University of Alaska Fairbanks to host Esports and Gaming Summit

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) will be hosting an esports and Gaming Summit this week which will be open to community members.

According to Dr. Peggy Keiper, Associate Professor of Business Administration and Director of Sport and Recreation Business for UAF, while this isn’t the first event of it’s kind, this will be the first return of the summit after it was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We hosted this event three years ago and then we obviously had a few years of COVID,” Dr. Keiper explained. “We didn’t have either an online event nor an in person event, so tomorrow (Friday) we are hosting an online and in person esports summit that’s the in person portion is playing.”

While there will be games to enjoy, UAF will also be hosting educational panels online with industry professionals on a variety of topics.

“The virtual portion, the speakers, is education,” Dr. Keiper elaborated. “This year, we’re focusing largely on industry accountability - so we have speakers from Blizzard Activision talking about unionization of the workers, she works for Game Workers Alliance and that sort of thing. We have representation of females in gaming and then also mental health and education. Those are kind of the goals for the speaker portion. For the playing portion, it’s engagement and getting people excited about esports, creating community, especially in a place like Alaska where community for students and young people is needed.”

This event is not just for those attending the university, as it will open to any community members looking to join according to Dr. Keiper. “The esports center is open to everybody and the summit is for everybody. So if you want to play in the in-person event, contact our current esport coordinator, Mike Juell. He’s doing all the signups or you can just show up at the esport center.”

The event will be taking place on March 25 from 3:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the UAF Wood Center. More information can be found on the UAF website; and for those looking for more information on the online panels, those can be found on the event’s website.