My name is Allie Weis and I currently work as our Ethics Coordinator in International Game Development at Howest - Digital Arts and Entertainment. As the Ethics Coordinator position at DAE is a fairly new one (as from June 2021), I’ve been working towards a few goals this academic year: reach a broader and more international audience with our #GameforThought livestream and podcast series, launch a Mission Statement to guide and support our community, and find ways to make our female and/or minority-identifying students feel fully welcome and empowered as future industry professionals.

It's my hope that these highlights help inspire – in any way possible – young people to explore possibilities in game development/game design. Far too often, we see that stereotype threat pushes potential students/industry professionals away from a more technical career – one that they actually could really excel in. I believe that highlighting success stories from our very own alumni – from all sorts of backgrounds – could provide inspiration to those who are doubting if they could really succeed in the game/digital entertainment industry, amongst high pressure in a (largely) male-dominated space.

Enter #GameforThoughtSuccessStories, our newest project highlighting success stories among female and/or minority-identifying graduates. We’ll be interviewing a few alumni per semester, primarily surrounding their experiences in the industry thus far & how their identity has impacted their experience (or not) over the course of their career. We also look forward to hearing more about how education might differ from real-life industry experience in the industry.