Kate Edwards will be the recipient of the Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Edwards is the current Global Game Jam executive director, a role she took on earlier this year. Previously, she was the head of the International Game Developers Association from 2012 until 2017.

She will receive the award - given at GDC - for her continued work in advancing the games industry landscape. The jury who chose Edwards as the winner includes Frank Cifaldi from The Video Game History Foundation, Ed Fries of 1Up Ventures, and USC Games' Tracy Fullerton.

Also on the jury is Raph Koster from Playable Worlds and Guerrilla Games' Erin Robinson.

Aiding the community

For 13 years Edwards worked for tech giant Microsoft, before founding culturalisation firm Geogrify. Serving as the company's CEO, she has been a consultant for firms such as Bioware, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and LEGO, amongst others.

"The true ambassadors of the games industry are those figures who have helped progress the state of games to embrace more players, and Kate has done that by bridging cultural divides and connecting people across diverse game communities," said the GDC general manager Katie Stern.

"Kate has always been an incredible evangelist to the game community itself, both through her work with the IGDA and now Global Game Jam, as well as her culturalisation work, and we’re so happy to give her this award."

Kate Edwards is one of our speakers at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020, with a session on how mental health affects game creation. Make sure to get your tickets if you haven't already!