Who Made Mela?
The development of Mela, which is a participatory digital game development Phd project, involved the cooperation of different professionals across continents.
Team Lead
Hani Sadati is an FRQSC-funded PhD in Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education, McGill University. His doctoral project is on Participatory Digital Game Development to Address Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Agriculture Colleges in Ethiopia. His background is in Sociology-Women’s Studies (M.A.) and Social Science (B.A.) and his research interests include educational studies, game-based learning/gamification, women and gender studies, sexual health and HIV/AIDS, anthropology of health and illness, and participatory methodology. Hani is also the co-founder and coordinator of the Games and Gamification for Human Development & Well-being (GHDW) Working Group of the McGill Institute for Human Development and Well-being.
Project Advisors
Claudia Mitchell
Lisa
Trimble
Lindsay Duncan
Team
Ahmadizad
Arman is a full-stack web and indie game developer. He has more than six years of work experience as a developer, serving local and international clients. He is specifically an expert in programming languages, and development technologies, including C#, JavaScript, Unity3d, React. Arman was the main developer in rebuilding and refining the Mela Game.
Wondimagegnehu
Binyam Wondimagegnehu is graduated from adama university with a bachelor degree in Architecture.currently he is working on Visual arts and trying to express idea’s and stories through his painting and sculpture and he have been working with different company with collaboration.
Bedilu Degefe
A Game Thinker, a Tech & Innovation Consultant, a Community Builder and a Serial Entrepreneur with an appetite for both Science and Arts; Dagmawi Bedilu Degefe in his Engineering career, has worked as a Senior Software Architect for the country’s biggest IT Company, designing and developing Location-Based Systems while leading a team of 25+ engineers/developers, supervising more than 15 projects.
He together with his team has co-founded, setup and run various initiatives including Chewata Awaqi (a startup that specializes in gamethingking), the Ethiopian Games Associations, Efuyegela Publishers, EnterAfrica (an Afro-futuristic pan-african ecosystem building initiative by the Goethe Institut Addis Ababa across 15 african countries), Chewatacon (the first ever gaming festival of its kind), 100Shama (a community for nurturing the 4C of the 21st century), Positive Thinkers Club, Thursday Gamenights and PugaumeTalks. He was a speaker at the Gamescom 2017 and 2019 in Cologne, A Maze in Berlin and Munich Media Day in Munich. He is also a startup mentor in one of the country’s leading incubation centers.
Shemsu
Elias Shemsu has always been passionate about videogames and had a flair for programming. Elias experimented with a number of languages, and works like blender 3D low poly design, Unity game design, and Java open GL rendering and game engine design. After he graduated from the college, he followed through with these acquired skills and kept improving himself for two years, particularly in Unity real time strategy, and third person multiplayer and building games. He has been creating and enrolling in events with people with the same vision with him, and it is his passion to shine a positive light on gaming in the community, and to have a successful career delivering stories and entertainment through interactive media.
Talebi
I’ve Always wondered what it means to be a great artist and I thought the answer is being perfect. Perfectly clean, sharp and balanced artworks.
But working in this project where images are disoriented, and lines and line and colors are not how they were supposed to be helped me realize that perfection is not what makes an artist. It’s the versatility of an artist in different styles and forms and the eagerness to learn even more new ways that make him/her a great artist. I had a hard time working on the images but in the end I learned a lot and experienced a new style through this project which makes me really happy and proud to be part of.
Gidey
Fillimon Gidey is a student in grade 12 student, music producer, sound designer and 3D artistic. He has strong love for music and excellent knowledge and experience lend well to the work as a sound designer. He loves creating music and sound effects that help keep the audience engrossed in the production.
Nemie
Gelila Nemie has a Master of Arts degree in Gender Studies from the College of Developmental Studies; Addis Ababa University. She is also 4th year Marketing Management extension student at Addis Ababa University School of Commerce and having previously completed her undergraduate from Addis Ababa University College of Law and Governance Studies with LLB. She has dedicated her career in bringing change to the communities’ gender norms and to address women and girls economic, reproductive health and education related problems.
Ali Hemmati
Hanie Ali Hemmati is an animator based in Tehran, Iran. She got a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Shariati Technical College. Hanie is currently getting her Master’s degree in Directing Animation from Tehran University of Art. She has recently co-founded Studio 204 with Mahmoud Afshari.
Girma
Born in Ethiopia in 1988, Kirubel Girma spent most his childhood in Addis Ababa as a student fascinated by astronomy, games & art. In 2012, he graduated with a degree from the Architectural and Unban planing department of Unity University. After graduation he worked as a project manager at KimshaCard while also organizing events on games.
Since joining in Arma investment group (AIG) on 2016, he has worked on diverse set of projects ranging from fin-tech & ed-tech to printing & advertising, while also organizing workshops and events.
Kirubel is a board member at AIG and the Founder & CEO for Dedicated 5 (D5), the first game company established since 2016 in the city of Addis Ababa. He continues to educate, curate and develop projects with local and international institutions.
Afshari
Mahmoud Afshari studied French literature at the university. He is involved with writing in various forms including short stories, novels, and scripts. Mahmoud is interested in consolidated techniques between the literature and the other branches of art, visual and performing both. Mahmoud has recently co-founded Studio 204 with Hanie Ali Hemmati.
Tamrat
Mihret Tamrat is currently a designer at Dalberg Design, a global impact group. Previously she has worked as Product Designer for Fetena, an educational app that helps students prepare for the national exams, and as an Instructional Designer, helping develop e-courses for development organizations around the world. Mihret holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cornell University.
Golshahi
Sina is a freelance animator. He is interested in working with various animation software, like After Efect.
Endale
Yared Endale is a 23 years old. A self-thought game developer and amateur digital graphics designer. Currently working on Enter African gaming workshop as a developer. He usually spent my leisure time with different design software’s’ such as adobe cloud products. His life philosophy is “pursuit your happiness” .