Thurs the 8th of May at 6.30pm will see the annual birthday event to celebrate 5 years of gamedevelopers.ie.

This year we are being hosted by the School of Computing at DIT, Kevin Street in Dublin, room K007.

To find the venue please search on http://maps.google.com/. Signs on the ground floor of the building will lead you to the room.

The event will kick off with a reception at 6.30pm, kindly sponsored by the School of Computing at DIT. Finger food and refreshments will be provided.

The formal proceedings will start at 7pm with an introduction by Bryan Duggan, lecturer in games at DIT. This will be followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Dr. Aphra Kerr of NUI Maynooth, looking at how the Irish games industry has developed over the past five years and where it is going.

The panel members have all been selected as they have been involved in the games industry since the beginning of gamedevelopers.ie. They are also involved in different areas of the games industry and games education. So they have a lot of experience and expertise to share.

Confirmed speakers so far include:
Tony Kelly, Chief Operations Officer with Demonware, the leading Irish network middleware company that was recently acquired by Activision.

Dr. Steve Collins, co-founder of leading Irish middleware company Havok, and Director of the Interactive Entertainment Technology Masters Degree in Trinity College Dublin

Peter Lynch, Managing Director of web and wireless games studio Eirplaygames which is located in the Digital Hub

Claire Fitch, freelance audio designer with Fitch Sounds Audio.

The panel discussion will be followed by the annual gd.ie awards. Any member of the gd.ie forums can vote. Even if you cannot attend on the evening you can still vote. To vote please visit http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4886

Socialising will continue afterwards in the Bleeding Horse, on Camden Street in Dublin. see http://www.living-dublin-pubs.com/reviews/bleeding-horse.htm

Who can attend?
Attendance is free but please send an e-mail to events@gamedevelopers.ie so we can organize seating and refreshments.

Parking
There is limited parking at DIT Kevin Street after 6.30pm and parking on the street is free after 7pm. Otherwise St. Stephen’s Green and RCSI car parks are probably the closest.

DIT, Kevin Street, Dublin.
For more on DIT’s Department of Computing see http://www.comp.dit.ie/website07/

For more on their BSc in Computer Science which has a games stream see http://www.comp.dit.ie/dt228/structure.html and
http://seriousgames.ie/mediawiki-1.6.10/index.php/Courses