Kuala Lumpur, 23 February 2017: The Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) and eSports Malaysia (eSM) launched the APU eSports Malaysia Academy at APU’s new campus in Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil today.
A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed between Datuk Parmjit Singh, CEO of APIIT Education Group, and Dato’ Latt Shariman Abdullah, President of eSM today.
This is the first partnership of eSM with a Malaysian university to establish an eSports academy within the university’s campus.
Deputy Higher Education Minister, Y.B. Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching witnessed the MoA signing and officiated the launching ceremony.
Apart from the launch, a full-day exhibition by APU students from the Multimedia, Computer Games Development and Creative Design programmes also took place.
eSports Malaysia representative, Rinie Ramli, APIIT alumni, Wan Hazmer, who is now the Lead Game Designer of Final Fantasy XV, and APU Computer Games Development student, who is the developer of the mobile game – Flail Rider, Jussi Pekka Tuomi, also conducted talks to the participants of the event.
Upon its establishment, the APU eSports Malaysia Academy will serve as a platform for students to develop and channel their passion for competitive gaming. APU and eSM will partner in giving support, training and proper guidelines to the students, in order to equip them with essential skills to be a professional game, eSports shoutcasters, team managers and so on, thus creating new opportunities and talents within the Malaysian eSports industry.
Some of the upcoming activities that will be organized by the academy include: game tournaments, seminars, industry talks and more.
Prior to the initiation of the academy, the relationship between APU and eSM started in January 2015, in which APU received official endorsement from eSM to establish the APU eSports Club. To date, the eSports Club has 280 members, in which some of them represented APU and Malaysia in the global arena of eSports, such as the IEF International Collegiate Esports League 2016 held in Korea, as well as the League of Legends International Collegiate Championship 2016 in Taipei.
In his opening speech, Datuk Parmjit Singh, CEO of APIIT Education Group, said, “Today is a meaningful day. It is truly an honour, and a privilege for APU to be the first university in Malaysia to launch an eSports academy together with ESM. I have no doubt in my mind, that this partnership will be an amazing journey ahead. With the launch of the APU eSports Malaysia Academy, we believe that we can deliver the best programmes and activities to the students, to prepare them for their future careers in the eSports and gaming industry.”
“The Esports Academy vision is to be one of the leading Esports Academies in the world providing talents not just to our local industry but also to the international scene as well. It is well known that our local players such as Mushi, Chuan, AmTuah and many more have been competing in many international tournament all over the world so we know that our local talents are able to compete with the best in the world. However, without proper guidance and a development program, only a few are able to compete at that level and we hope with APU Esports Malaysia Academy we are able to change that. Our mission is to ensure that the students of the academy are able to master the basic skills, act professionally and are competition ready. We want the academy to be able to raise the standard of our local competitive scene to the next natural level.,” said Dato’ Latt Shariman Abdullah, President of eSM.
The event received wonderful remarks from the attendees, “It is about time that we establish a healthy environment for our university and school students to participate in competitive gaming, while instilling soft skills such as communication skills, leadership skills and critical thinking skills within them. We are very glad that eSM and APU came up with this initiative to establish the eSports academy within the university’s environment,” said Deputy Higher Education Minister, Y.B. Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching at the launching ceremony.
