Nicodemus Madehdou

JumpButton Studio creates digital products that solve problems, invoke change, and inspire creativity while driving deeper engagement and generating unrealized revenues through games and animations with a diverse and inclusive team representative of the consumers.

It was first founded as a solution to inaccessibility. After being rejected from several internships due to being in high school rather than college, we wanted to craft a remedy to prevent young tech enthusiasts from being denied access to real world experiences for their career of interest. We then took on a social impact focus after walking into a room of decision-makers for a project and experiencing how there was no form of diverse representation at the table. We came to realize that there is less than 3% representation of Black game developers and studio owners within the games industry. We also learned that there was less than 24% female representation within the animation space.

Since our humble beginnings, we have received two honors at the White House during the Obama era for our games and landed several features on news outlets such as The Plug, CNN, The Root and more. Studies show diverse teams make 19% more revenue. This is because these teams follow an inclusive process allowing them to make decisions twice as fast with half the meetings. We know decisions made and executed by these diverse teams deliver 60% better results. We intend to show the impact and return on operating with such a culture, allowing us to provide more jobs to more underestimated and underrepresented individuals. We hope this will ultimately result in reducing the barrier of entry for minorities to enter the games and animation space.