Columbia College Chicago Hosts High School 'Girl Gamers' in a Mentorship Summit Focused on Gaming and Gender Equity

CHICAGO, June 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Leading North American female game designers and scholars will come together with young women gamers on Aug. 12-15 at Columbia College Chicago to look at the female voice in the digital gaming industry.  The 3G Summit: The Future of Girls, Gaming, and Gender is an unprecedented four-day initiative to engage 50 'girl gamers' from Chicago-area high schools in a series of discussions and workshops designed to foster professional mentorship and ignite exchange about their place in the gaming culture.  

The 3G Summit (www.colum.edu/3gsummit) is a rare opportunity to learn what young women want from electronic and online games, and according to organizers, is specifically designed to help change the conversation in education and in the world of technology as it provides insight into gender equity and gaming.  It also looks at how digital games delivered over mobile phones and social networking sites can be used for social awareness, civic engagement, and cultural expression.

"As it evolves and matures, the game industry is looking to new voices and new perspectives in order to imagine its own future," says Los Angeles-based Tracy Fullerton, who will be among the professional mentors.  "I can't think of a better place to start developing those voices than a gathering like the 3G Summit, where young women can begin to imagine themselves as creative leaders of that future."

Students will develop concepts for their own games over the course of the weekend under the mentorship of the five professional female game designers as the final deliverable for the summit.  Senior Columbia College Interactive Arts and Media students will develop the concepts into games as a fall semester project.  

"The summit engages girls as future game designers and powerful technology users, not just as an untapped consumer market," says Mindy Faber, co-organizer and director of Open Youth Networks in Columbia College's Interactive Arts and Media Department. "Ultimately, bringing more women to the table in the gaming field changes what gets made, how it is made, and to what purpose."

The 3G Summit is a multi-year initiative co-presented by Open Youth Networks and Columbia College's Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. Following this inaugural year of the summit, the presenters plan to extend the program through afterschool components and continued engagement between the girls and their mentors, including the summit's blog site (www.3gcolumbia.net).

Columbia College Chicago is an urban institution that offers innovative degree programs in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to more than 12,000 students in over 120 undergraduate and graduate programs. An arts and media college committed to a rigorous liberal arts curriculum, Columbia is dedicated to opportunity and excellence in higher education. For further information, visit www.colum.edu.

Full news release at www.colum.edu/news

SOURCE Columbia College Chicago