Okay. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our end of year webinar.

Yeah. Diplo Foundation, the Africa office. So, we want to welcome each one of you this afternoon or this evening or this morning, depending on where you’re logging in from.

We want to thank you for taking your time to join us. Today, we’re going to be discussing a very interesting discussion. We’ll have an interesting discussion, we hope.

We have invited panelists from different places in the gaming sector, associations, gamers as well, or esports athletes, as they’re called. It’s a new area, but it’s drawing a lot of interest because of the youthful population in Africa. So, we are thankful that you are able to join us, and we want to start immediately, and we will invite your questions.

If you have questions, please… log in to the chat room and post your question and then we’ll be able to take them as a meeting or as a session goes by. So my name is Mwende Njiraini, I’m the African Regional Coordinator for Diplo Foundation and I again welcome you as the host of this meeting.

Thank you so much. We’ll ask just one, if we can get the panellists, Sylvia, if you can join us, Sylvia Gathoni and Gideon, if you can just indicate to us that you are around, then we can give you a call. Sorry.

Sylvia is here, Mwende. OK, Sylvia is here. Thank you.

Thank you and a warm welcome to you. So thank you. We’ll invite now Dr Catherine Gitao, who is our Regional Advisor for Africa to come in and start the session.

Thank you very much.

Greetings to everyone. I know it’s different times of the day in different places, so I’ll just say hello. So I’m very excited today to have four distinguished panellists.

I think three of them are already on, but we’re looking forward to Gideon. So Gideon, if you’re in the house, please identify yourself so that you can join the panel. So as Mwende has indicated, the last topic of this year is about the pros and cons of gaming for Africa’s youth.

I think all of us who use digital devices are very familiar with how attractive and how time consuming the games that we find on our devices are. So given that Africa’s youth are definitely participating in gaming and we want to know whether they’re doing it well or not so well and we want to see what opportunities we have for them on these platforms.

I’m sorry I’m trying to admit people as I go along. And we have with us, we have with us Ronny who is an executive in the gaming sector. I think when he answers his first question he can tell you a little bit more about himself.

We also have Antony Okeyo who is more of an investor and a businessman in the area of gaming. We have Sylvia who is not only an esports enthusiast, she’s also been successful in esports tournaments around the world so that’s very interesting. I’m sure Sylvia is going to tell us what esports is and how she became so successful in this area.

We were also hoping to have Gideon who runs a gaming company who’s from Nigeria. I haven’t seen him yet but let’s hope that he’ll join us as we go along. So can I start off by asking each of the panel members president to just very briefly introduce yourself, tell us who you are and how you got interested in gaming but at the same time answer the question what separates a casual pastime like gaming from serious economic opportunity and how do we help our young people here in Africa make that transition?

So I’ll start with Ronny. Gideon, very welcome. I hope you heard the question.

So we’ll start with Ronny.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Catherine.

And thank you to everyone who’s joining us today. My name is Ronny Lusigi. I’m the president of the Esports Kenya Federation.

Which is a national federation in the Republic of Kenya, registered as a sports federation, as esports is recognized as a sport in the Republic of Kenya. I’m also a member in the International Relations and Development Committee of the Global Esports Federation, which we are members of as a Esports Kenya Federation. I’ve also been in the esports space operating privately through an esports events company, which we founded in 2020, known as Index G Esports.

To your question, Catherine, on exactly the gaming and if you please come again, Catherine, to your question, so that I can go into it. I think it was a bit lengthy. I didn’t find it.

I didn’t get it clearly. But please, if you will come again, Catherine.

Okay, just simply to tell us that how can we move our youth from gaming as a casual pastime to a serious economic opportunity? So how can people stop just playing and start making money?

Okay, thank you, Catherine. And first of all, my view would be that casual activities are good for human beings. They are good for interaction.

They are good for relaxation, but they form the foundation of making anything productive. Any industry that has been productive is also strong as a casual activity. Soccer is strong as a casual activity, that’s why it has a good foundation to be the biggest sport in the world.

Running is a good casual activity and it forms the basis for athletics to be one of the major sports in the world and in Olympics. So in the same way, casual gaming first of all is a good thing when done responsibly for young people to keep them connected, to develop in them skills like teamwork, communication, other digital skills that they also gain from there.

But your question on how we can move that to something productive, I think it’s very wide. Some will need to understand the gaming sector as a whole. We have people who operate in the developing space, game development, software development space, people like Tony who I see here.

That’s a first facet of how young people can be involved and that only comes from the inspiration they get from casual gaming because you got to play, to know the feel of play, to know what’s missing, to know how you can innovate to make a better game or to improve a current game.

So that could be the first one. Secondly could be where I operate from which is making competition out of video gaming which is eSports. One can be an eSports athlete, a player like Sylvia Queen Arrow who we have with us here.

One can also be a referee in eSports. One can be involved in event organizing in eSports because we have live events, you need to connect LED screens to the sound, you need security, you need ushering and a whole lot of things. We have the area of production.

One can contribute, use their gaming skills to produce esports events because it’s not just about holding a camera, it’s about knowing and understanding the game for you to be able to produce that. We also have other relatable skills like journalism skills where we have what we call casters or commentators in gaming. Young people who start from mainly streaming online and they are able to transit into being commentators when you have events and this prepares them to take up jobs in other things like journalism and water view.

So through esports one can turn their passion into gaming to serve a wide array of activities. You can even be an administrator like Ronny and lead a federation or an esport organization in that view. So for me it will be those two main things but also we can offer gaming as a solution for a social activity especially in our communities, bringing communities together, sharing and bonding is another way we can do it productively.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Ronny for really enlightening us that it’s not all about making money. Esports can also help in skill development, relaxation and other things. Then since you’ve already referred to Sylvia I’ll jump straight to Sylvia to introduce yourself and really answer the same question but also enlightening us more about esports, how you got into it and whether it’s a good opportunity for the youth in Africa.

Okay thank you. Thank you so much. I hope you all can hear me.

Yes, we can hear you very well.

Oh, perfect. Um, so my name is Sylvia Gathoni. My gamertag is Queen Arrow.

