Since then she has worked for GMG as a Camp Coordinator, composer and is now in her current role as Executive Administrative Assistant.
Courtney loves helping the gaming community to provide spaces for girls and women to learn about and play games.
Favorite games: The Legend of Zelda, Undertale, and Life is Strange
JOHN MEISTER
John Meister is the owner and studio director of Super Soul, an award-winning game and digital arts studio with a diverse portfolio that includes console games, interactive art installations, and educational games. With over twenty years of software development experience, John is a frequent conference speaker and trainer. John helps with the development of many of LearnDistrict’s games, including published titles like What They Don’t Sea.
John is also co-founder and president of RunJumpDev, a non-profit organization that supports the growth of the game industry in Kentucky. John has a passion for teaching, leading teams, and making ideas become a reality.
NATHAN FOUTS
Nathan is a game designer and programmer. After working for a decade on games such as Resistance: Fall of Man and POSTAL 2, he went indie in 2007 forming his company Mommy's Best Games. Nathan has worked hard to build a loyal fan-base, by crafting award-winning games such as Pig Eat Ball, Weapon of Choice, Shoot 1UP, and Serious Sam DD XXL to name a few.
Nathan began working with Girls Make Games back in 2019 on the Google "Change the Game" program. He enjoys working with the team and the girls to help bring their wonderfully creative and unique visions to life. Nathan lives his wife and two sons, and likes to farm vegetables and bake pastries.
Favorite Game Series: R-Type, Contra, Dark Souls, Bionic Commando, Zelda, Mario
GMG CHAMPIONS
Mayene de la Cruz
Mayene started as a volunteer for Girls Make Games in 2017 while she was an Art Lead for PlayStation's International Software Development team. From bright narwhals to rainbow turticorns, she continued to lend her art skills to summer camps and help GMG as a speaker, event volunteer, and game night host.
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Mayene studied Graphic Design and Music Theory at Notre Dame in Indiana. She loves creating fun spaces and accessible products for others. In her free time, she makes donut-themed art, hangs out with her two bunnies, and collects books she'll someday get around to reading.
Favorite Games: Dragon Quest, Tetris, and roguelikes
Theodore Reid
Theodore Reid is a proud blasian (half black and half japanese) with a drive to help support his family, friends, and community.
Theodore's passion for film began when he held his first camcorder around the age of 5. But his spark to traverse further began at San Jose State when he got involved in an internship to work on a full fledge feature film.
Theodore has expanded further since then by working with various agencies as a freelance filmmaker. Some companies involved include TwentyTwentyStudios, Element C Productions, Wedding Documentary, Google, Hitachi, Apple, Sephora, Western Digital.
Portfolio: LINK
Janna kocha
Janna has served as a Camp Coordinator since 2022. She has been an asset in making sure campers and staff having a great time and camp run smoothly.
She has loved video games ever since she was a little girl; always staying up late playing anything she could. Janna and her husband, Michael created their own indie studio, Kindred Games. She is happy to help run and manage their studio along with creating a huge indie game. Michael and Janna have both immersed ourselves into the indie world and have been loving every second.
Katie is a cartoonist and illustrator who first became involved with Girls Make Games in 2019, creating art assets and helping out with several games from the Change the Game campaign. Inspired by the passion and creativity of the girls, Katie has continued on to work regularly with GMG. A lifelong gamer and nerd, Katie has found it a delight to bring her artistic knowledge and coordinating skills to GMG.
Katie has been creating comics for over ten years, including the award-winning RÖK, Her Space Opera, and Debian Perl: Digital Detective. She’s done work for BANDAI NAMCO, PlayStation, Image Comics, IDW Comics, and Oni Press. She lives in a haunted house with her partner Josh and a small army of transforming robots.
Favorite video games: Pokemon, Shadow of the Colossus, Monster Hunter
Michael kocha
Michael is a Unreal Curriculum Liaison for GMG and taught Unreal Engine to teen campers at our 2023 GMG Summer Camp. He has been helpful in bringing 3D game development to young, aspiring game developers through many GMG programs.
Michael started making games in 2006 using RPG Maker and has been obsessed with creating his own worlds ever since. He started out as an artist and designer but fell in love with visual scripting and programming when he discovered Unreal Engine 4. He graduated as valedictorian in 2017 from Full Sail University with a bachelor's degree in game art and animation.
He now runs Kindred Games, a small indie studio making a casual, open world RPG. He's married and has two kids and loves introducing game development to passionate, young creatives.
Favorite Games: The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Far Cry 3, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight and about a kajillion more.
GMG TEAM ALUMNI
Kristani Alcantara
Kristani joined Girls Make Games in 2016 as a summer camp counselor, and quickly fell in love with the program. As an early member of the small GMG team, Kristani was instrumental in bringing GMG’s programs to scale, launching our Virtual camps, as well as launching and producing 14 titles!
A prolific and passionate game developer, Kristani is now helping bring VR games to life at RamenVR.
ANDREW DANG
Andrew was instrumental in the inception and creation of GMG. An original team member of LearnDistrict, Andrew first joined the team in 2013 to help develop educational games. When Laila approached him to help build GMG, he dove right in - helping create curriculum, develop games, lead camps and workshops.
Andrew graduated from USC’s Game Design program, and holds an MBA from UC Davis. He currently works as a Product Manager at Jam City in Los Angeles, CA.