Israel Chapter
November 2001 Meeting Report
discussion forum • mailing list


First meeting was excellent!
by Ohad Barzilay (CG Lab, Hebrew university)


The first meeting of IGDA's Israel Chapter launched at 19:00 on Thursday, November 8th. A place was reserved at Yotvata restaurant in Tel Aviv, emails had been sent and phone calls were made. Total of 15 people arrived to the meeting which was very interesting.

The meeting began with a brief introduction to IGDA and what it does, followed by a people introducing themselves and their companies/projects. A nice pause was provided by a waitress that came with milkshake samples, which allowed people to relax and start conversations with people around.

After a while, we crowded a little to hear Adi Gaash (Majorem) talking about their upcoming game Ballarium, and this was soon turned into a questions and answers session, concentrating on how can israeli teams can raise funds.

Another round of talks began as food and drinks were served to the table, and while Yoni Mandes (Gamer.co.il) was touring around interviewing people for his web coverage, the rest were discussing various issues and catching up on the people and latest start-ups still alive (Eden Shochat from Shells Interactive proved to be a valuable source here...)

Ohad Eder Pressman and Yonatan Lavi (Visual-i) showed their upcoming palm game, as well as some of their old stuff, which generated much interest around the table.

Before people started to leave, two papers were passed around, gathering personal details and ideas for lectures in the next meetings. As people slowly left around 21:20, 4 of us were left to discuss where we're heading and what can be done to advance the israeli game development industry.

Here are some notes:

  • A site should be made, in hebrew, to center everything game development oriented done in Israel.
  • The Chapter committee should do its best to support current developers in form of contacts and education.
  • Young people and wannabe's are crucial for the development of a serious industry.
  • These teens should get proper guidance in programming / modeling / whatever, to help them turn into independent productive teams.
  • Chapter meetings will be held once a month, on Wednesdays, and will begin at 20:00.
  • Chapter meetings will be best located in a quiet place, unlike this meeting, which enjoyed the loud presence of a teenage girl birthday party.
Personal note: All in all it was a great event, and as some people that could not attend expressed interest in the next meetings, I hope to see more people next time. I've also noticed there are 2 different groups - people with academic and/or business background which are discussing things in a higher level, and a group of students which are still in the phase of struggling with implementation issues and not yet ready to handle the more abstract. I wish we will be able to assist both these groups get the relevant support they need to become productive and profitable in the game industry.

Well, now it's time to enjoy the pictures. I don't have much of those as I was unable to get the digital camera from my lab. Therefore, you'll have to do with these few pictures:



Adi Gaash (Majorem) with his girlfriend, sitting in front of Yoni Mandes (Gamer.co.il) and Guy De Beer which probably discuss Guy's complicated game project.




A bit of Eden Shochat (Shells Interactive) and most of Yoni Mandes listening to Adi Gaash (Majorem). Probably talking about Ballerium again... In the background you can see the back of Rony Goldenthal (CG Lab, Hebrew University) and the profile of Udi Yogev (Ynet) watching Ohad "Kombat" Eder Pressman's (Visual-i) new upcoming palm game.




(almost) Everybody!
Listening to Adi Gaash talking about Ballerium.

Far left, going up: Ohad Barzilay (CG Lab, Hebrew University), Eden Shochat (Shells Interactive), Adi Gaash, Eyal Teler and Rony Goldenthal (both from the Computer Graphics Lab, hebrew university).

Far right, going up: Roy and Yotam (both from GoblinEye), Ohad Eder Pressman (Visual-i), Renan Gluzman (Guillotine), ?? (a 'Camera Obscure' student) and finally at the end Udi Yogev (Ynet).

 

See you all next chapter meeting!