Maria Kruglova

Age: 35 years

Maria Kruglova is not only a community manager of a successful gaming company Panzerdog (Tacticool game was downloaded more than 20 million times from all over the world for two and a half years) but also an active educator of the gaming industry beyond the company.

Masha is a leader of all kinds of activities in the GDG Kaliningrad IT community that she created: she has been organizing the DevFest Kaliningrad conference for six years, supervising the educational program of the IT-space shift of the Baltic Artek youth forum in 2020−2021, teaching a career guidance course Digital Culture for the first-year students of the Institute of Philology and Informatics of the Ivan Kant Federal University. Organizes a course for female IT specialists of Kaliningrad Women Developer Academy. Curates a multi-authored telegram channel Amber galleys for those who want to «enter IT». Endless leveling up!

Thanks to Google Developer Group, IT specialists of the region share knowledge, improve their general level of competence, and bring up the new generation of IT specialists. For the eighth year, the community organizes events for game developers, supports student initiatives, conducts research, and maintains a register of local IT companies.

Masha considers herself a driving force in shaping the game dev community in Kaliningrad. Every virtual world fan or advanced user can ask where his or her place is on the gaming industry roadmap. Maria Kruglova is eager to answer. This is the initiative she voiced at the first international game dev festival PlayPort Fest in June 2021. She was part of the festival’s organizing committee, participated in a strategy session to shape the game industry roadmap, and served as a mediator among professionals, game consumers, and interested newcomers.