I’ve been an eSports athlete for the past eight years. And I’m also a student at the Kenya School of Law, doing my bar training. So to answer your question as to what separates a pastime from economic opportunity in this game, what separates casual gaming from eSports is that I think to just echo Ronny’s sentiments is that there’s nothing wrong with casual gaming, because it’s what lays the foundation for something to become more competitive.

And I think it needs to be clear that I do think there needs to be more of a focus on casual gaming, because I think eSports is more of a niche because not everybody wishes to become a competitive player.

But a lot of people just love gaming for the relaxation, the opportunities for escapism and just for someone to be if that makes any sense. But the moment eSports becomes a career is because infrastructure actually exists to support the talented players who wish to pursue a competitive career in eSports or to become tournament administrators to become graphic designers, game devs etc etc.

So the issue is not talent being the barrier, it’s more of systems or the lack of them are the problem. And why we feel that on this continent gaming feels more of a pastime is because the ecosystem hasn’t been built to catch the talent to give people the economic opportunities that they need to rise beyond their current law station and lot in life.

And if you drop a seed in the sand, you can’t really blame the seed for not becoming a tree. So the shift from hobbies, excuse me, the shift from hobby to career requires their prerequisite infrastructure like stable internet, a consistent tournament culture, local organizations, create a monetization and legal protections for digital workers.

So we find that people like saying that all young people are addicted to video games, video games are a waste of time or video games are gambling, et cetera, et cetera. And I do think this is a fallacy. Young people aren’t addicted to games.

Just to cite an example, they are addicted to the possibility. The problem is we haven’t provided them with the path is to turn possibility to livelihood. And the only way we can create an ecosystem that is in service of the people is when, and where we’ll find instances where parents will actually start taking gaming seriously is when the society actually builds the scaffolding that makes gaming a sustainable pathway and be part of crafting Africa’s future.

Thank you so much for that, Sylvia, for bringing us down to earth about the prerequisites for a successful gaming environments. And so I’ll jump over to Gideon. Gideon, please introduce yourself.

I know you actually have a company in this area. So maybe enlighten us a little more on your view of the opportunities present in this field. Go ahead, Gideon.

Okay, good afternoon, everyone. It’s such a big pleasure and honor to be here. sharing insights in gaming and also speaking from my own point of view from Africa and as a builder, a creative and a founder.

So my name is Gideon Uwem, as you all know, and I’m the CEO and co-founder of Novotrack Studio. So yeah, Novotrack Studio, it’s a game development company based here in Nigeria, you know, building culturally inspired game, leveraging on emerging technologies spanning from AI, web3 to build a sustainable ecosystem for gamers and creatives from this region to the global stage.

So yeah, part of what you asked, your question about, you know, gaming moving from a pastime to business, and as we all know, gaming has shifted so much from just being entertainment or seen as a child, something that is childish for just children, and the rest we’ve seen, you know, especially from the western side of the world, people build game, and they use this to grow ecosystem.

And also, this is a way of adding to the economy GBP. And we also see that gaming as a whole has its own ecosystem spanning from esports. We’ve got the esports side of things.

I’ve also got like the development side of things. So I would say gaming has gone beyond just entertainment. It’s now a form of employment.

Take for instance myself, I started off as a traditional UI UX designer, and then bringing in this skill into the world of gaming, creating screens for you know, projects, gaming projects, and the rest.

And then coming down to founding my own company, where we actually build in cultural inspired game. So gaming is more than just entertainment, something people do to, in their leisure time, and the rest. And we see people taking on, you know, entrepreneurial path as myself, and gaming niche, and Even being in the entertainment sector, we tend to see that gaming tends to generate more revenue, even more than music and even movies combined together.

So I’d say the evolution is real and gaming is just beyond entertainment.

Sorry, I was having some difficulty unmuting my mic. So last but not least, we have Antony Okeyo and he is a very able businessman. I think he’s been in very many different fields but in the recent past he’s gone into gaming.

Maybe Tony, as you introduced yourself, you can tell us how you started seeing gaming as a business opportunity and I know you tried to start a platform for gamers. Gideon has just told us about his cultural inspired games. How much game development is happening locally and how do you see our young people really benefiting in this very lucrative area as Gideon has also pointed out?

And what are any challenges?

Okay, thank you, Dr. Getao. Hello everyone and it’s nice to see Ronny and Queen Arrow in the group.

So my name is Antony Okeyo, a businessman, as she says, and this is the last opportunity that we saw about five, six years ago in Kenya when there’s a time in Kenya around 2019 when gambling became really, really big.

And there was a fight between the government and the young people, telling the young people that there was too much indulgence in gambling. But I think the question for us was, what was then the alternative? Because we were bashing the young people, but without, you know, giving them, I mean, an alternative direction to go to.

So as a counter-narrative, we thought, okay, fine, because esports was taking a shape in the global West. So we were trying to answer, can we translate whatever is happening in the West back into Africa? So that we can even give the Africans, you know, a fair, equal opportunity to be able to participate in the same space.

And like Gideon told you, because gaming has grown to a point where the revenue in gaming is greater than what movies and music is generating. But then our question was also, why is Africa not enjoying this space as much as everybody else is doing? And so our approach then was to come into the space and come up with an African narrative in this space.

And the thought would be, for instance, to get to a point where we can see Quinaro playing a game on Shakazulu and beating the rest of the world. I mean, something that is inspired from Africa, based on African stories, because I think Africa also has a deep culture that is mostly unexploited. And so following that, what we did is we registered a company, Rubik’s Digital Kenya Limited.

So far, we’ve expanded to Botswana, where we have Rubik’s Botswana. And the concept then was to, you know, to Africanize this space. Because we noticed a lot of gamers and game developers who have very interesting gaming concepts, most of them developed and fully working, but then, you know, still held on their laptops.

So our question was then, can we get a way of provoking all this talent in terms of game creation? to be able to bring it out, then create a common platform where the games can actually be taken into and be commercialized. And again, following what Quinaro said, then we develop what you call a consistent tournament culture.

Because what has been happening, and I actually appreciate what Ronny and this team are doing in terms of regularity of tournaments, but then we were thinking, okay, now if we can reduce this into a gaming app or a gaming store that is local and native to our issues, then in between or whatever events that Ronny organizes, then we can be having daily engagements or very regular engagements so that we actually don’t have lull times.

