For the first time, this year’s contestants will be judged by a panel that consists of pioneering game developers who helped shape the industry, as well as a team of experts from Intel.  Access more information about Level Up 2009 here.

	Sid Meier is Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games.  Sid began his legendary career in game development in the early 1980s, and is recognized around the world as the "Father of Computer Gaming." Sid and his games have been honored with virtually every major award in gaming landing him in the 2008 Guinness World Records for the most videogame awards received in the history of the industry. Sid put computer gaming on the map with such hallmark games as Civilization, Railroad Tycoon and Pirates, all of which are still revered as some of the greatest games ever made. As Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games, Sid continues to deliver the most heralded gameplay on the planet and is still recognized by industry experts such as PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Gamespot, and Gamespy as one of the industry's "Game Gods," taking game development to new heights.
	Will Wright is an American video game designer and founder of Stupid Fun Club, an entertainment think tank which has a first look deal with Electronic Arts. He is also co-founder of the game development company Maxis, now part of EA, which he left in April 2009.  It was the release of SimCity in 1989 that brought him to prominence.  The game was released by Maxis, and he built upon the game's theme of computer simulation with numerous other titles including SimEarth and SimAnt.  Wright's greatest success to date came as the original designer for The Sims games series, which is the best-selling PC game in history.  The game spawned multiple sequels and expansions and Wright earned many awards for his work.  His latest work, Spore, was released in September 2008 and features gameplay based loosely upon the model of evolution or intelligent design.  The game sold over 1,000,000 copies within three weeks of it's release.
	Rick Raymo has been happily crushing and crunching his way through his days in the game industry with a childlike joy and enthusiasm for 21 plus years.  After starting as a freelance journalist writing for papers and magazines, he decided he was sick of complaining and wanted to do better.  Thus the whole producing games bit.  He’s gotten to work with heroes, unsung stars, killed more games than he’s completed, and made a large swath of good ones in the process.  Rick has been involved with demo coders at nearly every chance he’s had; from folks like the former Future Crew or Remedy to the wonderful Digital Illusions.  Rick has directed first party for a console company, managed game studios, worked for publishers, and vast media conglomerates. Rick is happily working for Saber Interactive as Director of Game Content & Chief Instigator, and sees Saber as the best multi-SKU independent studio on the planet.  He tries to think he’s not biased.
	Brad Wardell is the founder of Stardock, a PC software company specializing in Windows experience software and PC games.  He has built the company from being a one-man endeavor to a company with over 40 employees today.  He has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Nightly Business Report, CNN, MSNBC, Time, US News, The Detroit Free Press, Crain’s Detroit Business and elsewhere for his entrepreneurial and business/technical skills.  Mr. Wardell continues to be active in software development, designing and/or coding on most of the key Stardock programs. Mr. Wardell's other activities include being a Microsoft MVP, podcaster and featured columnist. Wardell has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Western Michigan University.
	Christophe Canon is a French artist and one the two co-founders of Frogames.  Frogames is an independent games development “small” company with a corporate social responsibility philosophy which lends its cartoonish and colorful touch to the gaming industry.  In 2007, Christophe released his first game "Penguins Arena – Sedna’s World", a FPS (First Penguin Shooter!) on Frogames.  This game also won first place in the Intel Game Demo Contest "Best Game on the Go" category and the award for the Best use of Torque in a game demo.  This award gave game a great opportunity some weeks after; Penguins Arena has now been edited on Steam. Frogames has now released its second game "MiniOne Racing". Christophe wanted a game which looks like designed by a kid, available for Windows and Mac OS X.  Currently, Christophe is working on games projects for iPhone. Three games will be released before the end of the year in the Apple App Store.
	Mathieu Mazerolle has been professionally involved in the digital entertainment industry for over 12 years, having shipped award-winning video game titles, contributed to industry-leading content creation tools, founded and financed a video game studio, and tested the limits of the convergence between films and video games. Mathieu was one of the key technical architects of Softimage XSI, held a leadership role at Z-Axis, a division of Activision, and was the Co-Founder and President of Unlikely Games, a dynamic video games start-up that made pioneering use rapid prototyping and state-based animation techniques. Mathieu returned to production work on Assassin’s Creed, a blockbuster video game title from Ubisoft with international sales of several million units. He is presently helping to re-define the creative pipeline for next-generation game production as Senior Product Manager at Autodesk Games.
	With a background in games, film and TV, Mary Beth Haggerty has 14 years of experience in digital entertainment creation at leading companies such as ILM and EA.  Her credits include 10 games, 9 feature films and numerous television commercials, including 3 Clio award-winners.  She is passionate about games and the future of digital entertainment and is co-chair of the Bay Area chapter of the Visual Effects Society. Mary Beth joined Autodesk in 2008 to help focus the company’s product development teams on the needs of game developers. In this role she works closely with developers and publishers worldwide.
	Dmitry Oganezov is a Software Community Manager at Intel Corporation.  He is currently working hard to build a society of Russian programmers who are passionate about modern software technologies.  Before that Dmitry spent 4 years being an engineering manager in the Developer Products Department of Intel and participating in development of Performance Analysis and Threading product families.  Although Dmitry is not a great gamer himself, he makes some fun watching his child playing.  At times he’s even able to help her pass simpler levels.
	Gina Bovara works in Developer Marketing for Intel Software Network and has had the pleasure of working at Intel since 1999.  Gina has a BS in Computer Science from Ball State University, and since a young age knew she would make her career in the field of computers & technology.  Her first gaming system was an Atari 2600 and her first PC was an Atari 800XL; many nights were spent playing Indiana Jones and writing BASIC code.  Later she upgraded to an IBM PS/1 and started building her own PCs during college. Gina enjoys attending GDC and other events to meet developers and discuss the latest games!  Gina's favorite games include World of Warcraft, Lego Star Wars and Call of Duty.  When not playing games, Gina enjoys learning about a variety of subjects by reading books & watching documentaries.  She also finds time to peel herself away from technology and enjoy the sunny blue skies in Chandler, AZ.
	Jeff LaFlam is a Software Engineer at Intel Corporation, working in the Visual Computing Software Division (VCSD), where he develops technologies and advises gaming companies in the adoption of multi-core and Larrabee technologies. Jeff holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis.  He is also an independent game developer in his spare time where he works on writing casual games.
	Brad Werth is a Senior Software Engineer in the Entertainment Technical Marketing Engineering group at Intel Corporation. His focus is on developing and optimizing game features that take maximum advantage of the PC platform.  Brad has spoken at GDC and Austin GDC about effective methods for threading game architectures.  Brad was also the administrator of the Intel Game Demo Contest for its first two years, starting in 2006, and he's thrilled to be involved this year as a judge.
	Steve Winburn is Senior Graphics Product Engineering Manager at Intel Corporation.  He has spent the last 15 years working in the gaming, graphics and hardware industries and has had the pleasure to work at Cyrix/National Semiconductor, AMD, Ubisoft, and NVIDIA, in addition to Intel.  Steve loves working with graphics and games and originally wanted to work in film and animation.  He holds a Masters degree in Computer Science because someone once told him that would help in his quest to make and play games for a living.  However, he has strangely ended up working on the hardware side of the industry for most of his career.  In his spare time when he's not gaming, Steve is big on snowboarding with his wife and likes to instruct and study American Kenpo karate.  Steve is also afraid of Smurfs and wishes Lo Wang would return and that Duke Nukem had not taken forever!