In the male dominant industry of video games, Sadia Bashir is the female video
game geek who managed to break all the glass ceilings and barriers and made
her way to pursue her dream of becoming the video game developer. She owns a
video game development academy, Pixelart Games Academy (PGA). Sadia’s
success story is an inspiration to all those budding female entrepreneurs who
work through all the hardships and challenges to make it to the top.
Sadia’s Early Years
In her early years, Sadia used to visit the gaming arcades along with her brothers
to play video games. She also used to play these games with her friends. Sadia
was always fascinated with the graphics, characters, and the designs of the video
games and she developed a desire for the video games development and
designing.
Sadia’s parents could not afford her education. By sewing clothes and giving
tuitions, she managed to pursue her studies all the way to COMSATS Institute of
Information Technology, from where she did her Bachelors and Masters. She got
scholarship from HEC for her studies in Bachelors.
Career
Sadia had already tried her hands on graphic designing and animation using
Adobe Flash and Photoshop in her early years. While working on her final project
of Bachelor’s, she realized that she could start developing games. She was
encouraged by her friends and teachers too.
She developed her first game using Unreal Development Kit (UDK) as her final
year project for her bachelor’s. She also used to attend different conferences
during her university days to present her games.
Sadia started working at Keychain Films as an artist and used to create
documentaries and animation work. After that, she worked for Urchin Games for
about two years and got a chance to work with many international giants like Big
Fish Games, Wild Tangent, G5, and Game House. She also joined we.R.play, a
famous game studio in Pakistan and there she worked with international
mentors from Kiwi and RockYou Games.
Pixel Art Games Academy, PGA
Sadia was aware of the difficulties and lack of mentoring for the budding video
game developers. She came with the idea of an academy for the inspiring video
game developers. Soon, she founded the PixlArt GamesAcademy (PGA) along
with her brother-in- law Umair. She took a start at the WECREATE Center and
began working on her business model under the supervision of many experts
and mentors. They helped her launch the PGA and provided her all the
assistance.
The PGA is currently a team of six members from different fields and provides
training sessions and workshops on the video games development and designing.
The academy is working on its first batch and the curriculum and will start its
induction this year.
The PGA has got the support of many international mentors like Ken Levine, Jon
Chey, and Brie Code and providing their full support and assistance to the
Academy. Sadia, herself, is working on two games RPG and a social game.
Sadia takes a stand for the females of Pakistan and gives them a message of hard
work and dedication through her inspirational story. She wants all such women
of Pakistan to come forward and pursue their dreams by staying committed to
their goals.
