| Suzanne Seggerman |
Suzanne Seggerman is the co-founder of Games for Change and is a public speaker and adviser on new media and social impact.
Seggerman grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut,[1] the daughter of Harry G. A. Seggerman, who had been vice chairman of Fidelity, and Anne Crellin Seggerman.[2] She has five siblings; Patricia Seggerman, Marianne Seggerman, Yvonne Seggerman, Henry Seggerman, and John Seggerman.[2] Seggerman received a B.A. from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio,[1] and a master's degree from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).[3]
Seggerman was production manager for the PBS documentary series The West, and then a director at new media think tank Web Lab,[4] which was an early think tank dedicated to exploring and funding serious issues at the outset of the World Wide Web[5]
Seggerman was co-founder and former president of Games for Change (G4C),[6] a non-profit that promotes and supports the emerging uses of video games for humanitarian and educational purposes.[7] Early examples of games for change include Honorable Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's suite of games called iCivics; Food Force a game about global hunger created by the World Food Program; and Ayiti: the Cost of Life, a game about poverty set in Haiti. Seggerman ran G4C since its inception in 2004.[8]
Seggerman also co-founded PETLab (Prototyping Education and Technology Lab), a public interest design and research lab at Parsons The New School for Design, supported by grants from MTV and the MacArthur Foundation.[9]
She has spoken at Sundance Film Festival[10] and has advised on Microsoft’s Imagine Cup.[11]
In October 2010, Seggerman pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax fraud related to a $12 million 2001 inheritance her family received in a Swiss bank account from her father.[12] [13] In September 9, 2014, her sentencing had been postponed pending the outcome of the family financial adviser, Michael Little's, trial.[14] She was a cooperating witness in that trial, and in 2014, and again in 2019, the probation department recommended probation.[15]
On June 26, 2019, Seggerman along with her siblings Henry, Yvonne, and John were each sentenced to prison. She received a four month sentence which she completed in December 2019.[16] The siblings had funneled their inherited money into the U.S. tax-free through a variety of means: shell companies, a fraudulent foundation, and carrying just under $10,000 cash on return trips from Switzerland.[17]