And that is actually what we’re trying to address. So we have an app, PlayOnGames, which now we try to have locally developed content as what actually, I mean, populating the platform. And in addition to that, we also have had a bit of conversation with UNESCO.

And there’s been a struggle even from UNESCO then because the African stories are hardly ever told. And whenever they’re told, they’re never told through, you know, the eye of the African in terms of how they see themselves. And that is partly what we are trying to achieve as well, where we actually go and look at, okay, now for Africa, what are our stories?

And can we convert them and save them in a way that is entertaining enough for the young guys to actually come and engage and interact with them? And if we can throw in education and cultural preservation to the games, then I think that is what will be achievable out of that. So that is the perspective from which we actually operate as Rubik’s.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Tony, for giving us hope that there are people working on creating that ecosystem that Sylvia said was so necessary. Now, you also brought out I think there is something which perhaps I’d like us to deal with quickly so that we can move on more to focus on the opportunities.

There is a negative perception of gaming and it does have risks. I know I myself set off an alarm when I was playing Tetris at night in my office and I was highly addicted not just to the game but to being the highest scorer in my office. And then every time somebody got near me in score I could play for hours even though I had other things to do in order to push my score way above where anyone else could get near me.

So let’s be honest about some of the risks so that we can then see how to mitigate them and how to move forward and make this a very beneficial space. So let me start with you Sylvia because you’re actually a player in this field. When you got interested and you’ve told us you’re a lawyer or an aspiring lawyer, how do you make sure that the eSports doesn’t take over your life and what other risks do you see?

Thank you so much for posing that question Catherine. So the major question is how do we protect youth without killing creativity? And the thing is we need guardrails not handcuffs.

We need to realize that we are in the age of technology where new advancements are being made every day. third week. Back during the pandemic era, we’re talking about cryptocurrency and NFTs.

And right now we’re talking about artificial intelligence, which shows how much technology is coming faster to us. And the issue is, the real danger isn’t children playing video games, it’s the predatory systems around those games. Like right now we’re talking about artificial intelligence prospectively putting game developers out of work because corporations are more interested in maintaining their bottom line rather than investing in humans and creating systems that are actually in service of the player.

And also, back when I was in university, there was this issue about microtransactions in video games, on which I actually did my LLB thesis on. That companies, you know, actually go as far as hiring psychologists to create systems that create in-game ecosystems that make the experience so grindy and so difficult, so much so that it kind of induces you to pay to skip that kind of grind.

So we’re talking about gambling integration through systems like loot boxes, which is basically gambling. We’re talking about unsafe online spaces. And to combat all of this, first of all, we need digital literacy programs in schools that teach people how they need to navigate these kinds of ecosystems now to keep themselves safe, even as they’re engaging with video games and other types of technology.

and it’s more or less the same way we teach children in kindergarten and primary school about how to cross the road safely or how someone goes to driving school how they manage road safety and the online world as a result also has traffic too and regulation should be targeted at corporations not players and it needs to be in a way that shows that we’re not going to talk up we’re not going to have extractive capital in our video games and the experience ones are and I will keep reiterating this should be about this it should be about the community should be about the people and creativity shrinks under fear not freedom and the goal is to protect youth while giving them the tools to build not just consume so if corporations want our money they need to create systems that actually serve us and that’s something that I will keep on reiterating.

Thank you so much Sylvia and for some sound bites like we need guardrails not handcuffs. Now Ronny you’re an executive in a federation when we were preparing for this webinar we were really looking for a regulator and we weren’t able to get one to join to join us at this time. I’m sorry for those who came expecting diplomacy there will be a little bit about diplomacy at the end because these are some of the applications that cross borders and there’ll be diplomatic issues discussed briefly in the second half of this so if you’re able to wait we’d be happy to continue hosting you.

So to go back to Ronny Now that you are a federation, are you providing any kind of soft guardrails as a federation? And who do you think should be helping us to do the kind of guardrails that Sylvia has referred to, to make this a safe space for young people as well as all those who use digital technology? Please go ahead, Ronny.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Catherine. And when you speak of guardrails and safeguarding, it really takes into account more than one facet.

As a federation, we are primarily involved in the competitive side of video gaming. But that does not mark the end of our involvement. So first of all, the opportunity we have is to create awareness on the value of video gaming, to create awareness on how to practice video gaming safely, which is a moral obligation that we have and we do.

That’s the first facet of it. The second facet on the competitive side of esports, we have to appreciate that esports, which is competitive video gaming, its genesis really was private sector. As compared to other sports where you find that the genesis maybe was an international federation, a national federation, esports mainly started by the developers and publishers of video games, organizing events for their video game, which they knew through these competitive events they do for their video games, they get to market their video games better.

They get to make… playing their video games, both inspirational and aspirational. And that gets them more users, more subscribers.

So esports started as a marketing tool. That’s why if you go now to Beijing, if you go to the West, still esports is run majorly by these publishers of the video games. But then enter other people into the space, which is like us now, federations, because in an African perspective, for example, you’ll find that most of these video game publishers do not consider Africa as a market.

So there will be limited activity in Africa in terms of them organizing events and competitions in Africa, or even including Africa in the international competitions, or including Africa in their spend when it comes to putting up servers or setting up an office in Africa.

They barely have this. So that’s why you need institutions like tournament organizers and esports federations in Africa to be able to fill this gap and offer competitions. And while doing that, try to safeguard those participating in this competition.

It is not easy because esports is still new. We are still learning every day on how best we can be able to safeguard the people who are playing. It’s a global issue, even across sports.

How do you safeguard, for example, football players? There are many cases out of especially West Africa on players falling to fake agents who are promising to take them to Europe, and they end up finding themselves in human trafficking and other instances.

In esports, we have cases of maybe players will find dubious organizers who perhaps will collect money and promise prize monies and not deliver them. So we are still in the process of establishing a framework. to streamline especially the organiser side so that organisers of competitions can be credible, organisers of competitions can be accountable.

