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Girls in Games Senior Dev Day 2017

Girls in Games 2017 Senior Dev Day

Girls in Games is one of New Zealand's most recognised STEM programmes for secondary school-aged young women. The workshops introduce girls to the basics of Game Art, Game Programming, and Game Design.

On Wednesday 12 September, 42 young women in Years 11-13 attended Girls in Games Senior Dev Day, with attendees joining us from Whangaroa, Matamata, Tauranga, Hamilton, Tuakau, and Christchurch ... as well as from all across the Auckland region!

Three of Media Design School faculty members who are instrumental to the success of Girls in Games are our female Software Engineering faculty. Asma Shakil has been a part of Media Design School's Girls in Games programme since its inception in 2013. Shilpa Ranjit joined the team in 2015 and Dr. Samah Hassan Aly Abd El Maksoud joined the team just last year. 

Asma, Shilpa and Samah all agree that it is important to run workshops such Girls in Games so that they are able to "...give girls an insight into the fact that there is an increasing number of females in games who they can look up to as role models" as well as helping them overcome any misconceptions they may have about game development being super hard.

The most important skills that the girls that away from the day, according to our female Software Engineering faculty, are:

  • Being able to follow instructions.
  • Quickly being able to learn new concepts and apply them to create a working game.
  • Using their creativity and logical thinking to come up with new ideas to improve their games.
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