Pokémon announces set of scholarships for Royal College of Art students

We’d wager a fair amount that most of you reading this spent a hefty portion of your youth pottering around Kanto, with a pocketful of Rare Candy, and a headful of dreams. We really could catch ‘em all.

Confused? We’re talking about Pokémon. Why are we talking about Pokémon? Because the Pokémon Company has partnered with the Royal College of Art to establish a set of scholarships that “support the creation and exploration of innovative art and design.” Obviously.

The grant supports two second-year master’s students studying in the college’s School of Design and School of Communication. The grant will provide full-fee scholarships for the pair. The first recipients of the grant is Amir Afshar, who is on the Innovation Design Engineering programme, and current Information Experience Design student Jesse Cahn-Thompson. In addition to the financial aid they’ve been offered, both Amir and Jesse will be heading to Japan to the Pokémon studios.

“Through this scholarship, I am delighted to support students who show the potential for creating a new industry or mode of expression by exploring hitherto unknown possibilities,” says Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara. “I hope that the scholarship will facilitate fruitful exchanges between the company and the students at the Royal College of Art, stimulating new creative thinking among all parties involved.”

The RCA reports that Amir’s work “focuses on exploring how emergent technology will affect our future societies,” while Jesse‘s “practice aims to make complicated things simple through art and design.”