eSport Kipinä

This project is a fresh opening in a familiar field: young men becoming marginalized. The idea is to utilize esports as a way to reach out for those young men, who are marginalized from society. Esports is a field in which most of these young men have an interest. This claim is based on the fact that esports is the most interesting sport to follow for 1829 year old men. Thus, esports is the place to find a sparkle in their life!



Undoubtedly, the ground is fertile, as young men are more interested in esports than in ice-hockey. 53% of 18-29year-old men are interested in sports and for some of them it is their only interest in their life. The common concept seems to be that gaming can consume a lot of time and energy - sometimes all of it. Therefore, there is a group of people who are in a great risk to be even more excluded from society. Thus, esports ought to be a field in which reaching out for socially marginalized young men could be a fruitful effort.



On the other hand, esports is a growing business field and will offer lots of different work and career opportunities even now, but even more so in the future. It is important to create ways to tap into this hidden supply of skills, knowledge and passion, in order to funnel more expertise, workforce and consumers to this quickly growing phenomenon. Thus, this is one of the projects goals: create pathways for businesses, entrepreneurs and events to find these people, who are both their customers and potential workers.



For this reason, the project will focus on esports events and communities as a gateway and a tool to reach its goals. Esport events and communities (both online and offline) are yet unused ways to find routes to more social life and to educate or even find a job in this fast-growing esports business field. These communities and events are built by peers for peers. Thus, the social group has a strong meaning and presence in esport field, but it is mostly used and regulated by the players themselves. Therefore, the project shall utilize these events, communities and spokespersons to reach out and build a route to studies or work in the field of esports. There are many different kinds of experts, who are equally important in building a successful esports event - large or small - or create community activities to players. Esports needs experts from roadies to streamers.



Consequently, our first goal is to help these men to find an area of their interest in the field of esport. Within that goal lies a subgoal: to reach and educate the focus group. Esports is something they know much about, but they lack the self confidence and might not be able to recognize the skills and knowledge they have acquired. These skills and knowledge may be more than enough to hold a job or at least volunteer in an esports event building team. Thus, they can start working with a small group of peers and learn and/or recognize skills needed in the field. As they learn new skills and reinforce old ones, they can take on more advanced tasks. As a by product, and as the second goal of the project, participants are part in the creation of successful esports events. The third goal of the project is that once the sparkle has been found, these young men would be interested in studies or employment in the field of esports and would have the courage to take them on.



Since, the sparkle has been lit, projects goal is to keep the spark alive and share it. For this purpose, the fourth goal of the project is to create the Kipinä / Sparkle -game. This game will be created as a foundation for these sparks to evolve into stories. Main idea of this game is to motivate, guide and assist participants to find their way, write their story. The game will serve multiple purposes: firstly, it will help the project to create structure; secondly, it will help participants to understand the process and keep them motivated as they advance; thirdly will produce data from which we can evaluate which act