Michelle Byrd

Brainstormer, Concerned citizen, Connector, Idea generator, Marketer, Promoter

Michelle Byrd is Co-President of Games for Change, the leading global proponent of video and computer games that seek to make the world a better place – either through the skills they teach or the social issues around which they inspire engaged participation from players. The organization is at the forefront of games breaking through to the real world for positive social impact. Founded in 2004, Games for Change is a non-profit that gives voice to this young movement of game-makers and the educators, non-profits, government agencies and civil society organizations increasingly turning to them to create dynamic, engaging and impactful interactive experiences. We support digital games dealing with a range of issues, including poverty and international development, human rights, education, women’s empowerment, global conflict and climate change. We strive to create an environment where excellence, creativity and impact operate on equal footing in support of games for social impact. As Co-President, Michelle leads on institutional relationship and partnership efforts, along with fundraising, business affairs, financial management, and communications strategy. Jointly, she and partner Asi Burak work on the strategic vision of the organization and oversee all programmatic initiatives. Prior to joining the staff this past July, Michelle served for 12 years as the Executive Director of the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers in the US. During her tenure she tripled the membership to 10,000, and oversaw an organization that supported the production of 7,000 films and provided resources to 20,000 filmmakers. Her track record included executive producing high quality, celebrity-attended events for broadcast and online, including IFP’s Gotham Independent Film Awards. She was also responsible for a diversity of new strategic partnerships including those with The New York Times, Sundance Institute and the United Nations Department of Public Information where she co-founded Envision, a documentary film forum around the UN MDGs. Michelle has served as a juror on the documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival, been awarded the “Made in New York” career tribute by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and appeared on both Variety’s Annual “Indie Impact List: 50 Who Made a Difference” and The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment “Power 100” List. She currently serves on the board of nonprofit artist supporting organization, the Adrienne Shelly Foundation.

Making the world a better place. Lofty, but why not start chipping away.

I love Majora Carter's comment about "don't waste me" from her TED talk. It is a sentiment worth spreading and getting more of us to realize our good fortune and in many cases privilege. We can do more for others - small scale and large.

A confluence of things brought me here. In deciding to step away from a long-time position running a non-profit for independent filmmakers I happened to read Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's Half the Sky. It encouraged me to set a new course completely in line with my desire to merge my work and my growing personal interests around social issues, particularly those related to women and girls in developing countries. Sparked an interest and I immediately fell into a new media frontier - the use of digital games to engage players and audiences in social issues, education, environmental concerns. Discovered that many of the organizations i admired and wanted to work with were already exploring or making games to spread their messages. And bringing it all full circle, the organization I'm co-running is making a series of games related to Half the Sky.