Eduvos Leads the Way with Groundbreaking Esports Launch
Eduvos, one of South Africa’s largest private higher education institutions, officially launched esports on Saturday, July 29, as part of its National Open Day. Four of Eduvos’s twelve campuses—Midrand, Pretoria, Tyger Valley, and Bloemfontein—played against each other in a cross-campus competition.
Teams from the four campuses competed in Apex Legends, with Software Engineering students Dewald Vlok, Jeandre Gouws, and Ti-Yu Chiu from the Eduvos Tyger Valley campus winning the competition. Eduvos proudly hosted the event with RGB Gaming, who are pioneers in sustainable esports at learning institutions. The cross-campus skirmish was the first of its kind in Africa, with an overwhelming response from both prospective students and Eduvos’s own Vossies.
RGB Gaming was responsible for delivering essential services to facilitate the live streaming of the event on the Edovus YouTube Channel.
Esports is another way in which Eduvos is transforming the education space. Beyond providing quality, affordable education, Eduvos aims to open doors of opportunity for its students, who are affectionately called Vossies. The institution believes that modern technology, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual reality, and esports, should be embraced to equip its students with the skills needed to prosper in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The institution aims to be Africa’s leading meta-university by 2027.
Esports also provides a bridge to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields as teams must analyse data, review their strategies, and learn to understand computer hardware and software. Eduvos believes students, regardless of what qualification they are completing, will find value in participating in esports.
The launch is a culmination of months of work, including Eduvos and RGB Gaming’s joint exhibition at Comic Con Cape Town in April.
Eduvos will be expanding esports to all its campuses in the coming months. The institution is also working on launching an esports qualification that will add to the over 27 qualifications Eduvos currently offers. Eduvos and RGB Gaming will be teaming up again to exhibit at Comic Con Africa in Johannesburg and the 2023 rAge Expo.
Robert Njawaya, a Vossie gamer and Bachelor of Science in Computer Science student at the Midrand campus, said:
“Gamers should play esports at Eduvos because of the community. At other institutions, you’re not going to have the same community, that’s almost like a family. You’ll know a lot of people, you’ll jam together, and then when you see each other in class, you can still interact easily.”
It’s this sense of community that both Eduvos and RGB Gaming are looking to foster, where students from different backgrounds and identities can come together and work towards a common purpose. Jaco Sauer, the GM for RGB Gaming, said:
“Establishing a solid learning foundation at any institution is important. Finding a fresh and technologically themed implementation of that foundation is even more important in today’s fast-changing learning environment.”
“Students need to know that their place of learning is equipping them with the real-world skills need to adapt to a new technology-focused world. RGB and Eduvos’ esports programme is exactly, and we pride ourselves in working with such a dynamic and forward-thinking educational brand.”
Click here to learn more about esports at Eduvos. Learn more about RGB Gaming here.
