Mitu Khandaker

Dr. Mitu Khandaker is a game designer, scholar and entrepreneur. She is CEO & Co-Founder of Glow Up Games, a new mobile free-to-play games company building diverse experiences for the largest hidden market in games: underrepresented players, starting with their flagship title, Insecure: The Come Up Game, in partnership with the hit HBO TV show created by Issa Rae. She is also Associate Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center, where she teaches game design and development. She holds a PhD on designing games for immersive interfaces such as VR and AR and has a background in computer engineering.

Mitu was previously on the founding team at Spirit AI, a games AI middleware company, and launched a location-based games startup. She also worked in the indie game space on titles such as the social simulation game Redshirt. She has received a number of international accolades, including as a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit in 2013 and the Creative English Trailblazer Award in 2014.

Mitu has a particular interest in encouraging diversity in game development and STEM-related fields and has served on the advisory committee for the Advocacy Track at Game Developers' Conference since 2014. She is also on the board of directors at Feminist Frequency, and is an AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador to champion more middle school and teen girls into game development