When Kevin Fair was a young child, he would disassemble his Nintendo console, fix problems, and then put it back together. The Black entrepreneur claims that these experiences were “a life trajectory turning moment” when he discovered the entertainment system was more than a toy.
I believe that digital technology just honestly impressed me, he remarked.
Fair was inspired to learn how to code and repair computers by his love of video games. He founded the Chicago-based company I Play Games! in 2009 to introduce young people of color to a side of video gaming they might not have otherwise realized existed.
Schools and companies like Fair’s strive to prepare children for jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) at a time when the industries lack ethnic diversity by utilizing their interest for esports, or multiplayer competitive video games.
“These kids were born with digital devices in their hands, and if you give them access, the world is theirs,” said businesswoman and academic Jihan Johnston, who launched gaming-obsessed Beatbotics, a company that provides digital education.
Young gamers are diverse, despite industry inequity and representation problems. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center research, Black kids are slightly more likely than their peers to play video games, but White and Hispanic teens also play at about the same rates.
Pew reported last year that the percentages of Black and Hispanic workers in STEM fields in the United States was, respectively, 9% and 8%.
Johnston is redefining the discourse surrounding video games by advising communities of color on how esports may help their children find professions.
She asserted, “I believe that our community is unaware that this can lead to college.”
Information systems major Shemar Worthy, 21, is a senior at DePaul and is currently playing online. Claire Savage/AP Photo
In order to develop practical skills for the video game industry, DePaul University in Chicago introduced a new academic esports scholarship this academic year. According to Stephen Wilke, the school’s esports coordinator, nine out of the ten freshmen grantees are people of color.
One of the recipients of the $1,500 scholarship is Aramis Reyes, an 18-year-old computer science major with a specialty on game creation and development.
The young man in glasses identified himself as a recreational, non-competitive gamer. For Reyes, the potential for storytelling in video games is what makes them so magical. He declared, “I want to delve into so many design ideas.
According to Fair, the skills that gamers naturally acquire assist prepare them for a variety of vocations in IT, coding, statistics, software engineering, and other fields. Competent gamers analyze the data they see on their screens logically and think in frames per second. They are efficient in the modern workplace because they are proficient at typing.
He explained, “All of that is high-end math going in the person’s head right now.
Like Fair, Reyes became interested in coding because of video games.
Everything is so easily found if you know where to search. Reyes pointed to the 10-inch (25-centimeter) spine of a book on learning Python and said, “You know, I honestly went through a secondhand store and got one this thick.
According to Fair, companies like his will aid in closing the diversity gap. Given that testing shows the U.S. is falling behind other developed nations in STEM education, increasing diversity in STEM would promote pay equity, spur innovation, and help keep America competitive on a global level.
Research from the University of California, Irvine, backs up Fair’s approach: researchers working with the North America Scholastic Esports Federation discovered that school-affiliated clubs that use students’ esports interest in an academic setting helped them learn math and science, piqued their interest in STEM, and benefited students at low-income schools the most.
Building out diversity in both esports and STEM requires, according to Grace Collins, a teacher from the Cleveland region who in 2018 founded the first all-girls varsity high school esports team.
“I believe there are many parallels between the difficulties facing diversity in STEM and esports,” the author said. therefore resolving this issue in one location can contribute in their relief in the other,” Collins added.
Reyes, who is Hispanic and Latino, claimed that esports gives students of color a sense of belonging and is “definitely” a way to increase diversity in STEM. Reyes has observed that, despite the claims of civil rights activists that racist hate speech still exists online, the gaming community is largely receptive.
Lethrese Rosete, a sophomore, concurred and described DePaul’s esports group as “a very safe and friendly environment.”
Rosete, 20, is studying in user design experience to hone her coding abilities while also combining her creativity.
At the university’s Esports Gaming Center, Lethrese Rosete participates in an online game. Claire Savage/AP Photo
She brings up the president of Activision’s Blizzard Entertainment, who was fired following a discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit citing a “frat boy” culture that became “a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women,” as an example of how she is aware of inequality issues in STEM and video game design.
DePaul, according to Rosete, does not feel that way. All of us are simply here to learn, she remarked.
Rosete claimed that when the first-person shooter video game Valorant added a new Filipina character, she screamed and ran around in ecstasy.
The American-Filipina Rosete said, “I felt at ease.” “I thought my time had come for representation,”
However, video games alone won’t close the STEM diversity gap. It’s a structural issue that transcends esports, according to Wilke.
On the other hand, a lack of representation, online radicalism, and pricey equipment purchases might exacerbate inequality and reinforce prejudices.
Another issue is online safety. According to U.S. federal officials, Fortnite creator Epic Games will pay a total of $520 million to resolve allegations including methods used to lure gamers into making purchases and concerns about children’s privacy.
Fair advised parents to maintain a “good attentive check” on what their children are doing online. He declared, “There’s a lot of rubbish out there.”
Teenagers’ access to game consoles and computers vary according to their family’s income, and the Federal Reserve stated in 2021 that average Black and Hispanic households earn nearly half as much as average white households.
Despite surveys indicating an increase in developers of color, white men continue to dominate the game sector.
Fair stated that there is still much to be done to increase racial diversity in esports and STEM fields.
“I can raise a sizable number of kids who enjoy FIFA. But that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that they’ll want to become engineers, he added. “You have to attempt to sort of explicitly demonstrate how what they’re doing, the activity that they want to engage in, connects to something that they can make money in.”
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