Game, set and buy for Chad

You can forgive Chad Goulding for lingering a little longer than most at the shelves of computer games, for the 22-year-old from Boston is only making sure that his name is spelt correctly on the computer game he helped develop as a student. Chad took a one year placement with Empire Interactive in Oxford, a computer games company whilst a student on the Middlesbrough-based University of Teesside's BSc (Hons) Visualisation course. He has just graduated with First Class Honours.

Chad's interest in computers started at an early age as his father Russell sells computers for a living. Before he began the course at Teesside he had already written a couple of computer programs and was interested in computer games as a hobby. He said: "Although I'm a self-taught programmer the course and excellent facilities at Teesside University equipped me with more technical skills and helped developed my animation, virtual reality and graphics abilities.

"Also the year out in placement gave me more commercial experience than I could have imagined and actually seeing my original idea hit the high street computer games stores is unbelievable. I had to present my concept to the Managing Director and worked with the company specialists getting it to a high quality commercial standard. The game is called Spin Jam and I'll get royalties and a credit on the game. It was released last month and there's also a website for the game - www.spinjam.com."

Chad is the son of Russell and Juliet of Brothertoft Road, Boston and a former pupil of to Boston Grammar School.

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