Laila Shabir is game developer known for founding the Girls Make Games summer camp that introduces girls and nonbinary children to computer game development.

Early life and education

Shabir's family is from Pakistan and she grew up in the United Arab Emirates in the town of Al Ain. While her parents wanted Shabir and her sister to think independently, the environment around them expected more traditional actions from women. When she was not accepted to any universities in the United Arab Emirates, Shabir moved to the United States for college, and she graduated from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

where she studied economics.

Career

After graduation, she was an intern at Merrill Lynch, and then worked at the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic co ...

, the

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, commonly known as the Boston Fed, is responsible for the First District of the Federal Reserve, which covers New England: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and all of Connecticut excep ...

, and the investment company

BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multinational investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager ...

. In 2013 Shabir and her husband, Ish Syed, co-founded LearnDistrict a company to make educational video games. Their first video game, Penguemic, was released in 2013. Shabir started a camp, Girls Make Games, that focuses on introducing girls and nonbinary children to game development during three-week periods in the summer. The camp was started in 2014 when Shabir noticed the gender gap in applicants for jobs in the

video game industry The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, ...

. In 2023, Girls Make Games announced a scholarship fund that aimed to makes college more affordable for alumni of the camp.

Awards and honors

In 2014,

GamesIndustry.biz Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and ot ...

included Shabir in their people of the year list in recognition for her work with Girls Make Games. In 2018 the

Entertainment Software Association The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the trade association of the video game industry in the United States. It was formed in April 1994 as the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) and renamed on July 21, 2003. It is based in ...

recognized Shabir with their visionary award for her work in broadening participation in game development; this was the first time a woman received this award.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shabir, Laila Living people Pakistani women in business Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Women video game developers Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American businesswomen