Game Development Initiative For Zamboanga City Concludes with 20 Graduates

On August 2, the Mobile Game Development Project in Zamboanga came to an end with the graduation of 20 participants composed of students, fresh college graduates, and teachers. The training in Philippine National Computer Center spanned 20 days in which the participants focused on mobile game development every weekday, 18 hours a day. At the end of the training, the students were required to create their own mobile application.

According to this post from their Facebook page, the training included topics ranging from conceptualization and development to the implementation and monetization of mobile applications for Blackberry, Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. The training fee, materials, app development, and other training costs were all covered in the project. All the trainees had to do was to come to class daily to learn.

Where do they go from here?

One of the requirements during the selection process for the training included committing to stay and work in Zamboanga city for at least a year. The idea was to train them and help them apply their knowledge locally in order to help grow the qualified workforce for game development, as well as propel the local game development industry forward.

According to Alvin Juban, president at the Game Developers Association of the Philippines and head of operations and business development at Secret 6 Inc., the fresh graduates are now applying what they have previously learned on their first paid project involving game maintenance and updating. In this new task, they will gain even more experience about how the industry works, what makes games tick, and other important things about application development.

Further government-funded game development training

This project was made possible through the joint efforts of the Department of Science and Technology – Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICTO), the Zamboanga Information Communication Technology (ZICT), the Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP), and Job Esther.

Alvin Juban says that the DOST-ICTO plans further efforts in the game development industry, but it’s uncertain which cities are involved. As such, the department has recently announced the ICT Scholarship and Training Program that will be made possible with GDAP, the Animation Council of the Philippines (ACPI), and the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA). The program offers three different courses, namely mobile and embedded software and development, game design and development, and 3D animation. While there have been no details released yet about the number of students to be accommodated per course at a given time, it seems that there are limited slots, as there is a scholar selection process, as posted in the University of the Philippines Information Technology Development Center (UP-ITDC) website.

Photo Source – Facebook

(Editing By Steven Millward)

Game Development Initiative For Zamboanga City Concludes with 20 Graduates