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Blind Burners – Develop: Brighton 2023 Opportunity

Who Are Blind Burners?

• Blind Burners (‘BB’) is an international group of blind, partially sighted and sighted gamers and artists, focused on removing barriers to blind and low vision talent in the games and XR industry.
• BB has partnered with the Royal National Institute for the Blind (‘RNIB’) to invite FIVE aspiring game devs from blind and low vision communities across the UK to attend this years’ Develop: Brighton.

What Do We Want?

• The group is running a pilot project at this year’s Develop: Brighton conference.
• We are looking for enthusiastic game industry folk who will benefit from engaging with blind and low vision gamers and game devs, and who can commit to acting as guides on Weds 12th and Thurs 13th July. As part of this project, we are delighted to be able to provide 2-day passes to the event for these days.

Why?

• In creative industries like video games, we recognise the importance of events like Develop: Brighton, with cutting edge educational talks, meetings, and perhaps above all, opportunities for connection. There are significant barriers to a blind person independently navigating such an event and making the most of chances which many of us take for granted. Particularly the chance for serendipitous meetings and late night sharing of hard-won connections and expertise. How does that work when you can’t see who is in the room?

More Info

• We want to offer each participant their own personal buddy/guide for two days of the event, with the aim to match our participants with guides from the industry (Our first participants are from coding, accessibility and community/social backgrounds).
• The group will connect in advance online to discuss career goals and blockers. At the event, our guides will meet our participants at Brighton Station, and from there help them to navigate the event. We aim to be there if and when needed.Some participants will need more assistance than others. Everyone is different. We would ideally like our guides to be available into the evenings, so that our participants can experience some of the networking opportunities. In each case the individuals can reach agreement about their schedules and any breaks needed.
• This is very much a pilot, and we hope that participants and guides will organically work well together to maximise opportunities for our blind participants. The ideal volunteer would be someone bright and open and curious, who is happy to serve, and help our participants reach out and have conversations with people around the event.

Downloadable PDF of this project note here.

Download our press release here.

Download information about the artists here.

Contact & Feedback

We’d love to hear from you and get your feedback on our website, artists’ work, VR Worlds on any aspect of the Blind Burners Community projects.

VR World Onboarding

If you are interested in onboarding to our VR Worlds, you can also use the enquiry form to book an appointment.

Telephone Enquiries

If you would like to speak to our team by telephone, please complete the enquiry form in the first instance and we will come straight back to you.

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