Leipziger Messe International Asia, organizer of the forthcoming Games Convention Asia 2008, announced full program details for “GCA 2008 Students’ Day”, scheduled to take place on Saturday, 20 September 2008. This distinctive event is part of the convention’s Conference line-up, and is geared as an industry development program targeting students from around the South East Asia region to provide them with industry knowledge of content development and distribution. Students can participate for free and need to reserve their seats in advance at www.gc-asia.sg

Games Convention Asia Conference Students’ Day is sponsored by DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore, the leader in game development education. Students’ Day will bring notable game industry specialists which include: the Chairman and President of DigiPen Institution of Technology, Claude Comair, Nexon Corporation and Nexon Mobile CEO Joonmo Kwon, MIT professor Henry Jenkins III, Ubisoft’s Claude Langlais, the Technical Director of Assassin’s Creed, and there will also be a panel discussion where the topic is “What the gaming companies are looking for in fresh graduates”. The panellists will include representatives from leading game publishers and developers: Electronic Arts, International Games Developers Association, Ubisoft and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore.

“DigiPen is proud to actively participate in the Students’ Day at this year's GCA. The GCA Students’ Day gives students the opportunity to listen to world-class speakers from the games industry and learn about the business and education opportunities to enter the field of game development", says Jason Chu, Chief Operating Officer of DigiPen.

“We are excited to organize GCA’s first Students’ Day as we feel it is important to create such programs targeted at students to help the industry develop. These top video game industry experts will share their knowledge and insights of the game industry where students can learn and be inspired to be best game specialists of the future” said LMI Asia Managing Director Jorg Zeissig.

GCAC 2008 Students’ Day Programme on 20 September 2008.

From To Speaker From Topic
10:00 10:40 Prof Henry Jenkins III MIT The future of games
10:40 11:20 Claude Comair DigiPen Independent Games Festival Showcase
11:20 11:35 Break
11:35 12:15 Joonmo Kwon Nexon Free 2 Play MMOs
12:15 12:30 Teo Chor Guan GAMBIT GAMBIT Internship
12:30 13:10 Break
13:10 13:50 Claude Langlais Ubisoft Assassin's Creed Postmortem
13:50 14:30 Jason Della Rocca International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Student Communities
14:30 14:45 Break
14:45 15:15 Award Cermony Award ceremonies
SGCC Code-a-thon
Mikoishi Animation Competition.
NUS CONTRAST
15:15 15:45 Panel Lucasfilm, EA, Ubisoft, IGDA ‘What companies look for in Fresh Graduates’

Speaker Name Brief Bio:

Henry Jenkins III Henry Jenkins III is the founder and director of the Comparative Media Studies Program and the DeFlorz Professor of the Humanities at MIT. He is the author or editor of 11 books, most recently Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide: Fans, Gamers, and Bloggers; Exploring Participatory Culture; and The Wow Climax: Emotion in Popular Culture (all three released by New York University Press in 2007).
Claude Comair Mr. Comair is the President and Founder of DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Washington, a college that focuses on the arts and sciences related to the creation and production of Video games. DigiPen Institute Of Technology is also known as the first Video Game College in the world. Mr. Comair is one of the Founders of Nintendo Software Technology Corporation (NSTC) and he served as the Chairman of NSTC from 1998 to 2006.

Joonmo Kwon Joonmo has an extensive background in wireless entertainment and is considered a veteran in games. He is currently the CEO of Nexon, a pioneer of interactive entertainment software and the world's leader in massively multiplayer online games. He has successfully led the Korea Game Award Committee, Korea Pro-Gamer Association and the Games Division of Korea Media Rating Board and has been a board member of Korea’s leading education portal site (baeoon.com). Since 1995, he has been lecturing Psychology in the Kyunghee University. Joonmo earned an M.Phil. followed by a PhD in Psychology from Columbia University and a BA from Seoul National University, Social Sciences, Dept. of Psychology.

Teo Chor Guan Chor Guan is currently the Director of the Singapore MIT Games Lab (GAMBIT), a collaborative research facility between the Singaporean government and MIT. Prior to this, she worked as Director of Software at Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, as a Technical Director at EA Canada, and as a Manager at NYP School of Art Design and Media.

Claude Langlais Claude is the Technical Director of Ubisoft Singapore. Prior to that, he's been working as a Technical Director and Lead Programmer at Ubisoft Montreal. Claude's credits include Technical Director at Assassin's Creed, as well as credits at among others Prince Of Persia: Sands of Time and Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones.

Jason Della Rocca Jason is the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a professional society committed to advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game developers. Jason and the IGDA focus on connecting developers with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community - such as quality of life, creative freedoms, workforce diversity and credit standards. As the spokesperson for the IGDA, Jason has appeared in countless news outlets (e.g., Wired, Nightline, LA Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, G4, etc) and has spoken at conferences around the world (e.g., GDC, E3, TGS, SIGGRAPH, ChinaJoy, DiGRA, etc). Jason has been a member of the game development community for over a decade, and has spent time at Matrox Graphics, Quazal and Silicon Graphics.