Twist, Bestwick and Upton receive Queen's Birthday Honours

Ukie CEO Jo Twist, Team17 MD Debbie Bestwick and Raspberry Pi founder Ebon Upton have all been named in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.

Twist, who was appointed CEO of Ukie in December 2011, was instrumental to the introduction of Video Games Tax Relief for British developers, and made a significant contribution to the broad overhaul of the ICT curriculum. Twist will receive an OBE for her services to the UK's creative industries.

"Jo has transformed Ukie from an organisation of 40 members to a body with close to 300 members that are representative of the diverse UK games industry," said Noirin Carmody, chair of the Ukie board, in a statement. "Jo's drive and passion in promoting the UK games sector to policy-makers, the creative industries, media, and government have been of enormous benefit to the UK and beyond."

Bestwick will receive an MBE for her contribution to the games industry. She co-founded Team17 in 1990, and was appointed CEO of the company in 2009. During Bestwick's time at the helm, the Yorkshire based developer best known for Worms has enjoyed a resurgence as an indie publisher.

Both Twist and Bestwick received honours at this year's inaugural Women in Games Awards.

Finally, Raspberry Pi pioneer Ebon Upton has received a CBE for his role in creating the popular microcomputer and establishing the charitable Raspberry Pi Foundation. The device has shipped more than 8 million units of its three versions since it launched in 2012, becoming the most popular British computer of all time in April this year.

"We're starting to make real progress on our mission," Upton told the BBC. "There are over 4,000 Code Clubs in UK schools, nearly 800 Raspberry Pi Certified Educators and more applicants for computer science at Cambridge than at the height of the dotcom boom."