Building a more inclusive world

Alumna is charting new pathways in gaming, filmmaking and beyond

Photo courtesy of Jewel Ifeguni

Microsoft alumna Jewel Ifeguni is an associate producer at Decoy Games and founder of YouMatter Studios. She’s using storytelling at the intersection of gaming, technology and filmmaking to inspire others, encourage empathy and promote inclusion.

By Amanda Bullis

Jewel Ifeguni is here to change the world.

The Nigerian-born, Chicago-based Microsoft alumna is a technologist, gamer, filmmaker, motivational speaker and self-proclaimed “Gen-Z Oprah.” While she’s juggling many projects, they all intersect with her desire to build a more inclusive world.

Jewel got her start in the gaming industry at Microsoft. She credits her time at Microsoft with providing a space for her to discover different aspects of herself, including her love of gaming, being on camera and talking to people. 

“I liked the ability to be able to explore different organizations, especially in games,” said Jewel, who completed two internships with the company before joining full time and working as a program manager at Xbox for Gaming for Everyone for a year before spending two years as a technical program manager with Minecraft. During her time at Minecraft, Jewel hosted a YouTube segment called Block Buzz on Minecraft Now where she would provide updates on the game.

“There are not a lot of companies like Microsoft that will support their employees trying so many things in their own company," she said. “And I do believe I’ve built some really great lasting friendships and connections because of my career at Microsoft. I’m just very grateful for the opportunities for me to explore and really find my best self.”

To Jewel, that meant making a jump in 2022 to work as an associate producer at independent, black-owned game developer Decoy Games after meeting one of the co-founding brothers, Ahmed Abdullah, at a panel of black game developers.

“For me, it was a no brainer,” said Jewel, noting that she and Ahmed just “clicked.” “Black people represent 2% of the tech industry, and then you think about the games industry, around the same stats. And then you think about game studio owners…like come on now, I’m meeting unicorns.”

Building an inclusive world has been central to Jewel’s mission since she was attending The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She had an ah-ha moment while working on a group project to develop an app for her freshman computer science honors course.

During the second or third meeting of the group, the team leader started assigning roles to team members. Instead of asking Jewel to code a part of the application like the rest of the team, he asked her to draw the logo.

“I was like…’What the hell?’ We literally have been coding right next to each other. So now I’m not capable?” Jewel recalls. “It’s not like it was my first-time experiencing sexism or racism or any of the ‘isms, but it hit me the most in that moment. Wow, someone literally does not think I’m intelligent because I’m a black woman.”

She knew then that she could use the power of media to fight for inclusion and she founded her own filmmaking studio, YouMatter Studios.

“Shuri from Black Panther didn’t exist when I was in college. So, it was like okay, I’m not seeing people who look like me on TV shows coding. I’m not seeing people who look like me doing these things that would help me chisel a little bit of the bias that these boys have,” recalls Jewel. “I don’t think it’s an excuse, but something clicked for me.”

The first thing YouMatter Studios created was games, including #QUEEN, a game that Jewel and her team developed for a hackathon her sophomore year of college while she was completing her second internship with Microsoft. Her younger sister, Elora Ifeguni, was featured as the main character of that initial game, fighting monsters that were tackling her confidence.

YouMatter Studios went on to produce virtual reality films that focused on creating greater understanding of what it is like to be an under-represented person by immersing people in that reality. 

“I wanted to build something that folks would understand what people like me go through,” said Jewel.

Her first VR film focused on Sandra Bland, the Chicago-area woman who was pulled over during a traffic stop in Texas in 2015 and ended up dead in her jail cell three days later of an apparent suicide. Jewel created the award-winning VR film The Drive in 2020, which reenacts a police pull-over from three different perspectives. Jewel and her team at YouMatter Studios did heavy research with police departments, victims and family members of people who have experienced police violence and discrimination to create an immersive experience from multiple viewpoints.

“We started using it to have actual conversations between police and communities,” Jewel says of the film. “I think the more empathy we have — especially people who have the power to make a change — actually build that empathy, that’s how we’ll get closer to building an inclusive world.”

During the pandemic, YouMatter Studios hosted weekly discussions through the social networking app Clubhouse, with the goal of keeping communities in conversation. The studio is currently producing a docuseries hosted by Jewel called How We Got Here, which walks people through black history with the intention of facing the past to change the future.

Jewel also is recording a new podcast, Journey with Jewel, where she will interview changemakers in the fields of tech, gaming and filmmaking with the hope of inspiring people to pursue their passions. Additionally, she is engaging audiences in conversations around inclusivity in the gaming, technology and filmmaking industries through speaking engagements.

“The thing that really blocks inclusion from happening is that we don’t take time to really think about what it takes for someone to feel included,” said Jewel. “Building an inclusive world, whether it’s providing more access or providing more tools to build empathy, you can translate it into any language.”

Jewel recognizes that being a black woman at the intersection of gaming, technology and filmmaking, she occupies a unique space.

“Not a lot of people like me have had the experiences that I’ve had,” Jewel reflected. “I like to be that living example. Especially for kids.”

Her own inspiration to pursue a career in technology and gaming came when she was a senior in high school in Naperville, Illinois. Her computer science teacher, Mr. Webb, was black.

“In general, because of where I grew up, it was rare to have a teacher who looked like me,” Jewel said. “And out of all of the courses, I just think it was really powerful that I was able to see someone that looked like me. And it was that early affirmation [that gave me the confidence to be] like okay, you know what, let me rock with this industry.”

The fact that Jewel pursued that dream inspired her younger brother, David Ifeguni, to follow her footsteps into the field and to Microsoft. 

“She is the most hardworking and positive person I know,” said David, who now works as a software engineer for Microsoft Search, Assistance and Intelligence (MSAI). “She always wakes up with a smile on her face and puts 110% into whatever she does.”