Regional E-Sports Champions Crowned as BLAZE Concludes Coast Engagement

BLAZE by Safaricom concluded its Coast region engagements by crowning Fahad Ali as the champion of the Coast region’s finals of the BLAZE E-Sports Tournament that was held at the Kenya School of Government in Mombasa County.

Fahad Ali from Mariakani emerged the Fifa 19 champion with Mark Maranda and Loyd Owino from Kilifi and Mombasa settling for second and third places respectively. The KES 100,000 Prize Pool saw the top 3 taking home KES 50,000, 30,000 and 20,000 respectively.

“I thank BLAZE for coming up with this tournament, this will make young people take E-Sports seriously. Winning this tournament has made me believe that everything is possible and I look forward to competing in more tournaments and possibly having a career in E-Sports,” Said Ali.

The Coast region’s finals becomes the first BLAZE E-Sports regional finals to be played since the tournament was launched early last week. The tournament is a new additional to BLAZE Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) platform meant to inspire Kenyan youth aged between 18 and 26 years who would like to take up gaming as a career.

The BYOB Coast region engagements also culminated in a Creation Camp at the Kenya School of Government, which saw 24 young entrepreneurs sharing KES 800,000 in business support, broken down into the top 3 in 8 categories. The entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to a panel of mentors with the top 3 winning KES 50,000, 30,000 and 20,000 respectively. The categories included: Film and Photography, Technology, Agribusiness, Sales and Production, Creative Arts, Fashion and Music.

This year, BYOB has expanded its youth engagement program through increased number of summits and the introduction of the BLAZE E-Sports Tournament and BLAZE LINK, an aggregator of e-learning content, with an aim of reaching more youth across the country.