A free club which teaches web, app and coding skills to 11-18 year olds is to be set up in Derry.

The first meeting of the Coderdojo is to be held from 2-4pm at the Nerve Centre, Magazine Street [this] Saturday. Young people from Derry, Strabane, Inishowen and beyond are invited to participate.

“The Coderdojo computer coding clubs are part of a global network, which were founded in Ireland by Bill Liao and James Whelton,” says volunteer and parent, Trish Hegarty. “We’ve had great support from Bill Liao in our efforts to get one set up in this region, and we’ve already got a small group of volunteers to mentor the young coders.”

She added: “I got involved after my 11-year-old set up his own blog and website, all from his interest in online construction game Minecraft, and developing ‘mods’ or modifications for this game,” says Trish. “He is very keen now to learn more, and is already talking about wanting to develop his own apps.” The new club has been set up in conjunction with Rosa McLaughlin from Foyle Learning Community and Digital Derry Champion Mark Nagurski,

Anyone who wishes to register a child, offer to mentor or help in any way with Coderdojo Derry should contact Trish at trish@iniscommunications.com or call her on +35386 1740057.

It’s down to the finalists now and the winners will be announced on June 1st at a black tie dinner in the City Hotel.

The full shortlist is below:

Award Finalists

Business of the Year
City of Derry Airport
360 Productions
Millennium forum

Entrepreneur of the Year
John & Donna Moran – Moran’s
John Farren – 360 Productions
Paddy and Edmund Simpson – Brunswick Cinebowl

Innovation Award
Uproar Comics
Dog Ears
Crescent Diagnostics

Best Tourism Initiative
Ilex
City Tours
Foyle International Ltd

Tourism Services Award
Airporter
Foyle International Ltd
City of Derry Airport

Best Large Business
Sainsbury’s
Donnelly & Taggart
City of Derry Airport

Outstanding Professional Service Award
MCM Insurance
MPA Recruitment
Paul O’Keefe

Digital Company of the Year
Dog Ears
Seedups
360 Productions

Healthy Workplace Award
Londonderry Port & Harbour
Woodvale Construction
St Columbs College

Promotion of Arts & Culture
Millennium Forum
The Playhouse
Foyle International Ltd

Best SME
Moran’s
Austin’s & co
Airporter

Best Night time Economy
Custom House
Brunswick Cinebowl
Millennium Forum

Excellence in Customer Service
Firstsource
Curtis Opticians
Airporter

4Talent is coming to Derry at the end of the month and is looking for talented people aged 16-24 for a series of free workshops from industry experts. Free lunch and goodie bags for all!

If you know someone who fits the bill, the event takes place at The Nerve Centre on May 30th with registration from 930am for a 10am start (prompt).

Please pass it on.

The deal will see Black Market Games’ Dead Hungry Diner, a fast-paced puzzle and strategy game, released in over 150 countries and territories.

“With Dead Hungry Diner, our goal was to create a charming, fun game that could be enjoyed by all the family,” said Sean McCafferty, Lead Designer at Black Market Games. “Hitting that sweet spot between accessibility and depth is a key design principle for us. We looked at classic movie monster imagery to make our characters as easily identifiable as possible, as well as game mechanics that would feel innovative and yet familiar – and that’s really what it is all about – the Player’s Experience.”

To date, Black Market Games’ maiden title has received a warm welcome in the gaming press from both casual and mainstream websites respectively, being heavily praised for its polish and production values. Popular PC Gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun described Dead Hungry Diner as “casual gaming gold” and GameZebo the “home for casual game reviews” gave the game a 4-out-of-5 star review and proclaimed “it’s without a doubt a shoo-in for players who enjoy time management games”.

“We are delighted to have launched our first title “Dead Hungry Diner” with Big Fish. It is a fantastic show of support that the games we are creating are in demand right now.” said Lee Fallon, Chief Financial Officer at Black Market Games. “At Black Market Games, we have a lot of fun developing fresh and fun ideas which we plan to commercialise across a variety of media platforms, this release marks the start of our long term strategy”.

