Henk B. Rogers, Founder

Considered one of the visionaries of computer games, Henk Rogers helped change the face of the industry as the entrepreneur responsible for bringing Tetris, one of its greatest games, to the United States and world market. In 1996, Henk opened Blue Planet Software, which manages Tetris and has kept it in the forefront of casual gaming through improved design. In 2002, Henk started Blue Lava Wireless LLC, a mobile phone game developer and publisher that he sold to JAMDAT in 2005. Starting with the efforts of Blue Lava Wireless, Tetris became the #1 game on mobile phones.  Today, more than 10 percent of all games sold on mobile phones in North America are versions of Tetris.  In 2006, he created the Blue Planet Foundation, which has become the frontline organization in the fight for renewable indigenous energy in Hawaii.  The foundation’s mission is to change the world’s energy culture by ending the use of fossil fuel on the planet, beginning in Hawaii.

Henk presently has three new startup software development companies -- Tetris Online, a casual online game company focused on “non-core gamers”; Blue Lava Technologies, developer of a photo tagging software that automatically generates digital photo slideshows, and Avatar Reality, creators of Blue Mars, a next-generation virtual world platform that offers revolutionary levels of interactivity, fidelity, and scale.

Kazuyuki Hashimoto, President and Co-Founder

Oversees the strategic goals, objectives, and platform architecture for Blue Mars. In his former role as Senior Vice President of R&D for Square Co., Ltd., Hashimoto was responsible for the development of the innovative 3D production systems used to create the Final Fantasy VII game and the photo-realistic animated feature film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Hashimoto additionally served as Vice President of Technology, New Platforms, at Electronic Arts.