In news we're completely not jealous about, Microsoft is introducing the latest stage of Xbox Academy with a workshop intended to inspire teenagers to become the next future game developers.
Xbox Academy will be part of Microsoft’s Work Experience Week on May 10, and is available for year 9 and 10 pupils in the UK. Across the live streamed seminars, students will have the opportunity to hear first hand from studios such as Rare, as well as representatives of East London Arts and Music. The workshops aim to give an insight into developers' careers over the years, providing insight into production, design, engineering and quality assurance.
In the 4-day program, students will:
- Join Xbox Academy, hosted by Microsoft Store: an introduction to roles within the games industry and advice on how to enter them, featuring insight from developers at game studio Rare (makers of the highly-acclaimed Sea of Thieves) and educational professionals in games development at East London Arts & Music.
- Hear from industry executives and their inspiring career stories, with Microsoft UK’s CEO Clare Barclay and Director of Education, Chris Rothwell.
- Gain an insight into building a robust LinkedIn profile.
- Experience various early-in-career activities, and hear testimony from our interns, graduates and apprentices.
- Explore the importance of digital skills and gain an understanding of how powerful our Microsoft products are, and more!
For anyone wishing to sign up for the special event, you can do so over on the Microsoft Education website. However, be aware that this link is only meant for teachers or legal guardians to sign up for their teens.
This sounds like a really cool idea, and something we would have loved to do while at school. Unfortunately, the most we did gaming wise was build rubbish little Flash games on the ancient Windows PCs. Maybe in another life...
Would you have been interested in something like this at school? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments 5
When I was going to school, talking about video games could earn you a beating! 😂😧🤕
"Gain an insight into building a robust LinkedIn profile."
Just what I always dreamed of! /s
“Beats doing maths” Well you’d honestly be better off spending your time doing maths, then you can become a competent programmer or engineer
This isn’t anything new for Microsoft. Kodu Game Lab on PC/XBLIG made inroads into classrooms during the Xbox 360 era and Microsoft had grand plans with Project Spark.
But Spark died during the great Xbox One purge around the same time as Fable Heroes and thus it never made it quite as big.
This is a shame as Kodu was one of the most pleasant codeblock titles I came across as a teacher.
@rjc-32 Oh Lord, don’t I know it. Although ‘maths’ has become synonymous with arithmetic, rather than logic, functions and algorithms which are a vital part of mathematics and the most relevant aspects for software development.
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