So it’s still a learning journey, we’re engaging stakeholders both in the private and public sector in finding a fine balance so that we do not offer roadblocks or impediments as Sylvia was describing, but rather we facilitate the safe growth of esports.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Ronny. Arvin, please assist Tony, he’s having some technical problems, but as we wait for Tony to come back, I’ll kindly ask Gideon to tell us a little bit about the regulatory environment in Nigeria. Is this too new or is there already frameworks, whether from the professional side, from the federations and so on, or whether from the government to protect the gamers, but as Ronny has pointed out, also those running the tournaments and so on, to make sure that everybody gets a fair shake and at the same time no one is predated upon as Sylvia has pointed out.

Go ahead Gideon.

Okay, thank you very much. So as Ronny has mentioned, regarding the regulatory side of things and back to your question about the ecosystem here in Nigeria, I’d say Nigeria and Africa, I really cannot speak for other countries in Africa, but for Nigeria, as a builder and as an entrepreneur, I think it’s very important to make sure that there’s a someone that has experienced the space to an extent, I’d say we are still very very fresh and new in this ecosystem and there is no there’s little to no you know regulatory bodies that are setting up things to see how we can curb the risk that are you know involved in esports and gaming in general and Sylvia mentioned something you know and this has to do with the predatory you know monetization in terms of betting and all so in Nigeria we still see a lot of persons institutions, parents and the rest as I mentioned earlier we still see gaming as a child thing you know something that is they don’t see a real value coming from there but in Nigeria yeah the ecosystem is still evolving you know we are experiencing a shift is evolving and we tend to see institutions like Gamer, Gamer Studio, earlier this year happened to have you know partnered with them for a game development training where we got to inform people so I’d say the first thing is information getting to inform people because a lot of persons are not aware of you know what gaming is what esports is so the first thing is building a foundation building structures that every other thing coming on it it’s more like a layer on them so first to grow the ecosystem you need to structure out um a solid foundation and yeah obviously compliant regulations these has to come in place but I’ll say a deeper risk from this region it’s it’s it’s not just you know regulation this has to do with you know youths wasting talent due to lack of structured pathways and also Africa’s being just consumers with no producers uh or gaming content.

And I think Ronny mentioned something earlier where he said a lot of publishers in the global world, they’re not looking at Africa. They tend to invest more in, you know, in products, games coming from the Western world as well, and also the Asian part of the world. But for we, we’re still new, we’re still fresh.

And in all of this problem lies a very, very big opportunity for our own stories to be told, and you know, being showcased to the global world. So we are still fresh. And it’s just a matter of taking intentional steps to layering out, layering a pretty solid foundation, and every other thing coming on is going to be, you know, layered on this.

So the ecosystem still needs to grow. We’re still nurturing it. And a lot of policies still needs to be put in place, not just we copying and pasting what the Western have, because they’re, I believe in, you know, we are different persons, the way their culture and African culture, it’s different.

So it’s not just about copying these people, we need to understand how our own people respond and react to all of this. And then we can then structure as and see what works. But I would say at this, at this, at this stage, there’s still a lot of, you know, experiment to do.

We’re still at this experimental phase, where we need to test, test ABC and see what works. So yeah, I’d say that is, you know, that’s how I see things from my own point of view.

Okay, thank you so much. And thank you for those joining from the world of esports and the work that you’re doing. I’ll kindly ask my panelists to switch on their video unless their connection is weak.

but if your connection is able to bear it, it’s really important for the participants to see your face as you talk to them. So I turn to you Antony, I know you’ve crossed boundaries, you’ve worked in at least two countries on this gaming issue, when it comes to this issue of regulation, can Africa perhaps leapfrog a little bit and try to harmonize regulations and also to make sure, because many of us are playing games which are hosted in Europe or the US or Asia and we really don’t know what kind of protections are available to us as we play those games.

And perhaps to digress just a little because Gideon has pointed out that there’s an outflow, these games have adverts or you have to pay a small subscription every month for them to continue and I think because many of the games are not African, the benefits are going to other geographies.

So maybe tell us a little bit about your thoughts about whether we can start having sandbox regulation and perhaps harmonize it across countries so that African youth can play games which originate in different countries safely.

Please go ahead Tony.

Can you hear me?

Yes we can hear you.

Okay, so we have tilted at the local windmill with Ronny for quite a bit, trying to get the corporates in Kenya to understand. and see where gaming can fit into the ecosystem of other commercial ventures that run within our economy. And then I’ve also now transited again into Botswana and the difference I’m seeing is big and I say in those differences I think that’s actually where the African opportunity really sits.

So the first I would start by saying Africa being where it is because again going back to what the other speakers have said the models we are using are so western that I think Africa is struggling to find its space within the gaming environment.

I think that’s why even in terms of revenues Africa is showing not as strongly as it ought to considering that we have the youngest population, we have a very good penetration of devices and then we have widespread internet.

So the things we can do as Africa and I think where I can actually say being behind might be working for us in a sense is we have the opportunity to then define what do we want at the regulatory level and then in terms of the outputs that we actually want to extract out of gaming and esports generally.

Because I think for the western world gaming ran ahead of regulation and every other thing to a point where I think governments and regulators were actually doing catch-up to try and control whatever it is and I think even right now as we speak a lot of the gaming platforms are actually bigger than the federations from which the sports themselves were derived from because I think like esports is a bigger thing probably than FIFA right now and when it is actually FIFA is supposed to be the inspiration backwards.

So in terms of regulation, we also in a very, I think, unfortunate space from what Kunaru had mentioned earlier, that nothing is static. So there is the need to actually anticipate whatever it is that you’re going to regulate, because it has a way of always shifting around whatever it is that you want to try and create its own path through.

So I would say, the other thing that I would say is, and even if you come back to the home level where it’s a parent against the child, and where the parent wants to control whatever it is that the child would do, initially, there was a talk that, yes, you can actually control device time, all these things.

But then it’s also a fight that we also need to acknowledge that the parent lost, and you cannot control it. So basically, the answer to this would be, then how does Africa entrench itself into this space? And I don’t know whether this would work, but it would be my thought that, yes, whatever is coming from outside is good, and it actually is good content.

But then how can we then develop good content that is native to us, so that even if it is curiosity that would actually be pushing people towards consuming this content, then we tend to have that control at that level?

