The University of Ulster is this week welcoming experts in gaming from around the globe for the Emergent Game Technologies European Academic Game Summit.

Ulster’s Intelligent Systems Research Centre (IRSC) at the Magee campus teamed up with Emergent – a world leader in gaming software technology – to host an international line-up of experts from the USA, UK, France, Germany and Sweden.

Michael Callaghan from the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds research team at the ISRC, said: “We are delighted that Emergent Game Technologies, a world-class video games middleware provider has chosen to host their European academic summit at the University of Ulster."

At the summit, the University is showing how Emergent Games Technologies’ Gamebryo® LightSpeed™ and other gaming software can be used to teach game development and also develop gaming prototypes. The software aims to aid the production of AAA games, which are world-class top end of the market games.

Dr Shane Wilson, lecturer in the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, said: “Emergent’s Gamebryo® LightSpeed™ is a great technology for not only creating highly interactive and visually appealing games but is also an ideal platform for teaching students the fundamentals of programming in an interesting and familiar context.

“We’re  excited to have secured so many innovative and highly influential experts to talk at the academic summit here in Magee. I am sure participants will find the event inspirational in terms of how gaming technologies such as Gamebryo® LightSpeed™ can be integrated into course curricula.”  

John Austin, Vice-President Technical and Academic Partnerships at Emergent Game Technologies said: “We have been delighted to host our European Academic Summit at the University of Ulster and that program and in particular that the University has chosen to use Gamebryo LightSpeed in their education program. Our goal is to enable tomorrow's game developers to have access to a AAA game engine and tools so that they can gain real-world experience with their projects in the classroom environment.”

Companies attending the conference include Emergent Game Technologies, Allegorithmic, Illuminate Labs, Natural Motion, NVIDIA and Xaitment.

The summit is jointly organised and hosted by the ISRC, and the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, and co-sponsored by the University of Ulster, Office of Innovation Knowledge Club Program.

For further information, please contact:

Press Office, Department of Communication and Development
Tel: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk