What’s a better way to get young school going children to be interested in animation and game development than organising a competition. That’s exactly what Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation did with its Creativity @ Schools program which saw over 700 participation from over 40 schools.
The event which took place in 2020 finally concluded with winners coming from two categories – animation and games. While the prize money and hardware was the draw to get students interested, the bigger motivation is by giving these young talents an avenue to showcase their skills. According to one of the winner, the program has taught him various skills in User Interface, User Experience, and sound design while giving him a good idea of what game design development is like. Meanwhile first place winner Adam, finds the program giving him encouragement to learn more about animation like what is exactly needed in the animation production field like 3D animation, rendering and character building. Its this type of response MDEC is seeking when it developed the program.
- MDEC’s Vice President for Digitally Powered Business Gopi Ganeslingam, believes the program is crucial in efforts to develop talent and interest in the digital creative field among students. By laying the foundation at a young age, Malaysia will eventually have talents to support the digital creative content industry. This is part of other initiatives like the Digital Content Grant, which are initiated to development Malaysia’s digital content industry, he added.
- There are more efforts being cooked up by the agency to build a conducive digital content economy, among them includes providing skilling opportunities, tools and resources as well as financial assistance to help businesses within this industry thrive and be competitive industry leaders. MDEC has been giving grants out for potential businesses embarking on digital scaling.
