in-person, Wednesday November 2nd, evening
Speaker: Rami Ismail, Vlambeer, gamedev.world, presskit()
Bio:
Rami Ismail is a Dutch-Egyptian independent games & tool developer with over 20 titles across PC, console, web, and mobile. The co-founder of the influential now-retired indie games studio Vlambeer, Rami worked on award-winning and genre-defining games such as Ridiculous Fishing and Nuclear Throne. His development of tools like the industry-standard dopresskit.com, his prolific & popular public speaking, and highly-regarded consultancy and insights have helped shape industry opportunities for game communities & independent game developers worldwide. Rami continues to advocate the creation of a fairer and more equal industry for developers anywhere through his work at gamedev.world. His versatility and work resulted in him receiving a wide range of recognition, including the prestigious Game Developers Choice Ambassador Award, the IndieCade Gamechanger Award, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 nomination.
Title: I want to show you something annoying
Abstract:
سَلَام! Rami Ismail (Vlambeer, gamedev.world, presskit() ) has no idea whether his greeting at the start of this paragraph will be rendered correctly on your computer, will be encoded properly on the event website, or will be printed correctly in the print-out. Despite that, ‘salaam‘ is one of the -if not the– most common greetings on Earth, spoken by over 2.5 billion people daily.
Rami takes the audience on an exploration of invisible obstacles in culture, media, and gaming. In this talk, we will explore how language, computers, and media interact to create literal systems of marginalisation through an otherwise simple given of our modern day: the (in)ability to reliably input our language into a computer. In a highly interactive session, attendees will learn the basics of the Arabic language, see how common errors and mistakes occur, learn how these systems lead to marginalization and exclusion, and what one can do to offset these invisible biases and obstacles in their own work.