Bringing Africa and Atlanta together – One esports challenge at a time

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on Hypepotamus. It is published on Global Atlanta as part of our content partnership with the Southeast’s leading innovation news source. Sign up for Hypepotamus newsletters here.

Kenyan President William Ruto was in Atlanta last month for a diplomatic visit that took him to places like the Spelman Collegethe CDC and Tyler Perry Studios to discuss ties between Kenya and the United States in education, health and the entertainment sector.

Ruto was able to meet with Atlanta executives as the chief technology advisor Donnie Beamer and the mayor Andrew Dickens. And he was able to network with other members of the Kenyan diaspora living in the city. One of these people was Andrew Muriukian entrepreneur looking to use esports to help young people in his home country of Kenya pursue opportunities in the United States through his Atlanta-based startup. BARBAH Games.

Yes, esports can be lucrative, with college scholarships and major prizes handed out at tournaments around the world. But the industry’s market size is expected to reach nearly $7 billion by 2030 and has become an employment hub for creatives and technologists.

In collaboration with the Atlanta-based company TechOrganicBARBAH Games seeks to help young people in Africa take advantage of the opportunities offered by esports and the world of video games.

Strategically, Muriuki focuses on introducing young people to Fortnite, a popular gaming platform. Although it is not yet very popular in Africa, Muriuki believes that Disneycollaboration with the owner of Fortnite Epic games could help grow his fan base internationally.

Connecting Atlanta and African youth is strategic, Muriuki added. Atlanta has long been an esports hub and has been named one of the best cities for gamers, while also offering new educational programs for game designers. The city itself has turned to video games to improve Atlanta’s infrastructure.

It’s not just about teaching young people the skills needed to win a game. Fortnite has become a financial engine and monetization tool for players in the creative economy. Players can create maps via drag and drop and earn money as more people join their created worlds. Muriuki believes esports can be an entry point for fun education while teaching technology and artificial intelligence (AI).

Above all, he sees it as a way to nurture critical thinking, community and other core skills needed in the future workforce.

Muriuki spent two decades in the hospitality industry before venturing into esports on his own. But he wasted no time establishing himself in the startup world and is currently attending the Founder Institute, a popular pre-seed startup accelerator.

He said the Kenyan president’s visit last month was also particularly useful as he sought to position the startup on the global stage.

He told Hypepotamus that having Ruto in Atlanta and participating in several events around his visit helped him see “on a global scale how the world thinks about the creative economy.”

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