San Mateo-based Zynga hosts girls’ gaming camp

“Zynga is going to have people working with them, and they will be from all disciplines,” Foran said. “So if you love games, it’s a way to get involved in something you feel passionate about, even if it’s not your skill set.”

The importance of having a dedicated space for girls to develop their coding and gaming skills was not always immediately understood in the early stages of the organization's life, which began in 2014. But since then, Laila Shabir, CEO and founder of Girls Make Games, said more people have come to understand its impact.

“We heard a lot more at the outset, but because we have more organizations doing this work, it's become easier to talk about. With any space … you'll always find people who are similar will flock together. With girls, they [would say], ‘Every time I go into my robotics class, I'm the only girl. When I come to Girls Make Games, everyone looks like me,’” Shabir said.

Soon, parents also began to understand the impact, boosting word-of-mouth and subsequently enrollment numbers.

The camp is for girls ages 8 to 18, and even though the courses involve coding and technical skills, most of the attendees have a more artistic interest in gaming.

“The majority are not interested in coding. They’re coding because it gets them to the product they want to make,” Shabir said. “They are more creative and are more about the storytelling and the art and design, so it is a different audience than if you went to an app-making camp.”

That also means that conversations around AI use and ethics have become particularly salient. Shabir said she has noticed an increase in the frequency of AI use among kids and adolescents using AI, even compared to last year.

“This is the first time we will sit down with them and talk about AI and ask them how they are using it,” Shabir said. We’re going to learn a lot from that. Instead of fighting the tide, we want to find a place that is ethical.”

But because many of the participants are primarily creative driven, she said she’s noticed more questions and concerns about future career prospects.

“It’s a concern also because we are a creative industry, and some of our students [say], ‘I want to go into game art. What does my future look like?’” she said. “Those are some of the concerns we are grappling with. We are very eager to automate a lot of things, but in an industry like gaming, people are very, very passionate … about their work so it does affect them.”

alyse@smdailyjournal.com

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