McGonigal, EA's Bradshaw, And More Named As 'Most Influential Women in Tech'

Business magazine Fast Company named EA Maxis's SVP Lucy Bradshaw, alternate reality game designer Jane McGonigal, and seven other women in the "Gamers" section of its annual "Most Influential Women in Technology" list. Each year, Fast Company picks several dozen women for this annual award, honoring females working in the technology industry in a variety of categories: executives, activists, media, entrepreneurs, evangelists, braniacs, and gamers. As SVP and general manager at EA Maxis, Bradshaw leads the studio's 80-person development team and has worked on major releases like Sim City 3000 and Spore. She's previously worked at LucasArts and Activision, too. McGonigal serves as director Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future but is best known for helping create alternate reality games like World Without Oil and Evoke, which looks to empower young people in Africa and around the world to come up with creative solutions for real world problems. Aside from McGonigal and Bradshaw, the magazine recognized other inspiring women working in the gaming industry like XEODesign's founder Nicole Lazzaro (Tilt), Ohai's CEO and co-founder Susan Wu (City of Eternals), Funji's founder Shinyoung Park (iPhone social network Funji), and GamingAngels.com founder and CEO Trina Schwimmer. Fast Company also included in its list of influential women in the gaming business LOLapps's co-founder and products head Annie Chang (Diva Life), online game portal Addicting Games's vice president Kate Connally, and Serious Games Institute research director Sara de Freitas. "I want to see more women coming into this business," Bradshaw commented in an interview with Fast Company. "I look at it as a business imperative. Companies in the video game business like Electronic Arts are going to benefit from having more women in development and in roles that bring new perspective."