Dean Takahashi (left), Lual Mayen, and Leo Olebe speak about diversity at GamesBeat/Facebook: Driving Game Growth.
Dean Takahashi (left), Lual Mayen, and Leo Olebe speak about diversity at GamesBeat/Facebook: Driving Game Growth.
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Lual Mayen and Leo Olebe: You can’t be what you can’t see

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Lual Mayen is a former refugee who left Africa to become a game developer in the U.S. He has received recognition from The Game Awards and CNN for his mission to make games about peace, and he was a fitting speaker to close our event today.

At the end of GamesBeat and Facebook’s Driving Game Growth event, Facebook game partnerships head Leo Olebe, Mayen, and I spoke about how to get inspiration in the game industry today. The session, “You Can’t Be What You Can’t See,” comes from quote from Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and a civil rights activist who felt that children needed to see role models that inspired them.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.