UiA's bachelor’s students in academic e-sports brought various arcade gaming machines to the ship insurance company Gard, a leading global marine insurance company headquartered in Arendal.
There was a lively gaming atmosphere in the canteen where Gard employees got to try their hand at gaming, with the UiA students as instructors.
Gard's Chief Operating Officer, Lislegard-Bækken, got to try a dance and coordination machine as well as a machine that tests the user's reflexes.
"He was very interested in the different arcade games and thought they were fun. For us students, it was educational and inspiring to see that many employees got to see the games and try them out," says Mia Pedersen, a first-year student on UiA's bachelor's degree programme in academic e-sports.
"It's great to see that we gamers get recognition for our skills, which can be actively used in the workplace," she adds.
"Hybrid and digital skills, communication, collaboration, and innovative problem solving - all of these will only become more important in the future, especially for a leading international competence and technology company like Gard," says Lislegard-Bækken.
Knowledge sharing
The new collaboration with UiA includes Gard providing financial support and promotion for the university's various e-sports teams. The agreement also means that Gard and UiA can mutually benefit from each other's experience and expertise in digitalisation, technology, and hybrid collaboration.
"We are very pleased that Gard is so forward-leaning and that they want to be a partner in this field. E-sports is one of the world's fastest-growing activities, regardless of gender and age, and the industries linked to the gaming industry are growing immensely. More and more companies are recognising the value and usefulness of the skills developed through e-sports," says Rune Andersen, associate professor and programme coordinator for academic e-sports at UiA.
Facts about e-sports and academic e-sports:
- While "gaming" is primarily about playing video games for fun, competitive e-sports is something quite different. In e-sports, the gaming is organised, systematised and often focuses on collaboration and communication. In academic e-sports, the focus is on developing competencies and skills that can be transferable to other areas.
- UiA has offered a bachelor's degree programme in academic e-sports since 2022. The programme is a collaboration between the Faculty of Engineering and Science, the School of Business and Law at UiA, and the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences.
Facts about Gard:
- Gard is a leading global marine insurance company headquartered in Arendal, Norway. The company has 13 offices worldwide and over 650 employees.
- Gard offers liability insurance and marine and energy insurance to a range of players within the maritime industry. Around half of the world's merchant fleet currently has one or more insurance policies with Gard. The company places great importance on loss prevention, sustainability, and consultancy.
In-demand expertise
On a daily basis, Andersen teaches Norwegian and international students at UiA in academic e-sports, which mainly focuses on transferable skills from gaming to other sectors in society.
"Academic e-sports is much more than games and competitions. It is a programme with enormous breadth that opens up many different fields in the future. In other words, we don’t educate professional gamers, but we make use of the skills that digital games and e-sports provide to educate tomorrow's workforce with the skills and talents required," says Andersen, who is supported by Gøril Hannås, Vice Rector for External Relations and Innovation at UiA.
"The collaboration with Gard as a major international player is important to us. It shows that the expertise of our e-sports students is in demand in more and more parts of the labour market," says Hannås.
Cathrine Hopstock, Head of Technology at Gard, also got to test out the gaming equipment.
"At Gard, we need smart people with different backgrounds and different skills. We have perhaps the best technology team in the industry and in southern Norway, we work all over the world, and we’re going to need more talented people in the future," says Hopstock.