100% OF URBAN ARTS’ 2024 SENIORS MATRICULATE, WITH A $8M SCHOLARSHIP HAUL đź’°
Urban Arts free college access program offers intensive counseling and financial aid supports, enabling 100% of seniors to go to college with minimal-to-no debt. New York, NY—Urban Arts teaches video game design to underrepresented students as a pathway to college and career. As part of Urban Arts’ mission to create a diverse talent pipeline, we […]
ARCADE 2024 🙌🏾 SMASH SUCCESS
New York, NY, June 15—Totally new games to play, dedicated gamers in supportive community, plus industry pros leaning *IN*—#ARCADE 2024 marks another smash success. Over 100 students jammed the Urban Arts Learning Lab to 🍕🍪🍿, to play, to celebrate their work, and to cheer the Studio Teams on as they pitched their year-long efforts to […]
2024 BATTLE OF THE BOROUGHS 🏆
Brooklyn, NY—Urban Arts remains thrilled to be involved with Battle of the Boroughs (BOTB)—an exciting K-12 #scholastic #esports competition from NYC Public Schools, Minecraft Education, and C40’s Reinventing Cities aimed at empowering young New Yorkers to shape their city’s future. BOTB is a three-round elimination-style event where student teams design inclusive, future-ready city spaces. Mayor’s […]
Urban Arts & The College Board: A STEM STEAM Partnership
Game On, an innovative custom curriculum from Urban Arts to teach Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) through Game Design, has recently been endorsed by the College Board. As the only endorsed curriculum powered by Unity’s world-leading platform of tools, Game On teaches computer science through the art and technology of game development, informing […]
OUR FIRST SPRING 🌴 BREAK INTENSIVE POPS OFF 🎉
Spring Break Game Design đź‘ľ Lab 🥽 wrapped up 3-days of intensive hard fun 🧠🥳 with a crash course in #gamedesign for almost 50 NYC high schoolers. Students learned the basics of digital art, music and narrative with expert game designers and produced two games—a text-based interactive story and a simple Unity Technologies platformer remixed with original art, music & sound effects. (Plus, every […]
The Power of Play
“Play is a human need.” Click here to hear Cynthia Williams, President, #wizardsofthecoast & @Hasbro Gaming, and Philip Courtney, CEO, Urban Arts, discuss the #educational benefits of #play—in school, in college and in career. On the EdUp podcast www.edupexperience.com/PhilipAndCynthia Cynthia Williams is President of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming. Cynthia leads strategy and […]
SPAWN, SPRINT AND EDUCATE
New York, NY—Urban Arts, a STEAM nonprofit serving underrepresented students nationally, is expanding into middle schools with Creative Coders, a rigorous curriculum in partnership with Minecraft Education. Supported by a highly competitive $4M Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Urban Arts will partner with 70+ schools and 3,450 students […]
That Time We Won a Really Fantastic Award
Thank you to the NEA Foundation for honoring Urban Arts with the 2023 FNBO Award for Outstanding Service to Public Education. This places Urban Arts in the prestigious company of past winners the NAACP, the American Indian College Fund, Title IX advocate Billie Jean King and Sesame Street Workshop. Urban Arts CEO Philip Courtney spoke at the annual Salute to […]
Third Time’s a ($12M) Charm
Urban Arts has earned its third highly competitive $4M Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. New York, NY—Urban Arts, an arts and technology nonprofit serving underrepresented students nationally, has earned its third highly competitive $4M Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This third […]
Expanding with a Pickaxe
By Philip Courtney, CEO of Urban Arts With our third USDOE EIR grant win, we’re amplifying what we do best with middle schoolers nationally. At Urban Arts, we’re really good at teaching computer science through game development to high school students from low-income communities. We get them into college with well-crafted digital portfolios and we […]