Simon Carless

Executive Vice President, UBM TechWeb Game Network

Simon is the Executive Vice President of the UBM TechWeb Game Network and Black Hat, overseeing products such as Game Developers Conference - both the San Francisco mothership and satellite shows in Austin, Germany, and China - plus the double Webby award-winning Gamasutra website and the Maggie award-winning Game Developer magazine, as well as the Game Advertising Online ad network, and the Black Hat information security conferences in Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi, and Amsterdam.

He is also one of the key people behind the Independent Games Festival, the 'Sundance for games' which runs yearly at GDC in San Francisco, and the sole Western judge for Sense Of Wonder Night, an independent games showcase held at Tokyo Game Show every year. He previously worked as a video game developer in roles such as lead game designer and project director at companies such as Atari and Eidos, before becoming an editor of tech site Slashdot and the originator of Slashdot's games section.

In addition, Simon has worked closely with the non-profit Internet Archive to help preserve music and game-related materials, helping to win a DMCA exemption for classic software preservation. He has also written for magazines including Wired, Make and Official Xbox Magazine, and was the author/editor of the O'Reilly book 'Gaming Hacks'.