SCAD has done it again (again). Today and tomorrow, April 16 – 17, the Savannah College of Art and Design will host the fifth annual Game Developers eXchange (GDX), bringing together game developers, educators and students – producing what is effectively the largest gaming conference in the Southeast.

Now do you understand why we’re so gung-ho on gaming?

The event will feature Twitter posts by select speakers and attendees (www.scad.edu/twitter) and a live streaming video presentation by our favorite lady in game development, Brenda Brathwaite.  As we’ve told you before, we’ve been working with Brenda to help us zero in on the gaming industry.  She’s SCAD’s interactive design and game development chair, and has been hailed as one of the top 20 women in game design.  (Go, sistah!)

“We bring together the industry’s brightest stars to an intimate setting where they can exchange ideas with each other and a broad cross-section of students, academicians and fans,” she says.  “There is truly no other conference in the Southeast quite like this one. We’re exceptionally pleased to bring this talent here.”

In 2002, Savannah’s beloved and nationally acclaimed College of Art and Design (SCAD) expanded into international territory by assuming the Lacoste School of the Arts in Lacoste, France.

Now they’re conquering Asia.  I realize I am probably the last one to tell you about their newest international expansion into Hong Kong, but we couldn’t let it go without giving them props.

From the land of Cantonese culture, cosmopolitan consumerism and martial arts comes a collegiate infusion of digital media production for SCAD.  The college will open its four-year branch campus there in 2010, occupying the historic North Kowloon Magistracy Building, which will be restored at SCAD’s hands (see rendition below).  The Hong Kong satellite will offer majors in animation, interactive design and game development, motion media design, visual effects, advertising design, photography, graphic design and illustration.

The process to acquire the building was a competitive one, with SCAD being selected out of over 100 other applicants.  Said SCAD President Paula Wallace,  “SCAD will be the first U.S. university to establish a degree-granting campus in Hong Kong, and we believe SCAD-Hong Kong will become the preeminent site for the study of digital media in Asia.” (View SCAD’s trailer on their move to Asia.)