East & Central Africa Game Developers Community
January 13th was the start of a new chapter in East & Central Africa for the Game developers community. We, Fuse Catalysts in collaboration with NexGen and with the support of Liquid Telecom organized the first local meetup for game developers in Nairobi, Kenya at the Nairobi Garage space. This is the first of many initiatives aimed at supporting and catalyzing the growth of this industry as well as the entrepreneurs / developers innovating in this space.
The event brought together Kenya’s game developer legends such as Wesley Kirinya of Leti Arts, and our very own co-host Nathan Masyuko with a wealth of experience under their belts to newbies in the space such as Broken Helmet but to name a few. It was an exciting mingle and exchange of ideas, projects and connections that is needed to spearhead the growth of the sector to the next level.
Innovation does not exist in a vacuum — thus by working closely with corporate partners such as Liquid Telecom and Google, the disruption rate will be much faster. Liquid Telecom Group CTIO Ben Roberts was on-site to share more on how they envision supporting the community and provide needed partnership(s) support to accelerate the growth of local studios to enable Pan-African and Global uptake of the games developed. Also in attendance was the Group’s Innovation and Partnerships lead Oswald Jumira.
John Kimani, Developer Ecosystem Program Manager at Google also graced the event and shed light into platforms available for local developers to take advantage of.
Funding is always on all startups minds. Lillian Nduati of Code for Africa was able to share a couple tidbits on how local studios should better position / prepare themselves in case of an eventuality that they meet an investor.
The meetup is monthly and those interested in attending can find up-to-date details here. See you at the next meet :) THANKS to our Partner Liquid Telecom & Nairobi Garage for making this possible as well as NAICCON our Outreach partner! Follow us on Twitter, Medium & Facebook.