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Dubai-based company to teach gaming in school as part of curriculum, upskill students

Unesportsity aims to break parental stigma by introducing gaming as a positive learning tool

A Dubai-based company plans to roll out gaming in the school curriculum. Unesportsity, which offers a comprehensive marketplace of gaming-related products, is piloting a programme to teach students starting as young as three.

"We want people to realise that gaming can introduce economic output and benefit the gamers by upskilling," said Dr Adil Alzarooni, founder of CapiZona Ventures, which runs Unesportsity. "We want to introduce gaming in a beneficial and positive way across schools and universities, ultimately growing it into a curriculum that will use gaming for skilling."

A project is in the pipeline to be rolled out at the Citizens School, of which Dr Adil is a chairman. "We want to make education more fun and have skills embedded subconsciously into their minds," he said.

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"Many of the skills needed for gaming can also help in their regular life. With this programme, I hope they can nurture those skills that will benefit them in the future, irrespective of whether they become gamers or not."

Gaming tournaments

Dr Adil said that with the gaming industry growing by leaps and bounds, ensuring the younger generation is skilled at it is of the utmost importance. "The gaming industry is now bigger than the music and movie industries put together," he said. "In the UAE, it's expected that 25 per cent of the UAE population will be active gamers. In Saudi Arabia, it will be even more, with around 60 per cent of the population being active gamers. So there is huge potential there."

Unesportsity has begun gaming tournaments within its first physical location as a first step in introducing gaming to youngsters. Located inside a café on Sheikh Zayed Road, the studio will try to achieve multiple objectives. "There's a platform that we currently have that will manage tournaments, and these tournaments will cross schools and universities at a certain point in time," he said. "We are just experimenting with the space to manage the tournaments and the reward system. We will be taking it step by step. The next goal would be to launch a wider program to introduce this to additional communities and schools."

Fighting stigma

According to Dr Adil, his primary goal is to fight the stigma among parents about gaming. "Most parents, when they see their children gaming, think of it as a bad thing and scold them to get off the screens," he said.

"But if the gaming experience is trained in a certain way, it can actually be a positive one. Of course, students must have a balanced life with both mental and physical activities. Gaming should be part of such a balanced life."

He added that parents were navigating difficult territory in this. "There are not many references for parents to go through and be able to educate themselves on how to manage the gaming experience for their kids," he said. "That is one objective that I carry within Unesportsity—to be able to guide parents on how gaming could be a positive thing."

He added it was important for the community to come together to build a framework for gaming. "Gaming experience wrapped by an education experience is very innovative and visionary," he said. "But it won't be possible without the support of the community, team members and, of course, the parents. So if we all come together around a concept like Unesportsity and try to make a positive experience out of it, then it's very possible. It will take some time, though."

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