Saudi Gazette report

ٌRIYADH — The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has announced the launch of five new initiatives as part of the “Gamers without Borders” tournament that it holds in partnership with the Saudi ESports Federation.

The initiatives aim at supporting the e-games sectors, stimulating Saudi and world youth to innovate and develop their own games, and finding digital solutions in relevant fields.

The first initiative is specialized in e-games for smartphones, which seeks to stimulate business entrepreneurs in the e-games field to develop games that compete with world games for smartphones.

The initiative starts with the phase of accepting projects before they qualify for the finals and announcing winners of grants for each project, in addition to the right to join an accelerator for e-games and secure a headquarters for one year.

The second initiative, titled “Create it and play it for beginners at ThinkTech”, will focus on training Saudi youth in the field of e-games and developing their skills, in addition to stimulating and helping them to explore their skills in the fields of e-games and technology, and investing in the e-games field. These two initiatives aim at developing the economy of Saudi Arabia in a way that realizes the 2030 Saudi Vision.

A third initiative dubbed “Digital meetings in e-games” was also announced, where the ministry, represented by the “ThinkTech” Initiative, seeks to hold discussion panels on the game industry and development, targeting various groups of people interested in the field of game development, gamers, investors and business entrepreneurs.

The fourth initiative “ThinkTech Talk” particularly targets interested people and experts in the field of game development, investors and business entrepreneurs in the sector, where the initiative is based on holding a virtual symposium to display the ideas and expertise of individuals in the field of game development and investment, just like the TEDx Conference to speak about their experiences in creating and developing e-games until contributing to spreading awareness about the industry and development of e-games and shedding light on local and international expertise in developing e-games.

The fifth initiative, dubbed “Himmah Camp for Game Development,” is run and supervised by the Saudi Digital Academy and is considered one of the ministry’s initiatives that aim at building up national digital capabilities with high efficiency. It will seek to provide intensified training and education for the Saudi youth in the field of developing e-games through acquainting them with the “Unity” engine and using the #C programming language until reaching national cadres that are qualified to enter the e-games market.

For his part, Deputy Minister for Future Jobs and Digital Entrepreneurship at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Ahmed Al-Theneyan said that the ministry, represented by its initiative ThinkTech, has succeeded in supporting the efforts of the Saudi EGames Federation and contributing to having a good reputation for this modern and innovative industry.

Al-Theneyan stressed the ministry’s relentless aspiration to move forward and instilling the partnership further and further with the federation to continue on building up the sector and the community of esports and e-games according to international standards in light of the immense digital and technological capabilities that Saudi Arabia enjoys, in a way that contributes to speeding up the growth of esports so as to make the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a distinguished hub for its international community.

Registration in the first initiative will be available on June 7 on the “Gamers without Borders” platform.