The Computer Games Development BSc Honours course organised the first multidisciplinary online games conference, with the support of funding generously provided by the Quintin Hogg Trust and the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), which took place between 12-16 April.
The Games Immersion Conference 2021 (G.I.CON21) is a virtual conference event with a focus to engage university students with a passion for the game industry. The event provided the opportunity to bring together students from cross-disciplinary areas across institutions around the world to engage directly with professionals from game studios on subject specialisation, including games design, mechanics, software tools, 3D animation and modelling, UX design, VR/AR development, gamification and more.
This year’s event was a pilot for the conference, engaging with 13 institutions around the world and more than 250 participants taking part in the virtual event. The University of Westminster together with iLRN were the main sponsors while other institutions supported awards as part of the iLRNFuser 21, the game jam supported by the iLRN network.
The event was hosted on the iLRN Virtual Campus, which provided a gamified version of communication for all participants, and also provided full functionality of engagement and networking opportunities. A wide number of academics and industrial speakers engaged the audience with current trends behind immersive industry, including for games, education, and immersive applications. One of the events led by Don Balanzat, physics educator and XR researcher, titled ‘Immersive Technologies and STEM Education’, was part of the research from the Embodied Games Lab at Arizona State University (ASU). During his talk, he spoke about his experience working on several NSF and NASA projects as part of the XR projects in STEM education at ASU.
The iLRNFuser Game Jam, which began on 16 April and will run until 13 May, provides opportunities for students around the world to engage in a hackathon-style game development marathon, foster new friendships, build rapport, and create intellectual and professional growth opportunities for students. Nine teams comprised of 53 students are participating in the iLRNFuser Game Jam, with teams assembled by mixed participants across all institutions. Participants are invited and encouraged to explore new technology tools, try their hands at new roles in game development, and generally push themselves beyond their comfort zone. iLRNFuser engages on themes supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Markos Mentzelopoulos, Course Leader for the Computer Games Development BSc Honours course at University of Westminster, Director of G.I.CON and Student Engagement for the iLRN, said: “This event was a great opportunity to engage our students in an immersive virtual experience and foster new partnerships with other institutions. There was an amazing range of speakers from the industry and academia that provided interested talks around education, software and hardware trends applicable to various applications. This year’s event acted as a pilot, but we aim to improve the conference even further for next year and expand it with 30 institutions and industry support.”
Students participating in iLRNFuser Games Jam will have also the opportunity to collaborate with the leading academics from Westminster’s conference for publication of their work-in-progress game in an iLRN education journal in the summer of 2021.
Learn more about G.I.CON21 and the iLRNFuser Games Jam on the event website.
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