NETL partners with the Urban League of Pittsburgh and Catalyst Connection to support a two-week fundamental course on the basics of video game design and programming to disadvantaged youths in Allegheny County.

Taught by instructors from the DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Washington, this foundation-level course teaches students the C++ and Java programming languages, as well as three-dimensional modeling, thereby enabling students to create an actual video game.

The principles taught at the DigiPen camp, converting a set of rules with boundary constraints into computer code and presenting the outcome in an easily understandable visual format, are the same ones used by engineers at NETL in developing advanced computational engineering software. 

The mission of the program is to stimulate enthusiasm among high school students in the fields of computer science, computer processing and programming, information technology and information systems.

Other partners in the DigiPen Video Game Summer Camp include the Pittsburgh Technology Council, Allegheny County's Department of Human Services, Microsoft and Point Park University