Diego Colombo was a Senior Software Engineer in Realtime Worlds in Scotland working on an unannounced project. Before that he worked on the game engine for SBK and MotoGP titles in Milestone. He has always been attracted by game technology and worked on XNA first prototype in 2006. Back at University of Pisa he taught courses on game design and game engine programming while carrying his research on meta programming for dynamic generation of game components. Now he works in Microsoft Ireland Research.

John is the Programme Leader for the BSc Computer Games Programming degree at the University of Derby. He combined his academic background, having previously taught at the University of Manchester, and his years in the games industry in order to develop an undergraduate degree specifically targeted to fill the games programmer short-fall in the UK. The ‘clean-slate’ approach adopted at the  University of Derby has ensured that there are no hangovers from previous degree programmes while ensuring an ideal balance between vocational and academic study. The approach has proved very successful and can be seen in the high interest from applicants and industry.

Philip Bourke has over 21 years industry experience in developing products for worldwide organisations in security, industrial control, banking and financial services sectors. He is a keen advocate for the adoption and use of technology in industry and education and has organised a number of conferences and events to encourage industrialist and educators to maximise the benefits from selection and application of appropriate technologies. He recently spoke at the UAE 2015 Challenges Conference series on ICT based collaboration and world class ICT sourcing, the Develop Conference on Emerging Issues in Game Design and the IMTC Conference on opportunities for Independent Game Developers. Philip is the founder of the computer games festival, Games Fleadh.

Riemer Grootjans received his degree in electronic engineering with a specialization in informatics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels, Belgium. He is currently undertaking a Ph.D. degree. Riemer maintains a website with tutorials for DirectX and XNA. In July 2007, he received the Microsoft MVP Award for his contributions to the XNA community. Riemer is currently employed by Optrima - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Riemer is the author of the book XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach.

Stephen Howell is a computer science lecturer with the Institute of Technology Tallaght, Ireland. He is a computing graduate of Dublin City University and has developed software for a number of companies including Sapient and IBM. Language or word based casual games are becoming increasingly popular, but many of the game-play mechanics rely on spelling and word searching. This sub-genre of casual games is also targeted by serious games developers, but in their current 'spelling-bee' form they are not ideal tools for pedagogical assessment. Incorporating meta-data about linguistic constructs and their relationships would enable creative uses of existing corpora in games. The design of the game and the approach to data generation is described.