Digital Media Academy

Digital Media Academy

Type	Private
Founded	2002
Website	http://www.digitalmediaacademy.org

Digital Media Academy (commonly referred to as "DMA") is a digital art and technology education company, located in Los Gatos, CA, primarily offering art and STEM summer camp programs for kids, age 6-18, at several universities in the US and Canada, including Stanford, Harvard, UCLA, Chicago, NYU, UBC, UoT, among other prestigious ones.^[1] DMA now also licenses curriculum and other STEM resources to schools internationally.^[2] DMA was officially incorporated in 2002, but was incubated at Stanford University in the late 1990s as the Academy for New Media, a program of Stanford's Academic Computing department. The Academy for New Media was created at Stanford by Phil Gibson in 1999 as an outreach to K-12 educators and high-school students interested in learning the latest digital media software tools from award-winning creative professionals.^[3] In Fall 2001, the Academy for New Media fell victim to University budget cuts and the program was transitioned away from Stanford to a private entity – and Digital Media Academy was born. The Stanford University Continuing Studies department offered CEU credit through Digital Media Academy from 2002-2014.^[4] Students may attend Digital Media Academy summer camps with the day camp or residential camp option. These camps offer sports and recreation, while being known as a tech camp primarily.

Program offerings

DMA designs, develops, and delivers STEM curriculum for students of all ages. Digital Media Academy summer tech camps offer kids 6-17 and adults the opportunity to learn a variety of tech and new media skills in topics including Programming & Coding, 3D Printing & Product Design, Filmmaking, Photography, Game Design & Development, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Graphic Design, 3D Modeling, Animation, Robotics, and Wearable Tech. For schools and educators, DMA offers curriculum licensing, professional development, mentoring and support. DMA has been an Apple Inc. Authorized Training Center^[5] and Adobe Systems Training Partner.^[6] For youth, DMA offers summer computer camps, including sleep away camps at top universities throughout the United States and Canada, including its flagship location at Stanford University^[7]

Partnerships

Digital Media Academy offers a scholarship program^[8] to make its courses accessible to everyone and has partnered with various non-profit and community-focused organizations including the New Media Consortium,^[9] CUE and the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.^[10]

References