So that, because, OK, that is for me how I think Africa can actually come and try and get in. Because otherwise, then we have a scenario where the control we can have is limited in terms of what we can do. Because, and I think Rony can attest to this, that when some of the, even government itself defining and separating gaming from gambling was a problem to a point where even when we were setting up the company, we had to go to BCLB and then they’re telling us, OK, we don’t know whether you fit here, you don’t.

So the confusion is actually at that level to start with. So the thing would be now to strengthen people like Rony. so that we can control the environment around which the people who are interested in the space are already operating in.

And it is to that level, I think, in my opinion, that we can actually have a semblance of control in the gaming space. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much for that, Tony. For those of you who are wondering, he was referring to the betting control board, which regulates betting. But of course, gaming goes a lot more beyond betting.

So perhaps it’s not the most appropriate organization. But actually, we did reach out to them, but perhaps they also felt that that’s not their space. So really, gaming is largely unregulated in Africa, which is, I think, it’s both a blessing and a curse.

It’s a blessing because it helps us to grow quickly and to experiment. It’s a curse because bad things can happen in an unregulated environment. However, thank you for your suggestions about the professional associations, about capacity building through schools and other educational bodies and so on.

So there’s always something we can do. Now, just following on from Tony, Gideon, I’m really interested in this area of games that are specific or which have a unique African flavor. Because I think this is what will put those 200 million gamers in Africa on the map, both because they’re consuming local content, but also because maybe we can have some outflow of some inflows of revenue from other geographies.

Because people are playing African games that are have a different flavor. Maybe you can tell us a little bit because you’ve told us your user interface design experience and also your interest in promoting culture through gaming. Tell us a little bit about that, Gideon.

Okay, so as I mentioned earlier, I see gaming as a tool to, you know, shape culture and also promote culture because for since, you know, gaming became a thing even for us Africans adapting into this space and getting to interact with games and all, we tend to see that Africa’s voice is very very much underrepresented in the gaming world and this is actually one of the problem I’m coming into, you know, curb and solve through Novatrax because we tend to see games built by the Western world.

We get to see games like Ghost of Tsushima. I always make reference to these games and the recently released Ghost of Yotai. These are games that are promoting the Japanese culture from the environment, landscape, from the characters, even traditional weapons.

These are games, even from someone that hasn’t been to China, I tend to learn a couple of things even from the food, the way they dress, the way buildings, houses have been, you know, built in Japan. I get to, you know, pick little insights from interacting with this game. We even get to see games like GTA.

This is, you know, talking about the American world with the whole gangster fight and the rest. So even without being in this location, through interacting with games, you get to see all of this and get more insights about what their world is. But in Africa, the world has come to experience us through music.

We see the likes of Afrobeats. Mafiono, and the rest, and even diving into movies, we get to see movie gens like Nollywood. The world has come, and you know, experience Africa through this medium.

But when it comes to interactive technology like gaming, we are still very much underrepresented. And that’s why currently we tend to see studios, you know, building culturally inspired games. You’d see studios like Dimension Eleven.

Nova Trax studios are not the only ones doing this. You tend to see companies like Dimension Eleven with their, you know, their console game, Legion of Aresha, Blood and Water. You see this, you know, talking about the Yoruba culture and all of this.

We need more backing, you know, from the infrastructure level and, you know, support to push things like this because I believe gaming is a new creative economy and it’s something we shouldn’t sleep on.

And with our upcoming Game Expo, you know, we tend to feature specific location, you know, for our first launch, we’re featuring three locations, two from Nigeria and we’re featuring one in Paris because we don’t want to entirely cut out the, you know, the global world on just focusing on, you know, Africa.

When I say culture, I’m not just hammering heavily on Africa’s culture. We get to see Mexico and the rest. But for us to have a seat at the table of global gaming, we need to see more studios, you know, more builders building things that are inspired by African culture.

I think there’s a game I came across, Reluted. I think it was built by a company in South Africa. They’re something like that.

You know, this was talking about the whole game. I think the game lore was built around, you know, the characters going to museum. And this Western world to retrieve artefacts that was taken from us through colonisation.

These games, you know, we need to have them.

Thank you so much for enlightening us Gideon that, you know, it’s not just about making a beautiful game, but you can also promote your culture, your tourism, your music, your instruments, so it can be a very, very powerful benefit here in Africa and I’m learning a lot from what you’re saying.

Now, before we go on, I was planning just to do a quick poll from the participants, so Aveline, if you can assist me to put the poll up, it’s just a simple yes, no question. Do you think that the benefits of gaming for African youth outweigh its risks? We’re just going to have a quick poll so that we see who feels that it’s a benefit and who feels it’s a risk.

So far, most people are saying that the benefits outweigh 93 percent, so very, very strong support. Okay, it’s going down a bit. Some people feel that there are still a lot of risks for our youth.

And we’re hoping that through this discussion, we’re going to mitigate some of those risks. So thank you very much for participating. At the moment, we’re at 82% feeling that the benefits outweigh the risks and about 18% feeling that the risks outweigh the benefits.

And I’m sure our panellists are going to take that into account. I believe you can. Can you see the poll now?

Yeah, you can see the 82% who feel that the benefits outweigh the risks and the 18%. So you can also put your comments in the chat regarding this quick poll and the statistic that has come out from the 50 or so participants, whether it reflects our social feeling. So now I’ll close that and continue.

Thank you very, very much to the participants for participating in that poll. It’s quite revealing. So with that kind of a revelation and somebody said we have 200 million voters, gamers, 200 million gamers in Kenya, in Africa, we have the youngest population in the world.

More and more countries are having good internet connections and many of our young people have digital skills. So this is a very, very rich market and certainly we need that conversation about whether gaming is one of the ways to go. So starting with Ronny, how can Africa host regional or continental esports tournaments that builds talent, community pride, and real economic value?

I know you’re in this business, so this is your chance to really sell the idea of esports becoming one of the things that is hosted here in Africa. Please go ahead, Ronny.

