About the Talent Award
The Austrian Talent Award is an award set up by PGDA that celebrates the games made by students and scholars.
From its very first day of existence, PGDA focuses on encouraging young talent and helping students, as well as graduates, get started in the industry. Many senior developers hold lectures at universities, make themselves available for talks and workshops, trying their best to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of game developers.
Austria provides outstanding education quality in all districts throughout the country, as demonstrated by Austrian developers working at major studios worldwide. Additionally, graduates’ entrepreneurship enhances the local scene with exciting new projects and successful establishment of new companies.
To cherish talent and remove some hurdles on the way into our beloved industry, PGDA introduced the nationwide Talent Award.
What are the goals of this award?
PGDA and FH Salzburg established an annual award that provides a platform for students and scholars to present their projects to a wider audience. This initiative fosters new talent and facilitates access to local and international networks, enabling them to take their first steps into the professional world with greater ease.
The increased visibility resulting from this award helps students and scholars to commercialize their projects and explore entrepreneurial opportunities, such as forming a company around their first game. Taking inspiration from many successful predecessors and best practices from various universities and schools, this initiative showcases Austria’s thriving game development industry and raises awareness among decision-makers.
Finally, this award recognizes and celebrates the outstanding work done by schools that have established internationally acclaimed curricula for games, putting a spotlight on their achievements over many years.
PGDA is proud of the scene we have in Austria and the knowledge as well as experience that is available. The core idea for this award is “from Austria for Austria”, meaning we assemble a jury consisting of professionals working in Austria, or Austrians working abroad.
