Maliyo’s GameUp Africa becomes GameUp Academy and shifts to an always-on global learning platform

The useful part

Prefer PocketGamer.biz on Google GameUp Academy will target learners globally rather than focusing exclusively on Africa. The platform will initially open to the 2026 cohort before becoming available to everyone. Maliyo says GameUp Africa has reached more than 6,000 people over the past five years.

How it works

• Africa, during which the team gathered data and insights into how people learn and what skills they need.
• GameUp Academy will instead allow users to learn at their own pace, while shorter facilitated programmes will continue alongside the platform.
• The platform is expected to launch by the end of September, initially opening to the 2026 cohort to "make sure that all the systems that we've designed work as intended" before becoming available to anyone.
• "And rather than being exclusionary with our name, we want to be a lot more inclusive.
• "We recognise that people don't want to spend a crazy amount of time on a training programme," Obi continued.

What to take from it

"And the way the world is today, people don't have that attention span. So, we wanted to create an always-on platform, which means you can learn at your own pace whenever you want." Obi added that AI is going to be "core" to everything the studio does within both its creative and non-creative sectors.

Details worth keeping

AI and gamification will become core parts of the learning experience. We still maintain GUA identity, but now we're more embracing, we're more inclusive." Learning at your own pace Obi went on to add that the original GameUp Africa programme was based on a 2020 design and was traditionally delivered as a five-month boot camp. "Our traditional training programme was five months long.

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