Yeah, thank you, Catherine. I think the question will actually be how can Africa continue to hold because already Africa has started hosting international esports events. Just recently in September, Nairobi, Kenya hosted what you call the PUBG Mobile African Championship, which was the inaugural competition for that game in the African continent, sub-Sahara.

And we had 16 nations participate and they came down to Nairobi. Each nation had four teams and there was clear and demonstrable value to the Kenyan esports ecosystem and the Kenyan economy in general. For example, for that competition to happen successfully in Kenya, you had over 130 people coming in from across the continent and beyond the continent.

That is a boost to Kenyan hospitality. You had these people enjoying the artistic and tourist sites within the capital city of Nairobi. You had a global audience in the hundreds of thousands watching a competition and getting to know a city known as as well as Nairobi, a country known as Kenya.

So Africa is already doing it. The biggest challenge, again, we’ll go back to eSport. We’ll always repeat, for many of the big players in eSport, eSport is a commercial activity.

For them, it’s not a social activity. And to host this scale of competitions, you need the input of the publisher. For example, the Kenyan competition I’m mentioning here that we hosted Africa, it was possible because Tencent Games, a Chinese company who produced this game and published this game, were the main sponsors of this.

So it’s only Tencent that was able to push it because it is their game. But there is an opportunity, especially now for the mobile games in Africa. As you see, Tencent is an example.

Just a few minutes before this, I was reading that another mobile game called eFootball Mobile has signed a partnership with CAF for Afcon, which is another way to promote eSport. So there’s a huge opportunity for Africa to host these kind of events. But it depends on, number one, establishing partnerships with these publishers.

And again, we have to look at where we are strong. We start with, for example, now I’d say mobile gaming is very strong in Africa. So publishers of mobile games are seeing the penetration.

eFootball Mobile, for example, has got 700,000 active users in Nigeria, according to Sensor Tower. It has got 420,000 active users in Kenya, according to Sensor Tower, and much more or similar numbers in South Africa. So there’s already demonstrable numbers in terms of mobile gaming.

And as compared to playing on the console or PC, it is easier to verify data for mobile gaming because you just have to use the Sensor Tower. but still having the national administration. supporting us means that players spend little time at the airport for the check-in, they are able to get express check-ins, and things like those.

Those things attract sponsors, where they are able to know if I’m coming to your country to do an international event, I need to know you are in tandem with the local administration. It is the same…

Okay, Ronny, could you put on your video, please?

Okay, sorry. It’s the same template that is used for hosting Africa Cup of Nations, hosting the All-African Games. These federations, traditional federations, partner a lot with the national administrations.

So we really need this, we really need to partner with our national administrations. And that is why it goes back to what we said in the beginning, we need to show the value of eSport beyond the economic value, the big numbers, we need to first show the social impact. We were able to demonstrate to our national administration, this event coming to Kenya, you’ll have more than 60 young people involved, earning a living from this.

You will have Kenya promoted. Right now, that game, courtesy of this successful event in Kenya, they launched a Maasai Shuka in that game. So you can be able to play using a Maasai Shuka.

And it goes to what Gideon said, that game itself, PUBG Mobile has got over 200 million active users across the world. Today, the Kenyan Maasai Shuka is accessible to 200 million active users across the world. And I don’t know how much you’d pay to advertise on CNN to reach this number of people or to advertise with the Premier League, like Visit Rwanda does, or Visit Malaysia does with Premier League teams.

You see, you can be able to demonstrate to your tourism boards that video games can be an avenue for them to promote the country. Many young Africans know about Asian history and they’ve never stepped into Asia. Many young Africans know about the World War because of a game called Call of Duty.

They know about base camps in Europe. They don’t know about any in Africa. So, how do we be intentional, speak to our tourism boards and tell them video games can be a key partner?

And that contributes to them supporting in hosting international esports events in your country. So, already I know Africa is doing that. Nigeria recently did the African Championship for Call of Duty Mobile.

But again, the first one was in Kenya last year. So, I wouldn’t want to say Kenya is the leading. But also it shows that in terms of hosting international esports events, I think we’ve stepped up.

I see a lot in Nigeria also in terms of international esports events. I know Gamer X and who Kenyans have participated in. So, it’s more and more collaborations.

And I believe that will attract more international esports events. And finally, it goes down to quality. We must ensure whenever we get these opportunities that we give events of the highest quality possible.

Remember, every video game is somebody’s IP. They need to know that their IP was represented in the best way possible. In a way that adds value and does not deduct value to their IP.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much, Ronnie. We feel very enlightened about the issue of tournaments.

There’s something you said that makes me want to turn to Sylvia. You’re the first person. and Ronny to mention the Ministry of Sports.

As a successful eSports player, Sylvia, do you feel that the Ministry of Sports recognises eSports as a valuable sport and have you received the kind of support that you would have expected and what would you like to see going forward?

Sylvia, please go ahead.

So as to whether I have received support from the Ministry of Sports, I have received some publicity in that the former CS Ababuna Mwamba had come by an event of which was the ambassador of and was facilitated by Ronny and the eSports Federation and I think that particular optic was a good signifier that the Ministry of Sports was starting to see the value of eSports.

Sylvia, please remember your video. My camera is off because the internet is a beauty free right now, that’s why. Okay, that’s fine.

Go ahead. And what I’d like to see going forward is I just don’t want lip service being paid by the powers that be. What I would love to see going forward is actually the formation of the prerequisite structures are not based on aping Western models of extraction but rather something that’s built into the philosophy of what this country and this continent is all about and that means that we need to collectively have a philosophy that’s hinged on people thriving.

And as of now I don’t think that conversation has come to pass. because I don’t think people have acknowledged that there is a lack of philosophy to begin with. So when the time comes, I do expect that’s a conversation that we will be having.

Okay, thank you very much, Sylvia. So I’ll turn to you again, Tony, as a businessman. Firstly, I’d like you to tell us whether a young person can really earn a livelihood from this when you compare it with becoming a teacher or an office worker, can you earn a monthly income or is it sporadic?

And what kind of livelihood can our young people expect? Then for business people, is this a worthwhile investment? And what kind of, I know you’ve had a little bit of frustration from some of the ecosystem like the telcos.

Do you think that the other companies like the telcos, the ISPs know how much gaming is helping them to sell their products like bandwidth and devices? And so on. And do you think that they’re giving the right kind of support?

