I am Hazem Ahmed Abdelfattah an architectural engineering graduate from the American University in Cairo (AUC) and a professional Egyptian gamer.
All I wanted do since I was 17 years old is to play computer games. At first, I used to play a lot with my friends in local internet cafes until I started playing an online game called DOTA. Like so many other kids of my age, I used to play it for fun and spend countless hours just looking at a computer screen. As time went by, at the age of 19, my love and affection towards DOTA grew bigger and I became almost addicted to it. I attended and won small scale tournaments that was done by some computer companies back then. So, despite all the social norms about games being a waste of time and energy, I decided to keep playing the game and try to study for my major concurrently. At first it was hard, but good time management was always the key to my success in doing so. My family was very supportive of me doing so because they noticed that I'm actually good at playing computer games and I may not be wasting time after all.
Two years later, I became a little bit less motivated because no one cared about the game in Egypt. A lot of companies failed to realize the importance of computer games and the amount of people who actually play it; the number of tournaments was reduced drastically. The game was growing big all over the world so I kept on playing and improving my skills until I joined an Egyptian DOTA 2 team. We practiced a lot and won a lot of tournaments not only in Egypt but also in the middle east. We qualified for major tournaments in Dubai and China(WESG). Then I decided to join other international teams and try my luck. I eventually ended up moving back and forth between teams. I've also been ranked among the top 100300 players worldwide among millions of other DOTA players.