This past week marked the end of the first set of summer experience training camps intended for middle and high school students run jointly by Square Enix and Life is Tech, a programming and IT educational outreach organization.
What is significant about this most recent Square Enix Game Camp, however, is that it was targeted specifically at girls. Their site’s banner is emblazened with the caption:
Programming will become a girl’s weapon
About the program:
First started in 2014, the purpose of these two-day workshop programs is for interested members to learn design techniques and programming, as well as hearing stories from active professionals in the field.
For this purpose, admission to the training camps has been kept free, provided that attendees bring their own laptops.
Upon registration, attendees have a choice between a design course, where students learn how to use graphics software like Illustrator and Photoshop, or a 2D or 3D game development course, where students get the opportunity to use current development tools toward game production such as Unity and GameSalad.
Regardless of which course is selected, detailed texts and materials are prepared for each attendee.
“Code Girls”!
This year’s girl-oriented game developer training camp, called Square Enix Game Camp “Code Girls”, opened with a movie presentation produced by actual developers of the Final Fantasy series and featured lectures by female game developers from Square Enix as well as an observation tour of development and game manufacturing on-location.
Among the developers invited to speak were staff members involved in the development of the game Dragon Quest Online, namely event planner Mizue Tanaka and character developer Nao Amano.
About Life is Tech:
A representative from Life is Tech explains:
We want to support and encourage girl programmers.
With this wonderful statement, perhaps there is hope to see more programs similar to ‘Code Girls’.
Life is Tech is associated not just with gaming companies like Square Enix but also with many others, such as Google and Microsoft.
As such, perhaps Life is Tech might create programs supporting girls for other fields in addition to game development.
