Welcome to the stage: our host for the 2024 Independent Games Festival Awards! Black in Gaming Foundation Executive Director Trinidad (Hermida) Black is joining GDC on the Main Stage for the industry's premier independent games awards show.
The Game Developers Conference is thrilled to announce that Trinidad (Hermida) Black will be serving as host for IGF 2024, taking place at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (with a live broadcast on Twitch). In an interview with GDC, Trinidad shared how excited she is to be this year's host—noting how important independent developers are and how they deserve their moment in the spotlight.
"For me, it is not a small set to have an idea and have that idea come to a full reality. It's past prototype: It's at a place where someone can play the game," Trinidad said. "It's an honor to be in a room full of folks who were able to push themselves to that capacity, to build something that we can now interact with."
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Trinidad (Hermida) Black (she/her) is the Executive Director of The Black in Gaming Foundation and the Founder & CEO of The Hermida Company LLC, a consulting firm focused on “Building Equity through Empathy.” She is passionate about expanding technology access to those from traditionally underserved groups. Combining corporate savvy and innovative strategies to impact workplace cultures, Trinidad centers access to generational wealth for underrepresented communities in all industries.
Trinidad believes that “by incorporating everyone’s genius, we can change the game.” Through her empathy practice as a business framework, Trinidad’s work has amplified the voices of historically excluded groups at billion-dollar startups and seasoned corporations. During her tenure as the first Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Niantic, she built the company’s inclusivity strategy, talent diversity programs and aligned a global company under a singular mission: to create systemic change through equitable policy and empathic practice.
She launched the Black Developers Initiative at Niantic, which granted black innovators funding and platform access to create industry-changing technology. An advocate for human-to-human connection—be it through coaching, mentoring, or otherwise—she works toward maintaining a cohesive understanding of empowering people with unconventional methods that can work to make the world more inclusive for all.
On any given day you might catch Trinidad traveling the world to visit friends or volunteering her time to educate the next generation through life coaching. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram.
The Independent Games Festival Awards will take place Wednesday, March 20 on the Main Stage at GDC 2024, and will be available to watch live for free via the GDC Twitch channel. For those eager to see the awards for themselves, make sure to buy a pass for GDC 2024!
Sign up for GDC 2024 here.
GDC returns to San Francisco this March 18-22, 2024—and registration is now open! For more information, be sure to visit our website and follow the #GDC2024 hashtag on social media.
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