Friday Hacks #40, Feb 8

Posted on Feb 6 by benedict

This week we have Michael Rawlinson, who will share with us the job prospects in the UK. Those interested in the Interactive Entertainment Industry should definitely come for the talk!

Date/Time: Friday, February 8 at 6:30pm Venue: SR2, Education Resource Centre, University Town. Map: //goo.gl/maps/2Zy3M Sign up here: //bit.ly/fridayhacks2013 Free pizza is served before the talks.

Talk 1: Interactive entertainment is a worldwide market; hear a perspective from the other side of the world – the UK. (Michael Rawlinson, Founder of "Grad in Games", ex-CEO of UKIE)

Talk Description: Michael will outline the development of the UK interactive entertainment industry from the perspective of the industry and the consumer and offer some thoughts on the options for its future development over the next few years.

Michael will outline the relationship between academic students and industry and highlight the current obstacles to gaining post graduate employment and offer a number of tactics and strategies to improve your employment chances.

Michael will explain his new business idea for exchange placements between UK and Singapore students, and will look for feedback from the group on the likely interest in such a offer.

Speaker Profile: Michael Rawlinson was CEO of UKIE (WWW.UKIE.ORG.UK ) the trade association for the UK interactive entertainment industry for two years until his departure in April 2011. Prior to this he held several senior management positions within the organisation for the previous 9 years.

During his tenure he transformed the organisation from being solely focused on representing publishers when it was called ELSPA to broadening it remit to encompass the whole of the interactive entertainment sector.

Other highlights include:

the creation of the first Pan-European content classification system – PEGI (www.pegi.info ),
establishing an accreditation scheme for undergraduate degree courses in video games programming and video games art and animation via Creative Skillset, (//www.creativeskillset.org/games/accreditation/ ),
establishing PEGI as the legal system for video games classification in the UK
growing and developing a vibrant and active trade association membership.

Since leaving UKIE Michael has undertaken a one year business and leadership study programme at master’s level and set up a business consultancy.

Michael is currently working on a new business venture, Grads In Games with the vision of harnessing the talents of graduates from video games relevant courses to enrich and stimulate future video games creation.

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