Laila Shabir is the co-founder and CEO of Girls Make Games. A Pakistani immigrant raised in the United Arab Emirates, Laila attended MIT and pursued finance at BlackRock followed by economic research at The Brookings Institution. She eventually found her passion in video games while watching her husband, Ish, play Halo competitively. By seeing the skills he acquired through playing, she realized that a connection between education and video games needed to be formed.

In 2014, GamesIndustry.biz named Laila the Games Industry Person of the Year, and in 2018, she received the Visionary Award from the ESA. A game developer and proud gamer herself, Laila has set a personal goal to teach one million girls how to make games through her work.

Favorite Game: League of Legends

Ish’s passion for teaching began when he found himself tutoring friends and friends-of-friends after school. He hasn’t stopped since, and continues to learn and teach everything from game design, programming, mathematics and even badminton!

At Girls Make Games, Ish leads curriculum design and development. He is patiently waiting for Laila to get back to making educational games with him.

Favorite Games: Deus Ex, Red Dead Redemption

A graduate of MIT’s Computer Science program, Isra joined GMG after a few years in the tech industry, writing code and figuring out how to design software its users wouldn’t hate using. In 2019 she decided to make a few changes, and was shocked to learn that designing and running a program that teaches girls how to make video games proved to be a better fit!

At GMG, she helps manage our various offerings including our flagship summer camp, Demo Day, and virtual workshops.

Favorite Games: Detroit: Become Human, Counter Strike Global (CSGO)

Maimuna (Mini) has been working as a primary level teacher since 2011. She believes her dedication towards learning, shaping and guiding young lives has helped her keep calm while tending to her mommy duties to 2 little ones. Mini accidentally stumbled on GMG when she was offered to run a workshop in Bangladesh and she was more than ecstatic to do it! She hasn’t looked back since and continues to bring game development workshops to her school and community.

A graduate of Berklee College of Music’s Video Game Scoring program, Courtney has always been interested in game music and audio. She joined GMG the summer after graduating in 2018 as a Camp Counselor. Since then she has worked for GMG as a Camp Coordinator, composer and is now in her current role as Executive Administrative Assistant.

Courtney loves helping the gaming community to provide spaces for girls and women to learn about and play games.

Favorite games: The Legend of Zelda, Undertale, and Life is Strange

Maya has a background in game development and digital media, and enjoys working with creative teams to bring ideas to life. After co-founding a game studio focused on creating impactful games, she has spent the past several years working across games and creative production.

She believes that games can be a force for good and is excited to be part of GMG and support its mission!

Favorite games: Hunt:Showdown 1896 and Kena: Bridge of Spirits