So my question has two parts. Firstly, it’s about the livelihood, but secondly, it’s about have the telcos and the other surrounding businesses seen the opportunity and are they providing sufficient support?

Thank you, Dr. Getao. So I’ll start with the second question first in terms of whether the other establishments in the space are actually seeing the value of this.

I’ll give a bit of history of what I’ve been able to do in Kenya without mentioning too much detail because part of what we were trying to achieve in this as a business was to try and address the gap or the fact that the younger generations are not consuming, for instance, content on appointment the way the older generations used to do.

We cannot wait for 7 o’clock to watch news and things like those. So basically it’s a generation that consumes content as we go. And then the other thing that we also tried to achieve was since gaming requires consistent, simultaneous upstream-downstream communication between the device and the servers, then it was an opportunity again for the telcos to actually now use this, especially on tournaments and active competitions, to try and push bandwidth sales.

But then I think the challenges we met, and again I think Ronny understands this and you can probably also laugh with me about this, was a lot of establishments are, I can say, a bit behind in terms of where, and behind I say they show rigidity because they have models that are working but then the models are failing because what you can tell, even in terms of the performance of the media houses over the last two, three, four, five years, they’re all increasingly hitting large losses.

And so the question was then how can they get gamification into this space? And I think that is what is the difficulty that they’re still having to see. And my analysis of the media house that we spoke to, then the challenge we met at that point was we realized all employees are basically being paid on commission arrangements.

So if you’re coming with innovation right now, it actually makes it very difficult to penetrate the space because everybody’s worried about what is coming in now rather than planning for what is coming in the future.

So, I think as a business, I would say it’s a space that, yes, the chance is already there, but then we need to now just stay it out a bit, because at some point, things will actually come and converge.

And then in terms of whether a young person can actually make a genuine livelihood from this, I would give you an example of what is happening in Botswana right now, for instance. About a month ago, the country decided to invest about 200 million pula, which is about 20 million dollars, in the space of content creation and where video gaming comes in, because they actually see now the value of, okay, fine, we have tried every other thing, but then how do we get the attention of the young guys?

And this is a very specific way where Botswana can be able to push its own educative content in creative ways using technology, then get other people in the space, storytellers, animators, game developers, background music composers, all these things.

So yes, I would say there is potential, there is capability, and I think Africa is lucky in the sense that we actually get into the space when the concept is mature. So the thing is, if we just push on a little longer, and with Ronny and people like Ronny doing whatever they’re doing with their federations and all, then it’s going to happen. And even for the media houses, because you see the media houses, the telcos, the other people that actually are going to benefit from this space, and there’s a lot of write-up on this, is the advertisement space and the PR firms, because they’re also doing quite badly in terms of targeting the new generation of consumers, because these people are just not consuming advertisement messaging the way it was being done before.

So gamifying it or infusing it as part of experiential consumption of advertisements is actually the next way. And I think there is space, there are people already earning in this space, but then I think it’s actually going to grow bigger as we move along. Thank you.

Thank you. So for the 50 or so people we have, you can see how much opportunity there is. Let me turn to Gideon briefly.

And I don’t know whether we will be able to take one or two live questions before we finish. So if you want to ask a question live from the panel, please do raise your hand so that we can select just two people because of the time to ask their questions directly to the panel. So Gideon, my question is this.

Somebody said in the chat that it’s so difficult. You may have an idea for a game, but all the things that need to be done, the graphic design, the development, the hosting, 101 things. It seems to be quite a tall order.

Are we building shared economy type models where I could have an idea today and there’s a platform where I can go and get a developer, get a graphic designer, get everything I need so that at least I can get the prototype.

And even for investors to go there and look for game developers who are producing content. Is there anything like this or is everybody on their own just trying to sort out all these complex issues by themselves? Please guide us, Gideon.

Okay. So that’s a very solid question. And I’d say when it comes to onboarding creatives, developers to hop on a project, let’s say, for instance, you’ve got a gaming idea and you want to build it out with a Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini Antony Okeyo, Gideon Uwem, Ronny Lusigi, Mwende Njiraini same skill and translate it make it useful in a gaming world.

So that was what I was doing building out mockups and the rest and I didn’t apply for jobs or anything I was just posting on Twitter my portfolio and on LinkedIn so those were the three main you know um platform I was sharing my progress on and the first offer I got was for a project in Kenya they’re like okay because I was heavily focused on you know building some African thing you know from characters environment and you know the landscape so that was one of the things I was targeting in the early days and I got my first offer was from a company in Kenya and I got a DM through my portfolio that he got an idea they wanted me to work on it and you know the budget for the project for me to work on it as a UI designer was five thousand dollars and that was my first offer as a creative and at first I was pretty scared of it you know then I had to reach out to a couple of industry experts to you know gain knowledge and see how I can you know because at that point I didn’t want to you know lose the gig I wanted to deliver excellently well so that was like my first was what brought me into the limelight of gaming to see that my skill can be valuable in the gaming space and in terms of outsourcing and getting people I think we tend to see a couple of communities there’s a community I’m part of you know I think it has a lot of Nigerian developers I also worked on the project as a Game UI UX designer and the game is really doing well.

You know we tend to see hosted tournaments to also empower gamers as well so there is a lot of opportunities in this world of gaming and the first thing is information, getting people informed because even with my collaboration with GamerX on their Gamer Studio for their development training we tend to see that a lot of person tend to see gaming you know development aspect as rocket science.

You need to be some mad scientist or a guru to even you know contribute in gaming but it’s not true. If you’re good at writing you’re you know crafting out narratives and the rest you just need you know structural learning to bring this writing skill into the gaming ecosystem and you can be a narrative writer with you know acquiring a structural learning.

If you’re good with ads you know coming up with ads, assets, characters. and the rest, you also need structural learning, learning tools like Blender and the rest to create character models and environment for game. So it’s not something as far-fetched or rocket science for people to learn and then bring in this value into the world of gaming.

Thank you so, so much for that, Gideon. I think it was extremely enlightening. Oops, is my mic off?

No. It was extremely enlightening. Now, I think we just have time for two people to ask quick questions.

