Behind the Title: An Interview with Javier Castro, Head of EMEA Apps Gaming at Google

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Behind the Title: An Interview with Javier Castro, Head of EMEA Apps Gaming at Google

February 21, 2018 — by Marina Sapunova

In this interview, yellowHEAD’s Marina Sapunova speaks with Javier Castro, Head of EMEA Apps Gaming Sales, to find out about the person behind the title, what interests him in life besides work and what brought him to Casual Connect in Kyiv.

Marina: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Javi. Could you kick things off by sharing with our audience what company you work for and your title?

Javier: For the last 5 years, I’ve been working at Google. I started working at the Google Cloud team and then I moved to the Google apps business. Currently, I am managing a team of colleagues who are working with gaming companies across EMEA, so pretty much working with most of our top gaming companies.

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Barak Regev on Using Google Cloud Platform to Scale and Succeed

March 26, 2017 — by Catherine Quinton

Barak Regev, Director of Google Cloud Platform for EMEA of Google, says that the best things about working for Google are the amazing people, as well as the culture, goals and freedom of working at Google.

Barak Regev is Director of Google Cloud Platform, EMEA of Google

Barak had worked for Microsoft for seven years when Meir Brand, GM of Google IL, called, offering the opportunity to apply for a position establishing Google Enterprise in the EMEA region. This was six and a half years ago, and Barak was, of course interested. For the past four years, he has been leading the Google Cloud Platform business in EMEA, building and scaling the EMEA team responsible for sales and business development of Google’s Cloud Platform solutions. In this position, Barak must also hire the talent, expand Google’s ecosystem, evangelize Google’s solutions and, as he said, “inspire my people to think big.”

Europe 2017 Video Coverage

Baris Ozistek: Is It Life Or Is It a Game? | Casual Connect Video

March 5, 2017 — by Catherine Quinton

Just what is the relationship between games and life? Do games reflect real life or are our lives becoming more and more influenced by games? These are the questions Baris Ozistek considered in his session at Casual Connect Europe.

Baris is CEO of Netmarble EMEA as well as board member of StatersHub, the largest acceleration program supporting startups in this region. Baris has also been President of Turkish Digital Games Federation and a board member of Turkish Information Technologies Foundation.

In this session, Baris used several of Netmarble’s successful mobile RPG titles to illustrate how gamification is becoming more and more intertwined in our lives. As he pointed out during his session, games are no longer just entertainment and are certainly not simply for children. Games have now expanded to include such things as the Nike app for running which not only tracks your progress, but also allows you to compete with others. Baris emphasizes that, just as we have short and long term goals in life, games do the same, and offer rewards that depend on the efforts we make.

To learn more about the similarities between games and real life, watch the video of this session below.

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For more insights from Baris, see this article from Casual Connect Tel Aviv 2016.