This is a tribute to the much-loved and always-remembered, Tanya Laird. Tanya was born on August 16, 1978, and passed away on March 31, 2023, at St. Joseph’s Hospice in London. She was born in Hong Kong and raised in various British army bases before settling in England.
Tanya was incredibly passionate about creative technologies, arts, and most importantly, bringing people together. She studied Media and Communications at Colchester Institute before starting her career in marketing. She made the move into the games industry as a product manager and quickly learned the development processes, terminology, attitudes and methodologies to interpret between development and commercial teams. Major career highlights included working at Jagex and Disney.
That knowledge led her to found her own company, Digital Jam Ltd. A digital and gaming consultancy which facilitated conversations between different industries with a focus on the application of existing technologies to new sectors, or new technology to existing sectors. The company spawned the critically acclaimed, long-running podcast Digital Jam Sessions and the Digital Jam Lectures.
As a multi-award winner, Tanya was at the forefront of emerging creative technology spanning games, film, TV, comics, music, immersive theatre, transmedia VR, AR and AI. Throughout her career, she also sat as the Vice Chair of BAME in Games, was co-Chair of the Immerse UK sub-group for content, and was a board advisor to the British Games Institute. She was also the creator of the VR Writers Room and the co-organiser for the VR/AR/XR focussed group “Augmenting Reality Meetups”, one of the longest-running tech meetups in London.
Tanya was inducted into the Women in Games Hall of Fame and was the first Immersive Technology Ambassador for ESL UK, with other accolades and industry achievements including Diversity Champion at the Scottish Gaming Awards (2022), Top 100 Asians in Tech (2018, 2019 and 2022) and the Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2017, amongst many others.
Upon being diagnosed with cancer in May 2018, Tanya also started her own Facebook community group “How I Live Now”, sharing her personal journey and regular, popular ‘chemo fashion’ updates with a global network of other people affected by or living with cancer.
She is survived by her family, including her twin sister Kim and daughter Jade.
https://tanya-laird.muchloved.com/fundraising
The Force will be with you. Always ❤️
Thank you Tanya for the huge contribution you have made professionally to spear heading the early days of the immersive & gaming industries and personally for the generosity & support you have given all of us. Xx
I've written and re-written this message a dozen times. It's impossible to put into words the impact you had in my life. You are family Tanya, you'll always be family and as godmother to my daughter your legacy and love lives on forever in our home and hearts. We love you Tanya. It well may be That we will never meet again In this lifetime So, let me say before we part So much of me Is made of what I learned from you You'll be with me Like a handprint on my heart And now whatever way our stories end I know you have rewritten mine By being my friend
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