Huntington, W.Va. – The fifth annual West Virginia Game Developer Expo (WVGDE) has joined forces with the West Virginia Cybersecurity Expo to host a joint virtual event Friday, Nov. 6 and Saturday, Nov. 7.
Creative professionals and students from the fields of game development, mobile app development, network cybersecurity, graphic design, and multimedia design students will convene across the two-day span for learning, hands-on demonstrations, showcases, and networking.
Registration for the expo is currently open and free. Details can be found online at www.wvgamedevexpo.com. Emails will be sent out Thursday evening to all registered attendees with instructions on how to watch the sessions. Attendees will be able to take part in live Q & A opportunities at the end of each session. Sessions will start Friday and Saturday mornings at 11:00 a.m. (Eastern Time Zone). A schedule of sessions is available at www.twitter.com/wvgde.
People from across the country will be attending the virtual event, which has been modeled after major conferences such as GDC Game Development Conference. Speakers this year are from West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Washington, and California.
Multiple keynote addresses will be given for the different disciplines. Three game development keynotes will take place Friday.
For the cybersecurity part of the expo, Danielle Cox, the Chief Information Security Officer with the West Virginia Office of Technology, will be giving a keynote Friday at 11:00 a.m. Danielle manages the State’s Security Operations Center, directs the Risk management and vulnerability program, and identifies other risks to State data, personnel, applications, and systems. Danielle will be speaking about how to get into the cybersecurity field and the opportunities available in West Virginia.
“We have been able to recruit many high-quality speakers from across the country and also bring back several of our fantastic former keynote speakers to talk about the current state of the gaming industry.” said Patrick Smith, Associate Professor and Expo organizer. “With the added addition of the cybersecurity track, we can show our community the abundant opportunities in the InfoSec field here in our own backyard. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the job outlook for Information Security Analysts will grow by 31% in the next ten years, and many of those jobs will be right here in West Virginia.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics for Software Developers shows an estimated job growth of 22% in the next ten years.
Mountwest Community & Technical College is a public institution with approximately 1,500 students. Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, Mountwest offers more than 60 associate degree options and 15 one-year certificates.
According to recent research, global video game markets are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 13% from 2020 to 2027 and was valued at more than 150 billion dollars in 2019. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/video-game-market)
Information Technology
Mountwest Community & Technical College offers multiple Network Systems & Security degrees that prepare students for industry certifications from Cisco, Microsoft, CompTIA and EC Council by offering real-world knowledge taught by certified professors.
Information Technology
The Animation and Game Developer curriculum is designed to provide training in principles and techniques used to create interactive 2D and 3D computer games.
