2013 DIGIFAM SPEAKER: Brian Alspach

This is a series of interviews with the speakers of Digital Family Summit 2013, October 11-13.
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Brian Alspach is Executive Vice President at E-Line Media, a publisher of game-based learning products and services that engage, educate and empower, helping to prepare youth for lives and careers in the 21st Century. He leads E-Line’s youth gamemaking efforts including Gamestar Mechanic – an online platform that teaches game design and has been used by over 400,000 youth in over 5,000 schools – and the National STEM Video Game Challenge – a multi-year competition that encourages young people to design video games to build a motivation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

twitter: @gamestarmech, @brialsp
website: http://www.gamestarmechanic.com

What are you going to talk about at the conference?

Hopefully I won’t be doing much speaking… I’ll be leading a workshop where kids will have an opportunity to learn about game design and make their own videogames.

If you could travel back in time and send yourself a message, what would it be?

People are going to have lots of opinions about what’s important in life and what you should and should not do. They may mean well, but at the end of the day none of them actually have to live your life: only you do. Decide what’s important for yourself, make the best decisions your judgement and abilities allow and then carry them out as best you can. You’re going to make lots of mistakes, but life is an iterative process and mistakes create wonderful opportunities to learn.

Any advice for young bloggers?

There is no better way to learn than doing. If you want to make movies, make a movie. If you want to be a writer, write a novel. If you want to create videogames, start by making your first one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Adam Gertsacov is the co-founder and co-organizer of Digital Family Summit.  He wears many hats, including those of a professional clown, an author and publisher, an artist/educator, a non-profit administrator, a P.T. Barnum impersonator, a flea circus impresario, and the esteemed hat of the Clown Laureate of Greenbelt, Maryland.