Taha Rasouli

Taha is co-founder and game development coach at Ava Games, one of Iran’s leading investment and publishing companies. His goal is to help, support and empower local indie game developers to enter domestic and global markets. He has done this successfully many times and are trying to channel more funds from VCs to help indie groups.

Taha began his career in the game development scene in Iran from 2001 as a journalist and soon jumped in production as a game designer. Game development and sharing experience are his main passions and since 2014 he has led Iran’s IGDA chapter. Throughout each year apart from producing games and coaching different indie teams, he manages numerous gatherings and events and tries to be connected to the international community as much as he can. Taha has helped establish Iran’s first game school, co-founded an accelerator dedicated to help game startups, organized a dozen of game jam events and has taught game design and production in different institutions. He was chosen as one of IGDA Foundation’s Next Generation Leaders in 2018.

There are a couple of games Taha has worked on that he can not talk about because many publishers and platforms ban the games that are made by Iranians. This, among many other things, is what he deeply wishes to change.