Esports seen as pathway to boost diversity in STEM careers
As a kid, Kevin Fair would take apart his Nintendo console, troubleshoot issues and put it back together again — experiences the Black entrepreneur says represented “a life trajectory changing moment” when he realized the entertainment system was more than a toy.
“I think I was just genuinely inspired by digital technology,” he said.
Motivated by his love for video games, Fair learned to code and fix computers. In 2009, he started I Play Games!, a Chicago-based business that exposes young people of color to a side of video gaming they might not have otherwise known existed.
By channeling students' enthusiasm for esports — multiplayer competitive video games — schools and businesses like Fair's aim to prepare them for careers in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, at a time when the fields lack racial diversity.
“These kids were born with digital devices within their hands, and if you give them access, the world is theirs,” said entrepreneur and scholar Jihan Johnston, who founded digital education company Beatbotics with her teenage son, Davon — an avid gamer.
Despite industry inequality and representation issues, young video game users are diverse. A 2015 Pew Research Center study found Black teens are slightly more likely than their peers to play video games, while roughly the same amount of white and Hispanic teens play.
Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic workers make up just 9% and 8% of STEM employees in the U.S. respectively, Pew said last year.
Johnston is reframing the conversation about video games by coaching communities of color on how esports can lead to careers for their children.
“I think our community does not know that this can lead to college,” she said.
This school year, DePaul
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