Native American student wins $10K grant to start game design company
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A Dakota State University student is the recipient of a $10,000 grant to start his own game design company, Northern Plains Game Design. The start-up will produce video games that are made by and about Native Americans.
Carl Petersen, who is Oohe Numpa Lakota and an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was awarded the Dreamstarter grant.
The grant was created by Billy Mills through the non-profit Running Strong for American Indian Youth. This year it was awarded to ten outstanding youth working on entrepreneurship projects in their communities.
The first game Petersen has been working on developing is called Tipi Builder. It has players build traditional Lakota tipis using instructions and stories in the Lakota language.
The game is intended to help users learn the language in an interactive way, and will be provided to schools to help engage youth in both the language and culture.
You can click here to learn more about Northern Plains Game Design. You can also learn more about the ten recipients of the 2019 Dreamstarter grants from around the nation here.