So I’ll immediately turn to Kofi to ask his question before we wind up. Kofi, please go ahead. Arvin, please enable him.

Thanks, everybody, and congratulations for the panel. So my name is Kofi, I’m based in Senegal. I am a Microsoft E-Sport Teacher Academy certified professor.

So-

We can’t hear you very well, Kofi. Please be close to your mic.

Now is better?

Yes, it’s better.

Okay, so as I said, I’m Kofi, I’m a Microsoft E-Sport Teacher Academy certified professor. So I teach E-Sport since seven years right now in France and in Africa. And it’s more contribution than a question.

I think that being in this space since 10 years, I think the most important things right now on these topics is education because E-Sport and gaming are not part of the curriculum. That’s why two years ago, I developed the first E-Sport curriculum in Senegal in the private sector for the Kedge Business Group. So we need to teach this type of capacities.

Second thing is about the market. You need to understand the market. So far the biggest studios are in South Africa and they generate money.

And it’s because also in South Africa in university curriculum they have game development assets and curriculum already available since 2015 when I was there in South Africa. And during all this time I saw developers come from this country and expand in other jobs or in the market themselves. The second thing is capital.

We don’t have investors. Producing a game is a cost. It’s exactly for being really simple.

Producing a game is like producing a movie. It is today the same capacities, investments and even hardware. That’s why you will see more and more people from movie develop series from games because it’s the same condition.

So we need to have capital because so far as all panelists said all the money for investment is abroad now not in Africa because our governments or other investors feel or don’t understand the market. If you don’t understand the market, if you don’t have data about the economics, you can’t invest and risk on people. And third thing is visibility.

The studies say that in Africa for a young studio you need to put your feet in 23 countries for show your games before to be really visible in the market. Imagine that you need to travel 20 times at conferences to show your games. So when you look about all these problematics, the solution is about government because government has a lot of responsibilities on that because it’s about to create an environment.

that permit the ecosystem to grow very quickly. And the last point is about regulation. You can’t regulate without a federation.

Because if you don’t do it, other companies can invest in your market and then take over your market because you don’t regulate it. So far, Africa is the youngest population. If we don’t regulate our market, other entities or other enterprises will come to regulate the market.

So, thanks for the opportunity to speak a little at this panel and congratulations for the good quality and the very rich discussion so far. Thank you.

Thank you very, very much, Kofi, for that advice. It’s unfortunate that we’ve run out of time. So, I would have loved to have Ademide.

And please, Ademide, put your question in the chat or your comments so that it is captured, but I really apologize. Now, for the panel, and I thank Helen, who has written very detailed and very helpful comments in the chat. They are noted and very much appreciated.

And I encourage all those who have the wherewithal and the knowledge to come together and make this an opportunity for our youth. So now, since I don’t have much time left, I’m going to go around my panel and ask them just one sentence, the one thing you’d like to be done in this field, your one ask. So, I’ll start with Sylvia, then I’ll go around.

So, I think my major ask is to just have a foundation and a philosophy. as I said, that’s based on and hints on people thriving. And that means we need to first have community of ourselves, which means basing our foundation on the grassroots, because we have to face the reality that here in Africa, nobody is coming to save us.

We have to be our own salvation, and we have to be the people that we’ve been waiting for all this time. We do have the resources, we do have the manpower, but we need to have a shift in our mentality. And actually put our money where our mouth is in regards to building this space, because otherwise if we continue on the current trajectory that we’re going, we’re setting ourselves up for failure.

Okay, thank you very much. Building that foundation of self-reliance. I’ll go on to Gideon, what’s your one ask?

Okay, so I’d say my one ask would be, we need more African-led VCs that are investing heavily in African builders, and more support at the infrastructure level with backends, and also providing a pathway for solid mentorship and education as well.

So I think that would be it. You know, we need more venture capitals investing in African ideas, African builders, you know, with all the support that is needed to at least compete. at the, not even compete, at least we should be at the global level, you know, representing Africa.

So I think that would be it for me.

Thank you very much Gideon. I’ll move on to Tony, you’re one ask.

For me, I believe that Africa actually has the deepest and the most untapped resources in terms of culture and folklore that is actually placed really nicely for gaming and gamification. That if we focus on that, then I think Africa can actually upstage the world in terms of producing the best content. You can actually follow the, if we can go by the world standards in terms of improving our development.

And for me, that’s a resource that we actually need to look inwards and see how to maximise from.

Okay, looking inwards to promote our culture and Ronny, I’m going to give you the last word.

Mine will be funds, money, funds, money. That’s my one ask because African gaming and esports scene is underfunded. There’s a need for both the private and the public sector to fund the growth of esports from a public perspective.

It’s about facilities, it’s about equipment and other facilitation for private sector is pretty much the same, but there’s a need for funds. All these great ideas, great minds, great population in video gaming, they need to be fuelled. So funds, funds, funds.

Funds, funds, funds. Thank you, Ronny. And I think everyone who has participated and I’m so grateful to all of you, the participants who stayed until the end and for…

Thank you to our four panelists who certainly deserve our virtual applause. They’ve done a fantastic job. I think my message is, there’s a huge opportunity.

And if you are a diplomat who is attending, you can see that gaming needs to be one of the cyber diplomacy topics in Africa, so that we work together to make this massive opportunity. A reality for our youth and for wealth creation in our societies and to promote our culture and all the wonderful benefits and assets of Africa. Thank you so, so much for attending.

We’ll let you know early in the year what the next topic will be. We do capture what is in the chat as well as what you have said. So we’ll be looking there to see what could be very interesting topics.

So if you have a few moments right now and there’s something you’d like to hear about in our next webinar, please do make those suggestions. Helen, you’ve talked about STEM and somebody else talked about science. So I think that’s one of the things that we will consider for our next topic.

Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Arvin. You’ve really been wonderful for the technical support.

Thank you, Mwende. She did so much to make this a reality. Thank you to our panelists once again.

And thank you to all our participants. It’s been wonderful hosting you. And may God bless you as we go into the holiday season.

I hope you all have a wonderful time with your families. Good evening. Good morning.

Good afternoon. Good night. Cheers, thank you guys.