This October, Amii hosted TechAid, a huge development conference that welcomes researchers and students of all kinds to attend tech-related talks. Student participants ranged from high school to university, including those doing their undergraduate and master’s degrees. It also offered the chance to meet with people and companies from all parts of the tech industry, learn more about all aspects of the industry, get involved and, most importantly, network!
Beginning at 9 a.m., we jumped right in with a breakfast bar and opening speeches. Conferences can be a little scary, especially if it’s your first. Normally, everything is scheduled for you, and you can follow the crowd. It’s helpful to know at least one person so you don’t end up feeling super awkward.
To attend, you needed to apply and get a bursary, so because of this, the event was largely full of students with relevant experience. A computer science class or two would come in handy for this! I decided to attend because of my background in a fairly niche area of tech game development, and they were offering talks on this. So I rounded up a bunch of my game developer friends and had them all apply with me. One of the most exciting speakers there, in my opinion, was Inflexion Games, a game development studio that lives right here in our city. They had talks about the experience of being an intern and what it may be like working there. I attended a few other talks as well, such as human-centered design, where I learned about project management. It was worth attending because it taught me a lot about new areas of technology that I hadn’t already considered when it came to thinking about careers. This event is annual, so if you want to attend, keep an eye out for AMII’s TechAid bursary applications for next year!
I’ll have to be honest and say that the food was also an exciting and memorable part of this whole experience. Don’t get me wrong, the information and speeches were very helpful and inspiring, but buffets for every meal ended up being a really good time for everyone. For lunch, there were assorted soups, salads and roasts, and we ended with fun little snacks like poutines, tomato soup with grilled cheese, chicken nuggets and so on. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, they set up a dessert bar!
We ended with networking, which can be a little scary, no matter how many times you’ve done it before. It was at the end, so you could skip it if you really wanted, but this was a great opportunity for many people wanting career advice. It was a little different than your average university networking event, where people mostly go in looking for jobs. My tip? Don’t run away from it! Know what you’re looking for and who you think you could talk to, and come in with questions. Even if that means asking about something they had touched on earlier in their speeches – it’s all about making that connection! Now, for someone wanting to get into the game development industry, it was very helpful to be able to have discussions with the people there, so they will remember your face. Again, it’s all about those connections!
Overall, the event was worth going to. I was able to meet some great people who introduced me to others in the industry and hosted more talks and networking events that I could attend later. I learned a whole lot more about the tech industry and peoples’ different journeys and about new career choices I hadn’t known about. If tech is something you want to get started in, this is a really great place to start becoming a little more familiar with it! It’s also a great event to attend more than once due to the ever-changing speakers. Keep an eye out for next year’s conference!
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