Board of Directors

Diliana Alexander

Diliana Alexander serves as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of FilmGate Miami, FilmGate Interactive, and the Downtown Media Center. FilmGate Miami's mission is to cultivate talent and promote innovation within Florida's growing media ecosystem. FilmGate Interactive stands out as one of the premier immersive festivals, taking place during Art Basel Miami. Diliana has produced projects for renowned platforms such as Netflix, HBO, Showtime, PBS, CBC, HGTV, the Learning Channel, and Showtime. Presently, she is directing and producing "Stiltsville VR" for the Oculus Meta platform and programming a monthly dome series for the Frost Science Museum.

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Nelly Gocheva

Nelly has 15+ years of experience developing media brands and creative strategies within start-ups and legacy brands across North America, Europe and Asia. Through the years, she's held senior positions at Soho House, The New York Times, Monocle Magazine and currently – Apple. Organizations and brands she's worked with on consultancy and brand-marketing partnerships include Nike, Airbnb, LVMH, L’Oréal, Rimowa, Burberry, Chanel, UBS, Credit Suisse, Samsung, BMW, Korean Air, Singapore Tourism Board, the City of Rio de Janeiro, Wunderman Thompson and Diet Coke.

James Powderly

James Powderly is an award-winning technology designer known for inventing tools to empower artists to augment the world. His vision and designs have made a broad cultural and engineering impact with acknowledged contributions in digital art, open source and augmented reality technology. His work can be found in the permanent collection of MoMA, in Snapchat's hardware products and on the surface of Mars. James is the most recent member to join the board at Filmgate Miami. His focus is on identifying and supporting a diverse cohort of creators innovating at the intersection of cryptoart and emerging tech like generative AI and augmented reality.

Billy Corben

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Billy Corben made his feature documentary directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, making him one of the youngest directors in Sundance history. Following that success, he and his producing partners founded Rakontur, a Miami Beach-based content creation company.

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Lindsay Grace

​Lindsay is an awarded game designer, developer, author and professor. He is the Knight Chair, Professor and Director of the Master of Fine Arts in Interactive Media at the University of Miami School of Communication. He is Vice President for the Higher Education Video Game Alliance and the 2019 recipient of the Games for Change Vanguard award. Lindsay has curated a variety of international events including The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s SAAM Arcade, the 20th Games for Change Festival, and others. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 books, articles and papers and consults for government and non-profit organizations aiming to employ playful media to solve real word problems.

Lori Wyman

Lori attended the University of Miami and she graduated with her Bachelor's Degree in Speech and Communications and her minor in Education. She received her Master's Degree from Nova Southeastern University (NSU) with a concentration in Drama Therapy. She pursued this degree in order to help actors with Audition Anxiety. Upon graduating with her undergraduate degree, she aggressively pursued a casting career and immediately started working for ACT I Talent Agency. At the time, ACT I was the biggest talent agency in the State of Florida.

Alex Cohen

Alex Cohen is the founder and CEO of Synkronized, a 23 years old US and Global Content Distributor and Production Company. With over 300 Films & Series produced and distributed in the US and worldwide. A library of more than 150 Festival nominations including the Cannes Film Festival, and 52 Awards and counting. Cohen's films have been released in partnership with companies like Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate, and many more. Cohen notably produced Jenna Otega's "Saving Flora" in 2018, Naomie Watts and Octavia Spencer's "Luce", a 2019 Sundance finalist, "Stay Safe" in 2022, and "ODB: Wu-Tang Forever", an upcoming 2023 Series, among dozens of other Productions.

Jose Jacho

Jose Jacho is the co-founder of Filmgate Miami and the Downtown Media Center. He is an out-of-the box thinker and creator, who seeks to establish and maintain South Florida as legitimate location for advancing the arts with the aid of technology.

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Savannah Niles

Savannah Niles is a multi-disciplinary product and design leader with 7 years experience working in XR. Most recently, Savannah was the Director of Interaction Design and Product Experience at Magic Leap, a Florida-based augmented reality startup. For 5 years at Magic Leap, Savannah has designed, prototyped, and shipped a wide range of hardware and software products, with 20+ patent applications and grants. Savannah graduated from the MIT Media Lab with her Master's in 2015. She has designed interactive experiences for Walt Disney Imagineering and Twitter, and has served as a juror at SIGGRAPH for 3 years. 

Pedro Menocal

Pedro is a legal, business, and strategic advisor with 20 years’ experience representing clients, big and small, from all over the world. He represents both domestic and international clients in a number of industries, primarily private equity, software and technology, media and entertainment, and healthcare.

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Jimmy Cheng

Director of International Partnership at Sandman Studios / Sandbox Immersive Festival, and Head of
International Sales at Atlas V / Astrea. Jimmy is focusing on XR distribution, representing contents from
over 170 XR studios, and servicing different
platforms / offline locations to find suitable distribution opportunities. The distribution / licensing model of XR content was immature even until today, which is why Jimmy saw the opportunity to form a solid business model for supporting the creators / studios to distribute their projects and generate reasonable revenue. From November 2018 till today, over US$ 10M royalty fee has
been signed to support the XR ecosystem / licensing model growing more mature. 

Meifan Shi

Managing Partner at Waterpoint Lane, a preeminent venture and growth equity firm, drives sustainable transformation in the AgriFoodtech sector. With 18+ years of experience in finance, technology, and value creation, she guides Waterpoint Lane's strategic direction and portfolio. Previously, she pioneered AWS's private equity practice, leading new business verticals, and forging strategic partnerships, overseeing a portfolio exceeding $800 billion AUM. As an investor and board member, she focuses on transformative change for a sustainable future through strategic investments and partnerships with visionary founders. Ms. Shi is also committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, building a coalition of investors and entrepreneurs united in the mission to create a more equitable world.

Vivian Marthell

Director • Creative • Collaborator • Protogeek • Lizard Whisperer • XR Evangelist • Chile Lover • Medicine Maker • Flow Hacker • Wanderluster • Banned Book Reader • Venturer

*evil laughter*​​​​

Samir Azar

Samir Azar is currently Vice-President of Colliers, a global leader in commercial real estate. He works with The Urban Core Division and no group has transacted more deals or is more passionate about Downtown Miami. Samir works closely with those promoting downtown and hosted the Downtown Development Authority’s “Market Watch” event. Most recently he has brought interesting brands to downtown and focuses on representing landlords and concepts. Formerly Samir hosted “Living in Luxury”, on NBC 6 featuring designers and architects. Born in Colombia but moved to a ranch in South Georgia at age 9, Samir graduated from The Citadel Military Academy in Charleston and has 3 daughters. When he’s not working or spending time with family and friends, Samir is reading or watching what else…Film.