Student Recruitment and Flying the CDE Flag.
It has been a busy few months for the Centre for Digital Entertainment, with the events team attending a number of industry and academic events in the hope of reaching potential CDE students and flying the CDE flag.
During September, the Women in Games (WIGJ) conference took place. This inspiring conference brought together some of the key female members of the industry, and those wishing to have a career in the games industry. Its aim – to show unity among women, offer support to those working in a male-dominated sector and celebrate achievements. Now in its 5th year, it is the only international games industry conference in Europe specifically aimed at women.
Our very own Laura Simpson from the University of Bath and Zoe Leonard from Bournemouth University were there promoting CDE.
There is a big drive at the moment for gender equality and to increase the number of women working within this sector. WIGJ’s main aim is to double the number of women in games in 10 years. Interestingly in September 2015, CDE had a total of 52 students, 14 of which were female. Out of those 14, 9 were specifically interested / working within Games / VFX / Animation. We must ask what CDE can do to attract more women to the EngD and as a result, help to increase the number of women working in the sector.
Keynote speakers included Katherine Bidwell of State of Play Games and Andy Payne, Chairman of UKie, with many more influential industry leaders, read more about the speakers and panellists here.
One interesting part of the conference was the discussion on the WIGJ’s mentoring scheme. It is very much in the pilot stages at the moment but they are looking for both mentors and mentees. If you are interested in this programme, click to find out more.
Top Left: Networking, Top Right: CDE Stand, Bottom: Laura Simpson having a go on a game designed by students from the University of Westminster, Faculty of Science and Technology.
CDE took part in the Expo at the conference along with some other key industry organisations:
This is an influential event offering support and inspiring females either working in or hoping to get into the games industry, it is certainly one to keep an eye open for in the future and we hope that CDE will be able to be a part of this event in 2016.
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BFX returned to Bournemouth again this year, and this time CDE were very much a part of it. As part of the BFX Festival 2015, we held a CDE exhibition to give delegates the opportunity to meet the research engineers and discover the diverse range of research projects, including ‘Perceptually Adaptive Rendering’, ‘Real-time Object Morphology Changes Due to Organic Decomposition’, ‘controlling Fluid-Simulations’ and ‘Augmented Virtuality’.
CDE Exhibition during BFX, some of the CDE Research Engineers
The CDE exhibition was open during the lunch break and during this time we were extremely busy with industry members, students and academics all taking the time to pop in, say hello and chat to the CDE Research Engineers about their research.
This event was also a great opportunity to welcome our new 1st years and introduce them to some of the existing students. They were treated to a talk by BU’s first Doctor in Digital Media, Jake Hobbs, on how to survive the EngD! And with a cocktail or two and dinner at Hot Rocks Restaurant in Bournemouth, a fun time was had by all.
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The team packed up and travelled to Cambridge and Oxford in October as part of the FindAPhD Live events. These two very prestigious University locations played host to 450 – 500 attendees each day, all hoping to demystify the PhD. FindAPhD Live is the opportunity to meet with the people that matter to you when choosing a PhD, including University Representatives, Funding Bodies, Current PhD students and Doctoral Training Centres (which is where we come in!).
From Top Left: Laura Simpson, Rahul Dey and Zoe Leonard, CDE Stand Oxford, Oxford Town Hall, Student Panel, Laura Simpson and Rahul Dey.
CDE Research Engineer, Rahul Dey, took part in the Student Panel, flying the CDE flag and highlighting the real benefits of our EngD. You can check out his top tips videos here.
We met with some very interesting people with backgrounds in Computer Science, Maths and Physics, so hopefully we will have some new members of the CDE family over the next year 🙂
Special thanks to everyone who help at these events and to those who took the time to come and speak to us about the CDE and our EngD.
If you have any Industry or Academic events that you feel the CDE should be involved with please email Events Co-ordinator