1. The idea is to show the industry that there's an entire world under 18yo or 16yo that can contribute with a lot of added value to the universe of testing.

Profession: student 7th grade Studies: Secondary school 97, Bucharest Conferences: Romanian Testing Conference 2017, key note speaker, youngest speaker ever Fan of: RGDA (Romanian Game Developers Association) Volunteer: Interact (Rotary’s volunteer club for 12 – 18 year aged) youngest member ever Foreign languages: • English - Excellent • French- beginner Hobbies : I. Computer science (Programming in C) – Attented to OJI(Olimpiada Judeteana de informatica) 2015 – 2016 - the main national contest in Romania in this field II. Math – Attended to OMM (Olimpiada Municipala de Matematica) 2015 – 2016 - the main national contest in Romania in this field III. English language - PET Certificate ( CAMBRIDGE ) obtained in 4th grade IV. Traveling V. Gaming (World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Skyrim, Team Fortress 2, The Forest, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Wolfenstein 3D (The first Wolfenstein game, showed to me by my father), Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Assassin’s Creed 3, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed Unity, Lord of The Rings Online, Star Wars : The Old Republic, Star Wars : Battlefront, Battlefield 1, Darksiders, Darksiders 2, Minecraft), many others.

In this presentation I will try to make the attendees understand that a gaming community with a great potential, gamers below 18yo, are not taken into account by a lot of gaming communities or by fellow gamers, rather than being stimulated to play more and to enter in more groups and provide an input. I will try to explain why they have such great potential, and why they should be asked to perform a big part of game testers’ job despite the laws that look more to their age than to their resources.

Who plays and who surfs the internet?

We all use the internet quite often. For some of us this means hours of daily playing or surfing. But who is this “we”… I’ll point out that the demographics of “we” is not quite identical with the demographics of “them”, the ones that develop and most of all the ones that test games and software… For people who know me it’ll not be a surprise that I’ll focus on games and apps on this one. Now, about “we”, I’ll show that the European and American internet user profiles have a lot to do with young people, a lot of them under 18yo. This is true even if we disregard the fact that a lot of players simply lie about their age (me included for today and most probably you, for yesterday, the ones that will assess my abstract…)

Who are the guys that develop and test?

The answer to this question is an easy one: people above 18yo! We kids may claim the parenthood for some easy to play games or apps but we cannot say we test any of the products we use on internet. Since I am below 18 I will call those guys “them”. To cut a long story short, 18+yo test and develop products for 10+yo which might sound a bit odd to many of other industries. Just imagine a newborn food tested by a high school or university graduate. I bet the testers will blow it…

Who says “we” cannot be “them”?

Well, the law and any company involved in developing and testing! There is, if I may say so, a narrow perspective on this idea of testing. Since testing a software is nothing like testing a baby food I am not considering focus groups a real way to test. Companies may organize such groups and involve 18-yo persons. What I’ll try to prove is that “we” can tick a lot of the boxes listed in any tester job description. And, above all, “we” want to go legal and separate the money from the job. It’s the fun of the job we are looking for! So let’s build such a niche where we, kids, are able to test rigorously, professionally and most of all legally, games or any other piece of software.