The esports program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa is continuing its meteoric rise by being named the best collegiate esports program of the year at the recent Esports Awards in Las Vegas — and few were more astonished by the win than the UH program’s founder, Sky Kauweloa.

The honor was the latest development in the momentum that UH and the state are gaining in the fast- growing $1.3 billion global esports industry.

“It’s like the Oscars or the Grammys (for esports). It’s quite shocking” to have won, said Kauweloa, director of the UH Manoa esports program since its relatively recent launch in 2018.

The announcement was surprising to many since the nine other major collegiate programs from the U.S. and England that were nominated included older, larger programs that operate with millions of dollars more in resources.

While video games have been ubiquitous since the 1970s and 1980s, esports — organized, competitive multiplayer video gaming, including collegiate and professional levels — has grown with the rise of the internet.

Kauweloa, 44, was a graduate assistant in 2018 when he began organizing what he thought would be just a small club with a handful of students.

The now-UH graduate with a doctorate in communication and information sciences, head of the UH Manoa Esports Task Force, and tenure-track junior specialist is frequently praised by UH and state leaders as the catalyst for the esports program’s rapid success. Kauweloa was himself a top 10 finalist this year for the Esports Collegiate Ambassador of the Year award.

He estimates there are more than 400 esports programs across the nation. This was the second year in a row that UH Manoa was named among the top 10 finalists in the collegiate program category of the Esports Awards. This year’s winner, announced Dec. 12, was chosen through a weighted formula of voting, with 75% of the decision coming from a judging panel of industry experts, and 25% from the public esports community.

The Esports Collegiate Program of the Year award “honors a group or program that has significantly contributed to the world of collegiate esports,” the Esports Awards website said. Judging criteria include involvement in collegiate esports through organization of tournaments, broadcasts or other avenues; significant impact on collegiate esports through strong performance, new initiatives or improving standards; and effort to grow collegiate or grassroots esports in new ways.

The award did not come with money or any other prize, but it raises the UH program’s profile and is “vindication that the path that I have been directing the program over the past several years has reaped benefits for our students,” Kauweloa said.

WHILE ANY esports program strives to develop winning players and teams, Kauweloa said, competition “is not the beacon of this program.” He believes the UH Manoa program took the collegiate award because of its emphasis on education and the novel ways it has connected students to industry leaders.

For instance, when the prominent video game company Activation Blizzard sought to rent facilities and equipment at UH to hold its Overwatch League professional competition events in 2021, Kauweloa and other faculty advocates of esports spotted an opportunity to boost the education of UH students, he said.

“We turned this rental discussion into a 20-person internship for students … so that the students were able to shadow the Overwatch League” as the league came to the campus five times for competitions, Kauweloa said. “It’s like the NFL coming to Hawaii and saying, ‘Get a bunch of students, we’re gonna run the Super Bowl, and we want you guys to help us.’ That ability to do that is unprecedented.”

In 2021 UH became the first higher education institution to host the league’s regular season tournaments, playoffs and grand finals. This year UH Manoa again served as the host location for an Overwatch League tournament.

Among other major accomplishments by the UH Manoa program:

>> The Valorant team at UH Manoa won its first collegiate title last year and its first international title in August, and has been among the top four in the nation throughout this year.

>> The League of Legends team at UH Manoa earned a runner-up finish in the Mountain West division this year and the team’s social media presence earned a top-10 ranking among collegiate programs.

David Lassner, president of UH’s 10-campus public university system, said in a statement that the university “is building a leading edge statewide program that engages students from Hawaii and attracts students from all over the world with opportunities that can prepare them for rewarding jobs in the fast-growing sector of esports.

“This includes not just the players, who are most visible, but 21st century opportunities in marketing, communications, esportscasting, game development and more,” Lassner continued. “Our program needs to be as diverse as the people of Hawaii, and while winning matters, we will distinguish ourselves by demonstrating aloha not just within our own esports community but for our competitors as well.”

Esports at UH Manoa is in growth mode, with eight varsity teams and a planned addition of junior varsity teams. About 100 students are members of the program but about 1,000 people participate on its Discord online communication platform, including students, alumni and community members, Kauweloa said.

The Manoa campus in October opened a new esports facility called the iLab, serving 40 to 80 people daily.

Kauweloa also helped launch a three-course esports series in the College of Social Sciences. An esports certification is in development at UH, he said, adding that establishing an esports major may eventually follow.

UH MANOA is not the only local esports initiative. Others than have opened in recent months include:

>> The new Academy for Creative Media at UH West Oahu, which held its grand opening last month and is that campus’s fastest- growing program. It offers video game design and development among its four areas of concentration under the Bachelor of Arts in creative media degree. Among the features of the $34 million, 33,000-square-foot facility is 24-station gaming arena.

>> The TRUE Esports + Tech Lab, which opened in July at Waipahu Public Library. The state-of-the-art facility features best-in-class gaming PCs, displays and peripherals in a space for the community to learn, study and play, and is meant to teach gaming and software development skills.

Esports has its problems and detractors, Kauweloa acknowledges. Among the issues that divide even advocates and experts are the violence depicted in some games; game addiction; negative and positive effects of gaming on the cognitive functions of players; gender stereotyping of video characters; and underrepresentation of women among elite players.

Kauweloa said he believes one of the best things parents can do to help young gamers is to enter the virtual environments they work and play in, including learning to play the games and getting involved in tournament organization.

Meanwhile, Kauweloa said he feels esports presents a natural alignment and growth potential for Hawaii because of the state’s location midpoint between the mainland and esports hot spots in Asia, and because of Hawaii residents’ ease with Asian cultures.

The wide range of jobs esports could spawn for the islands, he said, include web development, user interface design, coding, announcing, events planning and marketing.

And as a local-born part Hawaiian, Kauweloa said he’s excited to look for new ways to help Native Hawaiians and other underrepresented groups gain more access to technology and related jobs. The top echelons of the tech industry “are pretty much occupied by folks that don’t come from backgrounds like myself,” he said.