Vanessa Gill and Damon Packwood named Global Gaming Citizens

The Game Awards and Facebook's partnership to honor Global Gaming Citizens named two new honorees today: Social Cipher Games CEO Vanessa Gill and Gameheads co-founder Damon Packwood.

Variety reports that the two new recipients were announced at E3 2019's E3 Coliseum today. They join initial winners Steven Spohn of AbleGamers and Lual Mayen of Junub Games, who were awarded with the title at The Game Awards 2018.

The Global Gaming Citizen Award was instated at The Game Awards last year to recognize "inspiring stories of people using the power of games to build community."

Gill, an individual diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, was motivated by her experiences to found Social Cipher and create a video game for children on the autism spectrum. Social Cipher was made with a focus on scientific research and addressing the needs of both the children the game targets as well as their families.

After seeing the struggles of working-class students in the San Francisco Bay Area who struggled to find jobs upon graduating college, Packwood founded Gameheads. Gameheads is a tech training program that uses gaming design and development as education tools for low-income students and students of color ranging from age 11 to 24. Students learn coding, STEAM skills, and receive assistance as they grow and enter into the gaming and tech industries.