 My name is Brian O'Rourke. I also go by SART or Sartris Online. I am a lawyer and technologist and I run a project around finding best practices for law that are around technology. I mean, it's really about finding interesting ways to use technology to help people gain access to legal resources. Cool. Very cool. So what is the reason behind having this Game Jam? So there is a lot of interest in finding ways to collaborate across disciplines. And one of the best ways to do that is actually get people together in the same room working on projects. So with this particular Social Justice Game Jam, the idea is to bring lawyers, technologists, artists all together and have them work on some projects. It's not only to create some cool projects from this weekend, but it's to create those connections between different people so that they can see the different work styles, the innovation going on, and understand what is possible with technology. These disciplines are often a way to siloed and we can learn a lot from each other by spending time working together on a project over a weekend. Very cool. Very cool. So what is the theme of this Game Jam? So it is a Social Justice Game Jam. The idea is that most people who are lower income do not have access to a lawyer. And they have anywhere from one to 20 legal problems. There was a civil legal needs study that showed that most people have up to nine legal problems. And we want to find ways to teach the law so that they can learn about their rights, their options without necessarily having to go to a lawyer. And there's such opportunity to show people how the law actually works and empower them to represent themselves or figure out when they need to go to a lawyer and what resources are out there. The law can be really boring, but it doesn't have to be. We can teach these concepts in much more fun, interactive ways. Beautiful. Nice. So now I know because of your professional background, why you're into the legal aspects, what got you into video games? So I was a hardcore gamer since I was a little kid. I started programming on a Commodore 64 in basic. I grew up with an 8-bit Nintendo, and my grandmother was the type of person that lured all the grandkids over by buying the newest Atari or the newest Xbox so that we could all play games together. I have really found, though, that in playing games, you can learn skills that are transferable to the rest of your life. I was a chess teacher in undergrad, taught elementary school kids how to play chess, and the skills of how to break down a problem, attack it, come up with a plan, and then execute it are transferable to the law. They're transferable to everyday life. So gaming itself gives you these useful skills. And that history of gaming has served me well in becoming a lawyer and in doing advocacy and outreach. Thanks. That's fantastic to see that you can use your skills that you got from gaming and apply it to other aspects of your life. What are some of the more interesting things that you've noticed in this game jam so far? One of the big things that we did at the beginning of the game jam is asked for ideas from the audience. We have artists here, lawyers here, and developers. And there were several ideas that came forth that I hadn't even considered from the kind of strategy sessions that we had in advance. And I think we're going to have some very interesting games because of those diverse perspectives. Also just seeing people organically kind of meet up, put together groups, but then offer their talents to other groups has been very, very positive. We've got lawyers who are willing to help multiple groups. We've got artists that are willing to help on multiple games or individuals doing professional sound or music that are willing to help on multiple games. It's a very collaborative project here and people are here to do something awesome and help others as part of it. Why do you think this game jam in particular is more collaborative than others? Well, I think part of it is the focus on social justice and empowering populations that have been disenfranchised. Additionally, I think that the structure that it's been put together, we used a donation-based model to where people can pay whatever they want to be here. We went out to the community to get donations to cover food and drink. We tried to make it as inclusive as possible and reach out to as many diverse populations. Well, it sounds like you wanted everybody who wanted to have a voice to be able to express it here. Can you tell me a little bit how we wound up in the Living Computer Museum? So we reached out to the Living Computer Museum while looking for venues and they had just finished completing their labs area, which is a very interactive area of the museum and their event coordinator Matisse was very excited about this particular event because of the collaborative learning hands-on aspect of it. The museum here is dedicated to creating community events and also teaching people to code to use computers in interesting ways. So it just turned out to be a really nice union between what we were trying to do and what the new lab here is really designed to do. We're very, very thankful to be here. It's a beautiful area and it's perfect for what we're trying to put together. Awesome. That's really cool how it all just kind of came together, especially since this venue is pretty new. What do you hope the main takeaway from this event will be? Although I'm sure there's going to be some awesome games developed, the thing that is most exciting to me is the collaboration across different disciplines. If we're able to create connections where we're able to work on future projects and learn from each other long-term, that's going to be the best thing that could possibly come out of this game gym is learning to work together in tackling these issues long-term. Very cool. Is there any closing statements or anything else that you'd like to say about the non-profit organization, the event, or people? So first I'd like to thank Northwest Justice Project for really allowing us to do this. It's very different from anything that's been done in the non-profit space. But additionally, I would like to encourage people to put together events like this themselves. The ability to reach out to these different communities, find people who have previously run other hackathon or game, GM type events and then bring them together. It's not that difficult to put together and so much can come out of this. So I encourage people to definitely give it a try themselves. This has been a wonderful experience so far.