States generate millions of dollars in gaming revenue. This, and an aging baby boomer population had GTECH, a leading international gaming technology and services company headquartered in Providence, R.I., eager to harness how 20-somethings approach lottery gaming in virtual, online and mobile social spaces.
At the 2008 Business Innovation Conference, Don Stanford, chief technical officer of GTECH, approached Stephen Andrade, computer graphics department chair in JWU’s School of Technology (SofT) about interns for GTECH. Andrade suggested they collaborate on a course, and cherry-pick student engineers to attack a real problem.
GTECH departments identified issues and an assignment emerged: Absorb GTECH culture, technology and gaming priorities; conduct ethnographic research of 20-somethings in real, simulated and digital social spaces; propose a social space game prototype; create and “demo” the working prototype; and present graphics and marketing collateral for it. Andrade led the course. Mark Truman, GTECH’s senior technical architect, helped with planning.
SofT juniors and seniors applied for the course in the 2009–2010 winter term. Only 22 students from across technology programs and one fashion merchandising student from the College of Business made the final cut. The first three weeks were held at GTECH. Students were immersed in the history and scope of global gaming. They read books on gaming, heard presentations from marketing and technical executives, and Social Sciences department chair, David Newman, lectured on the role of values, norms and relationships so they could be professional observers of customer behavior in social spaces. Teams spent the next seven weeks in JWU project labs and conference rooms, creating and finessing their prototypes. Week 11, four games that had been developed were presented: “Flip Off,” a mobile application; an online “Big Pocket Billiards” game; a simulated iPhone “scratch ticket” and a feature involving Microsoft Surface technology for hookah bars.
GTECH’s chief marketing officer, Connie Laverty, was so impressed she invited student representatives from the top teams — Flip Off and Big Pocket Billiards — to deliver the keynote address at LaFleur’s, the national conference of the lottery industry in Washington, D.C. “After their keynote, people were rushing the stage and handing our students business cards asking them to ‘do lunch’,” smiles Andrade. “JWU earned a trusted insider position in a growing technical global industry.”
“This project completely changed their [GTECH’s] opinion of JWU and our students,” Maureen Dumas, vice president of Experiential Education & Career Services (EE&CS) says. It has led to additional internships and a full-time hire. “It validates our academic model, experiential approach and career services and the work of our students.”
Providence EE&CS director, Sheri Ispir ’93, ’94 MS, and coordinator, Trudy Michaud, worked with GTECH to create paid internships, attended sessions and advised students on how to parlay the experience into future internships and employment.
“Our students are team ready, project ready and presentation ready,” says Frank Tweedie ’95, ’98 MS, SofT dean. He, assistant dean Nick LaManna and their faculty understand their students’ abilities, academic preparedness and commitment, and how to nurture that. “We’re educating and shaping these young people to respond and anticipate the needs of industry.”
“I can’t describe it. I knew this opportunity was big,” says Christina “Tina” DeSormier ’11. Her computer science department chair, James Sheusi, informed her about this innovative course. “He said ‘It’s going to be really cool’,” DeSormier adds. “I didn’t have the time, but I made time, and it changed my life.” A software engineering and network engineering double major, this course demanded she have a strong handle on both disciplines. Her team produced a functional prototype deployed via WiFi hotspot and delivered through cellular Web browsers. It landed DeSormier a summer internship at GTECH. “I wanted a multidisciplinary approach to my education; this course reinforced that,” she says. “Saying it’s impacted my educational journey is an understatement.”
Image top: Students presented gaming concepts to senior management in the GTECH boardroom.