The not for profit Women in Games organisation WIGJ has announced that it is partnering with Unity Technologies to host a mentoring breakfast during Develop 2017 in Brighton on Wednesday, 12th July.
The event will give those working in the videogames industry a taste of what mentoring is like in a fun, informal setting and introduce attendees to the support that is available as part of the WIGJ’s on-going mentoring programme.
“WIGJ’s overarching goal is to double the number of women working in the videogames sector over the next 10 years. We know that mentoring can play a hugely important role in supporting women’s career development in the sector. We want to alert more people to the fact that this kind of support is available,” said Leigh Jackson, Deputy Chief Executive of WIGJ, who leads WIGJ’s Mentoring Sub-Group.
There will be 30 experienced videogames professionals from a range of top videogames companies – including Unity Technologies – who will provide mentoring support to attendees in the form of 15-minute taster sessions at the pop-up event. When registered, attendees will be able to select from a range of key mentoring themes for their session including: technical; QA; art; creative; animation; audio; production; career development and business development. Unity Technologies will also have their own team of “Unity Gurus” mentors providing mentoring taster sessions at the event.
“We’re delighted to be partnering WIGJ in this mentoring pop-up event at Develop”, said Morrissey Williams, Regional Business Development Manager (UK & Ireland) for Unity Technologies. “We want to attract more women to work in this industry. Maintaining a good gender balance is an important focus for us. As a truly international company spanning 23 countries, our success relies on having happy, diverse teams.”
“We’re thrilled to have Unity Technologies partnering us in this exciting event”, said Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO of WIGJ. “We are so grateful to the many videogames professionals who are giving their time freely as mentors. Having industry support like this brings our long-term goal of developing and retaining female talent in the games industry that much closer.”
The WIGJ/Unity mentoring pop-up is included in the Develop 2017 fringe events programme. Ali Fearnley, Conference Director for Tandem Events, the organisers of Develop: Brighton 2017 commented:
“We are really excited to hear that WIGJ and Unity are staging this mentoring pop-up during Develop. We hope this will be the start of many such events at Develop in future years.”
If this has piqued your interest and you happen to be in Brighton check it out. The tickets are available from Eventbrite. The mentors are pulled from a variety of sources which include BAME in Games, Collaborative Consulting Group; Dovetail Games, Dream Reality Interactive, Google, Gram Games, Lionbridge, Media Molecule, Nyamyam, Preloaded, Ripstone, Small Jelly, Unity Technologies and Women in Games. There’ll be approximately 30 mentors at the event so if you’re looking to learn there’s no better place.
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