collaborate to innovate success story- halfbrick academy
TRANSCRIPT
H a l f B R K C I
Innovation, brick by HALF-A-brick....
Halfbrick?
Founded in 2001
Maker of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride and 20 more
Partners: Apple, Google, Sony, Disney, Tencent, Amazon, Microsoft…
700M+ downloads
20M+ Fans
400M monthly active users
80+ awards in mobile: Apple, Pocket Gamer, IGDA…
120+ countries
92 employees, in 6 locations
2
Our problem
High bar for recruiting
Skills shortage
Schools train people for PC and console
Want to leverage our user base more
Not enough bandwidth to work on all our projects
People assume we’re only going to work on Fruit Ninja
3
Halfbrick Academy
Great at first job (70% first job)
Training platform for recruitment
Give back to the community
Work on something new and different
A lot of our employees come from QUT
QUT premises nearby
4
Academy model
Housed at QUT, in the Creative Industries precinct
Partnered with QUT and the wider universities for applicants
Received 300 applications
Selected 2 teams of 10 people each
The program ran for 3 months: 5 deadlines in 10 weeks
Provided 8 Halfbrick mentors to the team
Goal: develop a Halfbrick IP
5
Results
Results:
3 game created, assessed by Halfbrick internal stakeholders
3 people were progressed to hiring stage
These 3 people were hired!
50% more successful than our regular recruitment process!
6
Outcome
High hiring percentage
Customized learning in line with the industry needs
Successfully emulated a studio environment
Participants were much more engaged than anticipated
Amount of stakeholders created multiple diverging interests
This impacted the time spent with students
People assumed they’d be ready to get a job in the industry
7
What next?
How do we expand on the Academy program?
8
What next?
Fix hiring gap for Halfbrick and startups
Continue working with students
Partner with promising startups
Support the entrepreneurial ecosystem
Provide a working space to promising startups
In situ learning for students
Provide mentors
Bring in entrepreneurial drive
9
People
Place
Opportunities
Leverage Halfbrick’s user base to seed promising startups
Ex: Halfbrick’s investments in Otherlevels, Beintoo, iDreamSky
Fix funding gap for startups
Enable promising entrepreneurs to build their vision
Support with:
HR, admin, legal, accounting, marketing, tech support
10
Growth
Funding
Services
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