Innovators throughout the business and education worlds are increasingly seeking ways to harness the untapped potential of electronic games and social media as powerful learning tools. The Emergent Media Center (EMC) at Champlain College has led the way in exploring this exciting new territory. Now that pioneering journey takes its next step as the EMC moves into new quarters at Winooski's historic Champlain Mill.
A celebration to mark the official opening of the EMC was held Tuesday, Oct. 21. The community met the students, faculty and staff of the high-tech education center and saw some of the ground-breaking projects. Gov. Jim Douglas, Champlain College officials, Winooski City officials and representatives from many top technology and software designers were expected to attend the opening.
Gov. Douglas sees the EMC's move into the Champlain Mill as a critical step in the creation of a thriving hub for innovative new media and technology businesses. The EMC is poised to become a vital link to a burgeoning creative community, one that will work with the Vermont Software Developers Alliance to grow this sector of the economy.
Since its launch in 2006, the EMC at Champlain College has blazed a trail to where emergent technologies and learning converge, according to Ann DeMarle, director of the EMC. The electronic game industry is a world-wide economic engine that generates over $32.6 billion in revenue annually. That figure is expected to double by the year 2011, she said.
Students at the EMC are not merely seizing new opportunities, they're creating them. Their skills and professionalism led to ground-breaking partnerships with a wide range of organizations, she said.
Among these many milestones is a project with the United Nations Population Fund. In partnership with the Population Media Center, the EMC is using new electronic media to positively impact women's public health and human rights issues. Other current EMC partners include IBM, America's Army, CIMIT at Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Vermont and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Games for Health, Information Literacy, Google Earth, and the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain.
According to state officials, the EMC is a great example of showcasing the exciting careers young people can enjoy in Vermont. Located in a renovated woolen mill in Winooski, Champlain students are able to live across the street in a new student housing facility, and rub elbows with design and software engineering professionals who have already located to the Champlain Mill.
Vermont has one of the highest concentrations of high-tech exports in the nation. In fact, three-quarters of all exports from Vermont are high-tech goods, heading for places like Canada, Hong Kong and South Korea, according to a recent study by AeA, the nation's largest technology trade association.