GDC 2019: The Blacks in Gaming Green Room

As the Game Developers Conference (GDC) has continued we come to one of our last – but certainly not least! – community events of the week. Xbox was proud to host the 14th annual Blacks in Gaming Green Room. With over 260 gaming industry professionals in attendance, it was a night of connection, uplift and networking between black game creators, developers, writers, artists, and more. Check out some great shots from the event photo booth and share yours on social media using #BiGXbox 

 

Continuing the theme of celebrating the accomplishments of black game developers, we at Team Xbox were also excited to continue to award the Jerry Lawson Grant for Career Development in honor of Gerald A. “Jerry” Lawson (1940-2011).

BiG Image Inline

BiG Image Inline

 

Jerry Lawson was one of the first African American engineers in the video game industry and inventor of the Channel-F gaming console, the first gaming system to utilize swappable ROM cartridges. The grant provided three indie game developers who identify as black and/or of African descent with GDC Conference + Summits passes, an opportunity to meet with Kareem Choudhry, CVP of Microsoft Gaming Cloud and Blacks at Xbox’s executive sponsor, and opportunities to hear from industry leaders and privately network with black game creators. 

 

Next year will mark 15 years of hosting this incredible community of gaming industry professionals and we can’t wait to welcome them again for this milestone! For more on Blacks at Xbox, please visit our official site.

See the rest of the story on Xbox Wire

Related:
GDC 2019: Gaming & Disability Community Reception 2019 Recap 
Xbox Celebrates International Women’s Day
Celebrating Gaming, Community and What #MyXbox Can Mean for You

Source: Xbox Blog