“Big Fish’s knowledge and experience of the casual games market enabled us improve Dead Hungry Diner beyond what would normally be achievable for a small developer alone.” said Eric Reinhart, CEO at Black Market Games. “We are looking forward to continuing this partnership over our forthcoming titles.”

• Speaker: Rohan Gunatillake is the guy behind Edinburgh Festivals Innovation Lab, Culture Hack Scotland, the Speirs Locks regeneration and Mission Models Money. He’s also been named in Wired Magazine’s “50 people who are about to change the world”.
• Games Arcade: We’ll be taking over Foyleside Shopping Centre with a free games arcade packed full of locally developed games
• Speakers: CEO of the Edinburgh Fringe, Kath Mainland and Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Andrew Coulton are planning a double-header on how tech is changing the world’s biggest festival
• Speaker: Tom Chatfield is the author of Fun, Inc and has spoken at TED Global and has consulted for Google and Mind Candy amongst others.
• Music: Facilitated by Fighting With Wire frontman Cahir O’Doherty, bndhck live is an interactive songwriting event at which all writers from any genre are invited to network, collaborate and complete new songs for publication.
• Music: Cork-based electronica producer REID will be seducing our earholes on Thursday night
• Drum Machine: The Drum Machine is a unique audio visual experience which provides up to six users a chance to jam in time together and create an unexpected live improvised electronic composition.

And there’s even more coming next week.

This is a new category to recognise the industry specifically and is open to businesses of any size. You can nominate yourself or any other local digital business you like.

PLEASE download the app form here and return it by Friday (deadline extended).

It can be emailed directly to christina@londonderrychamber.co.uk

Augmented Performance from nonzerosum on Vimeo.

Please take five minutes to complete this short survey and give us your thoughts:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DigitalDerry_BusinessResponse

Thanks!

Mark

As part of the run up to the Derry-Londonderry’s term as UK City of Culture in 2013, the city today announced that it will host a major new festival of digital culture this summer.

Culture Tech is billed as a four-day festival of digital culture and technologies and will take place from August 29th to September 1st within Derry’s historic walled city centre. The festival promises an eclectic mix of film screenings, digital arts installations, live music performances, public workshops and a major games tournament.

We’re bringing in speakers, acts and artists from all over the globe but there’ll also be a strong emphasis on exciting projects being developed right here in Northern Ireland. We hope it’s an event that everyone can come and enjoy and we expect to have over 10,000 people taking part over the four days.

The festival will include an industry conference expected to attract over 500 delegates and also a showcase event, co-sponsored by Invest Northern Ireland, where local companies can present their projects.

Martin Adair, acting Head of Creative Industries at Invest NI, commented:

“Northern Ireland’s vibrant creative industries sector is hugely important to the Northern Ireland economy which has ambitious, world-class companies operating across the full spectrum of industries, from film and TV to digital media including gaming, animation and music.

“The Culture Tech festival will be an important opportunity to showcase this talent and help to maximise the export potential of these business as well as position Northern Ireland competitively among international investors.”

Brian Burns from festival sponsors Seagate said:

“The creative industries, particularly games and music, are a hugely important growth area for Seagate. As digital content, such as music, video, photos and games, becomes more integrated into everyday life, the idea of static data storage is becoming obsolete.  Today, people want to access, share and secure digital content using dynamic storage solutions that give them the freedom to do business, and to create and interact at any time and anywhere. Seagate is in the business of delivering the advanced digital storage solutions that meet these needs. We’ve also been in Derry for nearly 20 years and have a long-standing association with the creative industries here. With that in mind, we’re enormously excited to be associated with what will undoubtedly be a fantastic event.”

Many of the festival events are open to the public and free to attend and the organisers expect it to be a big draw for families. Tickets for the conference, screenings and music events start at just £49 for all four days and are available online at www.culturetech.co where you’ll also find details of the festival programme.