NUA (Nerds United Alpha) is an initiative by Tech Legends. It started as a community involving gamers in Odisha. Now, we also have developers on board from across the country as a spinoff community “NUA Dev On“.
Also Read: NUA Dev On Meetup v1.0: Odisha’s 1st AI & GPU Gathering
On 10th August 2019 – we (NUA) organized a gamer’s meetup at DGamerz Lounge. I’m sure – if you are a gamer, you must be aware of quite a few similar events in India. So, what’s unique here?
Why Was It Self-Sponsored?
Here, we aim to scale up our gaming community in Odisha without needing the help of any brands (to sponsor). So, we made sure that this was a self-sponsored meetup and no brands were involved as sponsors (or organizers).
Of course, when a brand sponsors – the event easily goes up a notch by the resources (or financial support) provided.
But, when a brand gets involved as a major sponsor – they tend to take over the event as their own (no matter how good the company is). I wouldn’t go into the details – but if you want to do something good for the community, involving a brand becomes messy.
Unless the brand wishes to stand just as a supporter (as a member of the community) instead of a sponsor. If you’re reading this as a brand – let us know what you think.
We’ve organized events in the past that involved brands. Even though the experience wasn’t bad – we just felt that something wasn’t right. You can check them out here:
This might be subjective – but that’s what makes us stand out from the rest of the gaming communities in India.
What’s Unique In NUA Gamer’s Meet?
Here, we encourage gamers to know about the dev-side (how games are developed, etc.) and also insist on gaining more knowledge about the hardware we utilize to play games.
At least, in Odisha, not a lot of gamers are hardware enthusiasts. We are here to change that.
Of course, they might have the fanciest rig or a console – but knowing about them matters.
So, in our meetup, we aim to encourage our fellow gamers to gain more knowledge where we help each other for almost everything (developing a game, building a PC, or just exploring a game).
Well, that’s enough for an introduction. If you are curious about it, you can join Nerds United Alpha on Facebook.
Now, moving on to what happened in the Gamer’s Meet…
Gamer’s Meetup: All About It
Being the first time of our initiative, we didn’t have a lot planned. To kick things right off the bat, we picked a place where can hang out.
We discussed a lot of things with our community to brainstorm ideas on how/what can be done to improve the gaming scene in India (yes, it’s still in the early phase!).
If you think that gaming in India has improved a lot (judging by the YouTube views), you’re wrong. There’s a whole lot of things to improve, technically.
In addition to all the general discussions, we also encouraged folks to learn and explore more about their hardware (whatever it is) and getting to know how games work. Not just limited to that, we also touched upon some parts of game development. It was really fascinating.
We also utilized NVIDIA’s Jetson Nano to explore GPU computing as well (AMD, don’t hate us!)
Next, to keep our discussions engaging, we thought of getting some Cyberpunk 2077 posters for the community, who would hate that? (especially, when there’s Keanu!)
We also got some free Dgamerz coupons to come back later and play for free. I know, we’re kids, right!?
With all the discussions going on, we also got to know amazing people from our community. We did have some streamers, content creators, and developers among them as well!
And, of course, we played games! (how can I forget that part!)
Key Contributions
Everyone had a key role in our community meetup. So, forgive me, if I missed mentioning someone, specifically.
However, to give credits where it’s due – Prince Patra (Founder, Dgamerz Lounge) and Ranjan Kar helped us with the place to organize the meetup in the first place.
Of course, Amlan Panigrahi, who put forward the idea of the event in the first place. He is responsible to form the community “Nerds United Alpha” – originally.
Not to forget, I was there too (I don’t know what I was doing though). On a serious note, gave a brief introduction to our aims and objectives associated with this initiative.
We got to know about a budding streamer from our city – Abhii Jha (GaminMadness). He shared some interesting insights about his journey to start as a streamer (or content creator).
Also, one of our NUA admins – Sangmen, helped us with the photos for the event. Don’t worry, he didn’t get paid for this!
In addition to all the key mentions, I’d also like to thank my fellow gamers (including the admins of NUA) for their participation and contribution.
Wrapping Up
We’ve got more photos of the meetup, if you’re curious, you can also check out the album on NUA’s Facebook page.
If you haven’t already, you should check out the NUA group on Facebook too!
See you in the next event! GG!