VFS awards Its First-Ever Women in Games Scholarship

The Vancouver Film School (VFS) has announced that Shannon Lee from Toronto is the first-ever winner of the Women in Games Scholarship, valued at $30,000. The scholarship covers the full tuition to VFS's one-year Game Design program - recently named by the LA Times as one of the top 10 schools favored by video game industry recruiters. The unique scholarship was launched in February as a means to support and foster talented female game designers in an industry traditionally dominated by males.

More and more women are forging successful careers in the game industry and now make up 20 percent of the workforce, up 17 percent from 2004, according to findings in The Game Industry: Now & in the Future, a 2009 report released by VFS. The school established the Women in Games scholarship to encourage this positive trend.

In addition to the Women in Games Scholarship, VFS also awarded six other scholarships, ranging from $2,500 to $7,000, thanks to the contribution by a number of Game Design Expo 2009 sponsors. Five of the six recipients of these scholarships are women - congrats to all:

• Katharine Craig, Vancouver, Canada. – $7,000 G4techTV scholarship
• Jessica MacGaul, Surrey, Canada – $5,000 EA scholarship
• Denver Thomas, Parsippany, U.S. – $2,800 Big Fish Games scholarship
• Thi Bao Vo, Hanoi, Vietnam – $2,500 Annex Pro scholarship
• Sara Moore, Ottawa, Canada – $2,500 Obsidian Entertainment scholarship
• Bunthita Nijathaworn, Bangkok, Thailand – $2,500 Crystal Dynamics scholarship