Applications are being taken at Waterford IT for a new round of candidates on what was the country's first scholarship programme in e-sports.
The college is boosting its offering in the fast-growing arena of e-sports, with the development of a new e-gaming room at its main campus on Waterford's Cork Road, which is expected to be ready for the start of the 2021-22 academic year in September.
Last year was the first in which WIT took on students in this discipline and, according to Viking Sports Club manager Jack Lyons, it was a "highly successful" venture.
"It was around this time last year that it actually came on our table," he explained.
"I was very new to it at the time and I started reading up on it and when you look at all the stats, the amount of people that are playing it and stuff like that, it really caught my eye and caught everyone's eye here at WIT Vikings.
"We decided to really jump into it and we've seen the response since from the students and even outside of that, it's really something that's blown up. It's blown up outside WIT and we're just trying to jump on board with it."
There are now hundreds of millions of active gamers playing e-sports around the world, and about 600,000 in Ireland, playing games like Rocket League and Counter-Strike Global Offensive.
Ernestas Trakys from Kildare, Dominic Kawka from Waterford and Liam Doocey from Wexford, who are studying programmes ranging from applied computing to software systems development, have successfully completed the year.
Dominic said the hope is that the scholarship will help him in his career long-term.
"I got into e-sports after watching a tournament in Katowice [Poland] back in 2013, where I saw a Polish team fight against a Swedish team and it was a very intense game, a very emotional game, and that just got me hooked on it.
"I'm a guy that likes to have balance in my life, I like to do exercise to keep myself healthy ... I'm hoping that with my coding knowledge I can maybe get into development of the games that I love so much and hopefully I can have a good relationship with the community and listen to their ideas and be able to implement them into the games."
Ernestas said that WIT having its own gaming room should give them "a boost and motivation" from September.
"If you're playing at home you're obviously not next to each other but if you're in the same area, playing and practicing, there's more chemistry and motivation towards the team."
According to Lizzie Kent, head of the college's Viking Sports and Societies programme, the esports exponents are treated the same as other sport participants.
"These athletes work as hard as any athlete, they hone their trade and practice their skills ... These are athletes, they work as athletes, they prepare as athletes and we're happy to support them in their endeavours."
The development of the new e-gaming room will provide more opportunities for training and also for people to try it out, she said.
"On a wider scale there's an opportunity for the room to open as a global training camps and international training camps, so loads of opportunities from both participation and competitive level."
