Evaluation Juries

Jen Goertzen is VP UX at BRYTER and currently based in Berlin, Germany. She co-founded Caribou, a Canadian UX consultancy, in 2011. Over the course of her career, she has led and consulted with design and product teams across a wide range of industries including interactive retail experiences, secure messaging, classical music streaming, and no-code automation.

Marie Mejerwall is a long-time game design and esports veteran. She has led creative teams at more than six game studios around the world, including studios in both Montréal and Vancouver, eventually earning her the role Game Director. She has worked on several famous award-winning franchises, such as Dead Rising, Deus Ex, RollerCoaster Tycoon and the Batman Arkham series.

Nowadays, she is a well-known speaker and consultant and shares her expertise with game studios, publishers, investors and schools. She is also actively coaching game teams in several incubator programs and part of several funding- and awards juries across the industry.

Sebastien Provencher is currently SVP Product at Joist (an EverCommerce company). With 20+ years of experience in the tech industry, Sebastien is a well-rounded product-focused senior executive. He has extensive experience in SaaS, Marketplaces and Artificial Intelligence. Over the last 14 years, he's been in roles that report directly to CEOs & a key member of senior leadership teams. Sébastien’s recent roles include a GM position at Bus.com, a Director role at Element AI, where he joined as employee #3 and Vice-President stints at HomeAdvisor and Acquisio. He co-founded two startups, including VC-funded Needium, where he worked as Vice President, Product Management and Business Development. From 1999 to 2007, he played an instrumental role in formulating the Canadian Yellow Pages’ online strategy. Since 2011, he's been paying it forward in the Canadian startup community by advising & mentoring emerging entrepreneurs. In that context, Sebastien was named an All-Star Mentor by Techstars in 2019.

As an award-winning creative with over twenty years of combined experience across film & television entertainment, games, and digital media, Stefan has worked on a wide range of interactive projects focusing on art, narrative, and game design. He is passionate about developing story-based intellectual properties, art directing beautiful projects, and building out immersive and engaging story-worlds.

As creative lead on FOX’s Sleepy Hollow VR experience, Stefan’s pioneering work contributed to the first-ever Emmy® award for a virtual reality project (Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media - User Experience and Visual Design). Sleepy was an early leap forward for VR storytelling which was the first to combine live-action footage within CG environments. Many of the storytelling techniques that were developed during that project (such as 360º storyboards) have become standards for VR filmmakers.

He created and was the conceptual/creative lead on Halcyon, a groundbreaking hybrid broadcast/VR series launched in 80 territories and multiple languages through a partnership with Syfy International. Halcyon challenges the digital extension format through deeper integration of interactive episodes. The immersive gameplay gives audiences context for the events seen on broadcast, altering their perception of the overall story. Halcyon was nominated for a 2017 Rose d’Or in the inaugural VR category.

Stefan has also led projects for clients such as NBCUniversal, FOX, Fisher-Price, Hasbro, Warner Brothers, Syfy, Teletoon, YTV, and the National Film Board of Canada. He’s been honoured with a Peabody-Facebook award and multiple Canadian Screen awards.

As an acclaimed lecturer and panelist, Stefan has taught at Toronto Metropolitan University, and presented at media conferences across the globe.

Tina Merry is a proven expert directing and coaching diverse teams under a distributed development model. She has shipped over 25 "AAA” game titles across multiple platforms, working with globally recognized brands and organizations. She lived several years in Romania, Sweden and the UK, which provided her with unique cultural insights and experiences, enhancing her effectiveness as a global leader and coach. Tina is also a lifelong learner. To further develop her skills, she achieved a certification in 2018 as a Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Advanced Facilitator, applying this to date both professionally and for pro-bono speaking in the education sector.

Yat-Chi Lau is a Canadian video game producer, designer and artist. From 2007 to 2019, Lau worked at Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Shanghai – on brands such as Prince of Persia, Rainbow 6 and Far Cry – where he acquired and developed the aptitudes for running large scale, multi-studio productions. In 2019 at Unity Technologies, Lau created and headed the Microgames product line – “ready to modify” game projects that introduced new users to core functionalities of the Unity game editor. In 2022, Lau became an independent games consultant, and his present focus is on Blockchain gaming and digital art.