Abdi Ahmed on Brand New Manchester Esports Academy

Esports education has been something of a hot topic in recent years. As the industry grows, so too does the demand for qualifications. Esports is a popular industry for many younger people who are passionate about gaming and looking to build their careers. That’s where Abdiqani Ahmed and the team at IN4 and Manchester Esports Academy come in.

We got the opportunity to tour the facility in Manchester and sit down with Abdi for a full breakdown of everything they’re looking to achieve.

Manchester Esport Academy – First of Its Kind

While it’s possible to engage with university esports, The MEA in Media City is the first facility of its kind in the UK. It boasts a huge variety of educational tools and spaces to allow students to learn about every aspect of the esports industry. From spaces to hold esports tournaments to state of the art VR education tools, there’s not much they can’t do.

“The third floor is the game tech floor. We use it for all gaming related activities so whether that be developing games, esports related stuff and more. We have multiple rooms here. There’s a tournament room with seating for 100 spectators and 10 players, 5 on each side, 3 big screens and it just gives an amazing user experience and access to everyone in this local environment is able to use that.”

With a goal of allowing students the opportunity to run their own productions at the end of a 6-7 week course, there’s a lot to fit in.

Inclusivity and Diversity – Bringing Esports to Everyone

Both IN4 and the Manchester Esports Academy have a huge focus on ensuring the facilities are available to everyone who might be interested in building an esports career.

“So for us, I think our main point is that we want to encourage participants from low income backgrounds and who may not believe they have access or opportunities in tech sectors. We believe that esports is in that tech sector. So we want to give them something exciting and range of careers, whether that be esports, video games, creating their own games, playing the game. We want them to have access to everything and we want to eliminate that barrier of entry. That’s where we want to sit and in a sense of the UK, I think that the grassroot area needs to be developed.”

Abdi and the team are also keen to address the gender disparities in the esports industry. 

“For all of our classes, we are happy to say that we have a 50/50 split between female and male in terms of children that sign up for it. In terms of giving fair access to it, our relationship with Manchester City partnership helps to reach those communities. What we’re doing right now is the pilot. The one we’ll be doing when we announce it in late October, I believe, we’ve got classes essentially where we’re not charging people. So we’ll sponsor the kids as a company to make sure that everyone has access.”

Esports Education Criticism

Esports education currently has something of a controversial reputation. Some criticisms have even gone as far as to call it a Mickey Mouse degree. But projects like IN4’s are breaking down the boundaries to show that this is a viable career path.

“In terms of the MEA, what we offer right now is extra curricular. We provide things outside of the school curriculum but in terms of pushing it out and pushing education, I do believe it should be a course. Especially being the leader in terms of the program, our partners have strengths all across it. For us, we’re the leading provider of education and training in the country. I don’t think I need to speak about Manchester City and their input with health and nutrition as well as sports relations. We have a really good backlog, even in the backlog and cyber security part of the departments.”

Career Opportunities with the Manchester Esports Academy

The ultimate goal of the Manchester Esports Academy is the guide people into a career in esports. While the curriculum is currently designed for students to take courses alongside school and college, it could ultimately lead to more. As many already know, the gaming industry is huge and is set to be bigger than movies and music. The industry boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic and despite growth slowing down somewhat, it has gone from strength to strength.

“I think there are a lot of things here for people to do. It’s down to the individual for how they use it and how they wanna get things out of it. We do more than gaming and esports. We have all sorts of cloud technology and it that sparks interest here, we have boot camps for almost everything. You can take me in particular for it as well, I came into esports but I’m really enjoying the business aspect of things. I have a computer science degree so I would have much rather done a business degree. Sometimes in life, you figure out what we want to do and esports helps you figure it out. “