Imad Khan – 2017 Recipient – Islamic Scholarship Fund

Major: Journalism
Degree: M.J.
School: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Sponsor: Sultana Zakir Naqvi Memorial Fund

Message to Supporters: Thank you very much for being a part of the Islamic Scholarship Fund and awarding me this scholarship.

A little about myself. I’m a masters student studying journalism and CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. I have a focus in esports, or competitive video gaming. I always had a passion for the interactive arts, but never could find an avenue to get myself involved in the industry. I did know I had opinions and wanted to tell stories related to the field. That’s when I started blogging and quickly my work caught the attention of multiple websites. I soon shifted focuses and concentrated on competitive video gamers. In many ways, these gamers will become the athletes that kids are and will look up to.

It’s important to have Muslims not only in medicine, law, and engineering, but also in the liberal arts. Muslims must not only be scientists, but writers and thinkers. And even with writing, it can’t exclusively be limited to discourse about politics, race, and religion. Muslims must show that we can contribute in every avenue, from discussing the impacts of war to niche communities in burgeoning fields. Typecasting for our community should be something we should avoid. We should embrace the less normative contributors, for that will only make our presence more rich.

Bio: Imad Khan is pursuing a masters degree in journalism from CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. Imad graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in government. During school, Imad worked for political campaigns and even as a policy analyst for a state representative. But it was during his final year in college that he decided to start a blog discussing society and culture in regards to video games. His work quickly caught the attention of various websites. Eventually Imad started writing for the Daily Dot as a video game reporter. But he found himself gravitating towards a budding field, esports. Esports, or competitive video gaming, is a new subculture that’s growing rapidly. Imad has used his storytelling abilities to highlight players and analyze this industry of professional video game players. But since 2014, Imad hasn’t just covered video games. He’s also written multiple articles on the tech, computer, and automotive industries for websites like PC Gamer and Digital Trends. While the video game industry might seem outside the scope of Muslim causes, Imad believed otherwise. In 2016, he hosted a panel titled Muslim Representation in Video Games at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California. There, he discussed the current state of Muslim representation within the industry, what the industry was doing right, and what it could improve upon. The panel was met with overwhelming positive feedback. Imad is currently a freelancer for ESPN, writing esports related articles, and would one day like to become an editor.

Areas of Interest:
eSports

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