Maximising our digital and creative industries

On Wednesday last week, Robert and myself attended the "Maximising our digital and creative industries" event in Edinburgh. The delegate list included a wide range of individuals from a variety of organisations and educational institutions including Scottish Enterprise, Channel 4, NESTA, Scottish Development International, Skillset Scotland, The Scottish Government, SQA and TIGA.

There was an exciting collection of speakers, each of which provided an insightful contribution to the day. The speakers and their topics included:

• Welcome and Introduction: Mark Stephen - Broadcaster, Nevismark.
• Opening keynote speech: Jim Mather - Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, Scottish Government
• Support Mechanisms for creativity and innovation: David Hartley - Digital Markets, Scottish Enterprise
• Matching Qualifications and skills to the industry: Alasdair Smith - Skillset Scotland and Northern Ireland
• Inspiring Interest in Technology: Derek Robertson - National Adviser for Emerging Technologies and Learning, Learning and Teaching Scotland
• NESTA's enterprise support: launching successful creative businesses: Jackie McKenzie - Head of Innovation Programmes Scotland, NESTA
• Channel 4's innovation for the public: investing in digital media: Ewan McIntosh - 4iP
• Risks, rewards and challenges in the games industry: Colin MacDonald - RealTime Worlds
• TIGA - Demonstrating the value of trade bodies: Jeff Meek - Head of creative industries, French Duncan & Treasurer, TIGA
• Developing Partnerships with creative industries: Paul Harris - The University of Abertay Dundee
• Learning lessons from elsewhere: Tracy Harwood, Institute of creative technologies, DeMontfort University

Whilst all the presentations were incredibly interesting, my favourites of the day had to be the "inspiring interest in technology" presentation by Derek Robertson and the "risks, rewards and challenges in the games industry" presentation by Colin MacDonald.

Derek talked to us about the work he is currently doing in Dundee to introduce computer games in the classroom in order to inspire children and introduce now methods of learning. It was fantastic to see how motivated children were to learn basic mental arithmetic and problem solving skills when it was presented to them in a more interesting and 21st century manner - ie. through games based learning using the Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and the PSP. Derek's enthusiasm for the research, coupled with the unargable positive impacts on the children's learning ability really emphasised the role that enabling technologies has to play in the 21st century classroom!!

Moving from young kids to big kids, we were fortunate enough to hear from Colin McDonald from RealTime worlds who talked to us about the trends and challenges in the games industry. While we take for granted the rewards on offer in this multi billion pound industry, Colin was quick to set the record straight by outlining that the costs of producing a game for the xbox/playstation/handheld devices largely eats into any profits that may be made, therefore its not an industry where millions of pounds of profits are made - its an industry where passion, love of gaming and staying in business is of upmost importance. However, it was encouraging to hear that the recent trend to online gaming has opened up a host of new opportunities for the games industry and I now wait in anticipation for the release of their upcoming online game APB in Spring 2010.

SCET were fortunate enough to exhibit at the event and I thank all those who took the time to talk to us about the work we are doing to help the creative and digital industries in Scotland!

Thanks again to Holyrood events who organised this fantastic and highly interesting conference. I certainly look forward to the next one!