Today at Sunway University, Garena Malaysia officially announced their latest initiative to help growing collegiate level esports in Malaysia. The Garena Student Alliance (GSA) is a platform where various esports clubs in Malaysia’s universities and colleges can get help to grow their club further and helps growing more talented in esports.
“Esports has triggered a major surge across the world and few could have envisioned that education and competitive gaming could co-exist as they do today,” said Justin Lye, Product Manager at Garena Malaysia.
The GSA is not solely targeting talented esports players. Instead, the GSA aims to produce esports talents, those involved in the managing and organisation of events as well as hosting and shoutcasting duties can be trained at the university level. As such, Garena has already launched the Malaysia College League (MYCL) Host Search to groom the next on-camera talent and host for college esports events. The two students that were selected will be undergoing a three month internship with eGG Network.
While Riot Games just announced a student ambassador program in Malaysia, Garena’s approach is more towards student organisation, specifically esports clubs. Rest assured, both programs are complimentary of each other despite both operating at the collegiate level. The GSA will provide the various esports clubs help and support to host esports events and help them learn the inner workings of the industry outside of viewpoint of a player.
So far there are 17 different universities and colleges that are now participating under the GSA. The number is expected to increase as more esports clubs are established in the rest of the universities and colleges in Malaysia.
Sunway University plays host to the third season of MYCL where 13 universities compete in League Of Legends and FIFA Online 3 with a prize pool of RM8,000 up for grabs. The event is organised by the host’s esports club, which is supported by the GSA.