Pippa Tshabalala is a versatile, charismatic, and strong personality who has been involved in various South African gaming and tech media enterprises since the late aughts.
She has earned a name for herself as a credible and insightful journalist with the local gaming community, in part because she presented South African gaming TV show The Verge where she reviewed games and delivered commentary on the gaming scene for four years, but also through her writing and contributions to various gaming and tech publications.
Today, she’s the On-Air Manager at Viacom International Media Networks Africa, where she uses her educational background in the arts and animation in promo production; she also manages various creative agencies. She is actively involved in front of and behind the camera as a presenter, speaker, voice-over artist and more.
In the past, she has been part of community radio station UJFM, and was a creative consultant on a freelance basis for several years.
Pippa is also quite involved in the local gaming and tech scenes, as she supports game creators and events – like Jengo creators Robot Wizard and rAge – via her social media channels.
Pippa delivered a talk at TEDxSoweto in 2013 on how videogames and social change are linked, and regularly contributes articles to various online and print publications on gaming in general, but also on the challenges of being a woman involved in gaming. As she told the Mail & Guardian in a 2013 interview on being chosen as 200 young South Africans to watch, “It’s frustrating that people still don’t realise that the average gamer is not a pubescent white boy.”
Publications that have featured her work include NAG, Gamecca, Gladget, Girl Guides, Obrigado and Gearburn.
