Emergent Game Technologies introduced its Academic Program giving college students hands-on experience and training with its development tools and game engine, and providing colleges and universities with its leading development solutions.
Emergent is committed to fostering creativity at every level. With the company's Gamebryo engine already in use within nearly a dozen, national and international universities, the goal of Emergent's new Academic Program is to elevate the skill level, practical knowledge and talent coming out of today's universities by giving students real-world development experiences early in their academic career.
"Working with Emergent has opened up the possibilities for our students and already led us to embark on ambitious new projects, including the expansion of our Digital Games Research Center," said R. Michael Young, Director Liquid Narrative Research Group, Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University. "Getting access to the best tools and technologies used within for-profit development houses today gives our students a significant head start both in the lab and after graduation."
In addition to providing students and their instructors with unprecedented access to Emergent's development tools, the Academic Program will facilitate creative collaboration among schools, provide students with access to interactive entertainment industry forums, offer in-class guest speakers and initiate internship opportunities with Emergent.
"Emergent is committed to advancing this industry from top to bottom and supporting creativity from its earliest stages," said Geoffrey Selzer, CEO of Emergent. "With the launch of our Academic Program we are taking one more step to ensure we are able to offer game developers the most flexible and comprehensive commercial tools available. As our worldwide footprint rapidly grows we believe it is critical to have great involvement with, and a two way dialogue between, our customers and leading academic institutions."
The Emergent Academic Program addresses both teaching and research in academic institutions with two Alliances.
The Emergent Teaching Alliance provides any accredited colleges and university free licenses of Emergent products for use both in the classroom and in student projects. Participants will gain unmatched knowledge and skills using industry-leading tools and technologies that will both benefit university lab research, and upon graduation, help make students more marketable to interactive entertainment companies worldwide.
To further strengthen the Alliance community Emergent will also sponsor seminars at the annual Game Developers Conference. There participants can meet with company engineers and showcase their accomplishments.
The Emergent Research Alliance provides select colleges and universities free licenses of Emergent products for use in unfunded research projects. By making use of Emergent's flexible development products, researchers can better pursue solutions to today's toughest pure research and industry problems. To further foster innovation and success, Emergent staffers will visit campuses once a year to conduct customized seminars and aide in a technical interchange.
In addition to an invitation to Alliance seminars at the annual Game Development Conference, members of the Research Alliance will also be invited to an annual Academic Summit, where they will meet and collaborate with other members, key industry architects and technologists.
Emergent's comprehensive development solutions include Emergent Elements, a family of modular products that address the full range of game development challenges, and the award-winning Gamebryo Element game engine used to create hit games by industry leaders such as Bethesda Softworks (The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion(TM)), Disney Interactive Studios, EA Mythic and Firaxis Games (Sid Meier's Civilization IV).
Universities interested in participating in The Emergent Research or Teaching Alliance should visit www.emergent.net. Click on the Academic tab and download the application. Please send completed applications to academicprograms@emergent.net.
Source: WP
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