30
under 30 2024
SPOTLIGHT
SARA MACHADO
Sara Machado, Chief Executive Officer at Bird’s Eye View and Senior Technical Recruiter at Unity, tells Vince Pavey about the importance of diversity and inclusion, and includes some hints about what she’s going to be up to next
How did it feel to be recognised by the games industry last year? It felt really special. Not only because all of the work I do IS for the games industry, but because the young Sara, playing games on her own, finally felt like she was part of a community — and not just any community, the one that shaped who I am today.
If I recall correctly, we were particularly impressed with your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts. Are things still headed in the right direction? More than ever! My company, Bird’s Eye View, has been working with two amazing partners to bring together yet another community focused project! My goal will always be to have voices from all corners of the world represented as creators in video games, so expect nothing less!
From your perspective, why is getting people from a variety of backgrounds together to make a game so important? I believe having a truly representative game dev workforce would supercharge the incredible experiences games are. From tapping into different stories and reaching new audiences to becoming an even better tool when it comes to building communities.
Despite how western and male centric games were when I was growing up, I still found my way here, and I’ll continue to work hard to make the path easier for everyone coming next. Selfishly, I want more games made by more people, from all over the world.
‘The more spaces we can create where the least represented professionals can finally be appreciated for their work, the better off we’ll be.’
How can people help? There’s always lots of ways to help, and while I can’t say much yet, please do follow both the Bird’s Eye View Page, and myself on LinkedIn, because we have something big in the pipeline, and we will need everyone’s attention!
Do you think awards like the 30 Under 30 help to encourage DEI in the games space? I don’t think we have a lot of events in games where individual contributors are recognized, which is odd, given there are no games without creators. The more spaces we can create where the least represented professionals can finally be appreciated for their work, the better off we’ll be.
14
30 under 30 2024
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
