Darren is the founding president of the Australian Esports Association being a passionate advocate for esports, driving for the recognition and respect of esports he saw the need to support the growth of esports and introduce good governance. He has been a passionate gamer since his youth, competing in his first competition at 13 years of age. He leads the AESA with over 16 years of esports experience that includes competing, advocating (including presenting the emergence of esports at a TedX event in 2010), leadership, development, planning, execution and event experience. Having been involved with Team Immunity, CyberGamer, GotGames, World Cyber Games and a number of other esports organisations over the course of his history.

Darren was the driving force for Australian membership to the International Esports Federation, Global Esports Federation and Australian participation in the Commonwealth Esports Championships. He holds broad connections in the esports community with relationships spanning the globe.

Emma Witkowski is a Senior Lecturer in the Game Design program at RMIT University. She is a qualitative sociological scholar of games and media cultures, focused on the professionalisation of esports, networked team practice, gender, star-power, and mega-events. She has published widely on networked careers, a practice of serious digital gaming leisure and professional form of practice in esports. Her public esports scholarship includes research projects with Essendon Football Club (esports professionalisation), the South Australian Commissioner for Children and Young People (esports in secondary education), IBM (young women and game cultures), and the City of Port Phillip (action plan for sustainable game development practices in the region). Dr. Witkowski’s research practice within game cultures began in 2005 with The LetzPlay Initiative, a Danish government and industry funded project using computer game play to empower young women to tinker their way towards STEM subject familiarity and broader digital leisure opportunities. Her most recent keynotes include Esports & the Olympic Movement (Chinese Digital Games Research Association conference, Shenzhen 2017); Establishing Esports Value (Essendon Football Club Esports Summit, Melbourne 2018), Esports & Interdependent Institutional Involvement (Perfect World Esports Seminar, Shanghai 2019), and Esports and Well-being (University of Leicester, 2020). Her popular press engagements include featuring on ABC Overnights, GQ, ABC Sporty, and Futurism.

With a career spanning over a decade in esports and technology, Gabrielle has navigated the highs and lows of gamer life – from being a player, to a team manager, coach and commentator – all whilst studying full time and building an executive career in SaaS. She is passionate about the promotion of esports as a positive hobby and career choice for players today and is now working in the background on making the industry more inclusive for all.

In her spare time she is studying a post graduate program with RMIT and working with groups such as Women in Digital and the Assisterhood Mentorship Program for women wanting to connect with others in the leadership space. She has recently accepted a position as a facilitator in a Diploma of Business program offer by the Australian Institute of Gaming.

Wei-Shen is a highly experienced lawyer and business professional with over 15 years expertise in providing strategic advice, media rights management, licensing/distribution and commercialisation of sports media content/assets (including via FTA, Pay TV, OTT and digital platforms).

Wei-Shen is presently operating his own consultancy while also employed as a corporate counsel with an international sports broadcaster. In addition to being a co-founder/director of medical device start-up SWADE Medtech, Wei-Shen holds a keen interest in both establishing the governance, development and commercialisation of esports.

He holds a LLB and BCom from the University of Melbourne, and has also completed the Company Directors Course (GAICD) with the Australian Institute of Company Directors and an MBA at Melbourne Business School.

Garth Midgley is the Managing Director at GOATi Entertainment; Developers of a Esports focused RTS-Racing game titled ’22 Racing Series’, along with building their own proprietary engine ‘RevGen’ which is also used on VR driver training and traffic microsimulation projects.

He has been working in the games industry for over 20 years and has more than 20 shipped titles in his credits, previously working on IPs including; Star Wars, Transformers, LA Noire, Darksiders, Far Cry, Test Drive Unlimited and Zelda.

Tom brings his extensive experience with next generation thought leadership to the AESA. Being a cofounder and former COO & Product Lead at Y-Combinator and Startmate backed drone delivery start-up, Flirtey. He was responsible for taking the futuristic product vision of a network of on demand autonomous delivery drones, culminating in a series of history making achievements that beat giants Amazon Prime Air and Google Project Wing to market. These milestones paved the way for a recent Series A raise of USD$16M.

He is also currently the Entrepreneur in Residence at the UTS Business School in Sydney, mentoring the inaugural MBA in Entrepreneurship cohort in Design Thinking driven processes, Rapid Experimentation and the nuances of getting an idea off the ground quickly and successfully into the market.

Tom holds a Bachelor of Design from the University of NSW, Australia.

Jason has extensive corporate experience having advised on over AU$5bn in procurements, advised on federal & state-significant transactions, led business origination, and provided strategy and policy advice to cornerstone real estate and infrastructure projects within Australia.

Extensive experience across industries including infrastructure, real estate, telecommunications and media and entertainment through direct investments.

Recent projects include commercial real estate, public assets, social housing, government advisory and program advocacy.