VFS presents the 4th Annual Women in Games Scholarship

Apr 25 2012 04:20 AM | Events For Gamers in Women In Games

Global scholarship has seen winners from Canada, the U.S., Brazil, and Norway

April 24, 2012 – Vancouver, BC – Vancouver Film School (VFS), Canada’s premier entertainment arts institution and one of the most distinguished in the world, is pleased to present the Women in Games Scholarship to Kristina Soltvedt Wiik of Norway. The first of its kind in the world, this scholarship provides full tuition for an aspiring female game designer to VFS’s acclaimed one-year Game Design program.

Wiik, currently a journalist for Gamereactor Magazine, is a longtime writer of gaming fiction, and is ready to embrace the challenge of furthering narrative design in interactive entertainment.

"My initial reaction to receiving the Women in Games Scholarship was disbelief,” says Wiik. “It is a tremendous privilege to be awarded such a coveted scholarship and I can't help but be excited at the possibility of realizing my dreams. I'm really looking forward to the year ahead of me, and the ensuing opportunities that VFS will surely offer."

The scholarship was established by Vancouver Film School to encourage women, and create more opportunities for those wishing to pursue game design as a career, in a field traditionally dominated by men - around 80% according to a recent Game Developer survey.

“As always, I am extremely impressed with the quality of applications for the Women in Games Scholarship,” says Dave Warfield, Head of Game Design at VFS. “Our past winners have proven to be exceptional students and already are making a positive impact in the game industry as designers. With what I have seen from our latest winner, the future of gaming looks very promising!”

Previous winners include Shannon Lee of Toronto, now at BigPark Games, Annie Dickerson from Washington, DC, currently with East Side Games, and Larissa Baptista from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil who will graduate from VFS this June and was recently profiled by CBC.

For more information on Vancouver Film School’s one-year Game Design program, the only one-year program included in the Princeton Review’s 2012 list of Top Game Design Programs, visit vfs.com/gamedesign.