Encounter with Senegalese Esport leader
Posted by octobre 18, 2019 in NEWSBaba Dioum President of Sengames shared his thoughts about Esport in Africa with Kayson, Esport Writer at www.jbklutse.com, Read below the full interview
First can we know who is the brain behind Senegal Esport
My name is Mamadou Dioum and I’m better known as Baba King which is also my gamer name. I work as Digital Project Manager and I’m the President of SENGAMES association. In short a passionated Esport Believer.
How did you get into Esport ?
We created SENGAMES association in order to organize Esport events in Senegal in 2011 in doing this the idea was also to gather gamers in Senegal and create a community in which they will be able to train themselves and organize each as a real Esport club would do. That’s how got used to everything related to Esport at the first place.
Years after we challenged for the first time Kenya and Burundi to play against us online the Game Call of duty Modern Warfare 3 and that was the beginning of real esport experience for us. I started doing some research on how true esport tournaments should be conducted and found out that here in Africa, countries like Morocco Ghana Nigeria Kenya and South Africa were already creating real esport events with big partners.
What has been your motivation from then ?
Africa is a very promising continent for Esport country manager, big companies are developing strategies to increase esport. That’s a big opportunity for every gamer to involve his community and be among the pioneer that will push Esport at its best level. Later on I travelled to Gabon and participated in the African Cup of Nations organized by Orange, I met some Esport believers and they explained me how things work in their side. Strong with all these experiences I’m ever motivated to do the same in Senegal
In 2016 I met Mamoudou Soumare a League of Legend player he has been in France for 7 years and is very experimented about Esport tournaments: how they manage players, how they create events and how they get funds from partners. We had some amazing discussions, we became friends and he accepted to join SENGAMES association and contribute to esport in Africa.
How do you work with the two career openings ?
I must admit it’s very difficult. Sometimes I don’t have enough time to focus on my Esport projects because of work. It’s the same for events organization for our community because most of the Gamers who are working on the SENGAMES Staff have their own job and hardly find free times for our activities. But when they have, nobody can beat their engagement.
We hope that AEC will lead us to the light and help us flight with our own wings, be independent and be all the way working on gaming projects.
How do you see the Esport industry in Senegal ?
It’s slow but it’s still at its debut but since 2017 they are lot of events that have been organized in order to promote Esport. I think we’re on the right path and with the help of big partners we can aspire to create same amazing events like South Africa does for example.
Senegal has a big potential, we have great gamers. Thanks to our Fifa Champ Addexx Thiam we were FIFA 18 finalist at Morocco Game Show event powered by Orange and our League of legends teams have their own online championship with many teams. We have a wonderful counter strike squad named “Jambar” and last but not least a community of fortnite players where you can find young promising gamers.
So what are some of the opportunities Senegal Esport seek to provide as it expands ?
With the expansion of Esport in Senegal, we want to offer careers opportunities for our local champions, we are working on several projects that can help them be Pro players and starting getting paid after every tournament they will participate.
That’s our dream that’s what we stand for ! We are also collaborating with Cameroon gaming association to launch the first Esport Academy that can help young people to learn Esport jobs
How do you see the African Esport Industry in general ?
It’s amazing! It’s getting bigger and bigger I recently watched some events in South Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast Morocco and Kenya but I was truly amazed by the logistics, the quality and the involvement of partners to make it big and great. But we must agree that the main problem is funds and internet. Africa needs his own local servers to be part of the global Esport revolution. We’ve got amazing players that can challenge any player from any country at any games but we need good internet and financial supports.
What are your suggestions if we want to move on to the next level ?
- Local servers for Africans
- More financial supports
- More Esport events to promote our locals players and connecting with others African mates
Anything you want to add before we end that interview Baba ?
Oh Well i just want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my opinions about Esport in Africa, i hope my people will appreciate this interview.
Big Shoot out to team SENGAMES for all the efforts they’re doing to develop Esport in our country and yeah i’m expecting better days for Esport in Africa
Cheers !