DCU and Carlow IT team compete for top international video games award
Monday 11 June 2007

Adrian Murphy, Co. Wexford and Darragh Coy, Co. Mayo, both 2nd year students in the BSc Computer Games Development at IT Carlow. The DCU team members are Scott Bryan and all third year BSc students in Multimedia at DCU.

Five Republic of Ireland students – 3 from DCU and 2 from Carlow IT – have been shortlisted to compete in a prestigious and highly competitive international video games development contest.

Success can lead to a BAFTA nomination and a lucrative career in the booming video games sector. Previous winners are now in highly paid jobs in the video games sector or have started their own games companies.

The five travel to Belfast tomorrow (June 6th 2007) to begin an intensive, all expenses paid, nine weeks’ work on their game prototype.

The “Dare to be Digital” competition is open to students in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but also has teams competing from India and China, this year.

Thirteen teams from Ireland, North and South, submitted entries for this year’s competition. Apart from the Republic’s DCU- Carlow IT team, one other from Northern Ireland was selected to compete.

After the nine weeks’ development phase, the game prototypes will be showcased to industry experts and the public in Edinburgh, Scotland. As well as cash awards for the winning teams, the top three will also be nominated for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts “Ones to Watch Award”.

In Ireland ‘Dare to Be Digital’ is run by the The Digital Hub through the Diageo Liberties Learning Initiative and is supported by Enterprise Ireland, IDA and Belfast City Council.

The Carlow IT-DCU team members are Adrian Murphy from Wexford and Darragh Coy from Mayo both 2nd year BSc students in Games Development at Carlow IT, and Scott Bryan, Kieran Mc Cabe and Paddy O’Hanlon, all 3rd year BSc students in Multimedia at Dublin City University.