 all right we are going to get going in just a few seconds if everyone can take a seat all right well good afternoon everyone it is fantastic to see all of you welcome to City College I'd first like to thank President Vincent Boudreaux for hosting us today in this amazing location and it's going to be a very exciting day given what we're about to share with all of you my name is Maria Torres Springer I'm the Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development and I have to say nothing makes me more excited than to speak with young people and see not just how they are having fun but really the types of ways we can connect young people to our growing economy to jobs to prosperity because that is what we are all about in this administration I really do want to thank all of you for joining us here today we have such amazing partners and guests here leadership of course from CUNY and from City College industry leaders in the game development space of course our amazing students who are here with us today thank you for joining us in today's announcement about the cities and divestment in the digital game sector you will hear from many of our partners here today but I want to make sure that I give a particular shout-out to Stan Altman of the Harlem Gallery of Science for all of his incredible work and inspiration and all of his efforts so earlier in the spring the mayor announced and revealed our blueprint for our economic recovery and that blueprint outlined many different strategies for the future of our economy it's been really important to us that our economic recovery is rooted in equity and economic mobility and we know that we have to look to the future to solve the problems and challenges of today that is why we are so committed to supporting the digital games industry which plays a major and growing role in our city's economy it supports close to a change lives across our city because we know that investing in different sectors of our economy isn't just about investing in companies it's really about investing in our young people it's investing in New Yorkers who really have an opportunity to connect to those meaningful and good-paying jobs in our growing sectors and so to kick us off I would like to introduce Matthew Diaz a student right here at CUNY and the president of the CUNY eSports community Matthew. Good afternoon everybody. Just a second. As you all may have heard my name is Matthew Lopez I'm a graduating senior here at City College I'm in the Colin Powell School political science major and also the president of the eSports club to say that I'm excited to be here is an understatement this is something that I could have only dreamed of months ago and yet here we are now I'd like to thank the Gumbo Collective Game Developers for being here if we can get a round of applause for them Sarah Applebaum and the glow-up games for providing the made in New York arcade the wonderful arcade we have back there we had a round of applause for them yeah and I'm also really honored and glad to attend City College a college that has not only helped me academically but personally I mean to see them throw their support behind such an ambitious project is really just a site to behold these kinds of things we just we wouldn't have made possible years and years ago and yet here we are I have a lot of this my personal success my professional development my personal development my academics it's all thanks to games in a large part to say that it wasn't such a foundational aspect of why I am here today is an understatement genuinely from being able to make the wonderful friends that I have at the eSports Club to being able to time manage in those tense situations when I'm playing competitively in the eSport of my choice video games in all aspects have shaped me into the kind of person that I am and to be quite frank with you it has led me here to where I am today in front of you I am really honored and very happy to know that the mayor and the mayor's office has thrown their support behind this this project has such great potential and its effects are far-reaching and immediate and I hope that you can all really recognize that and appreciate that in the same way that I the members of the eSports Club and the mayor here has today but without further ado it is my great honor my privilege and my pleasure to introduce the mayor of New York City Eric Adams glad you're not running for office you know just a few moments that I spent in the back watching the game something came over me I think was a second game where you were caught up in the excitement you know we were watching the it was it was a soccer ringing the bell and you actually you're caught up in the moment you don't even realize how much you get caught in the game and I used to see my son spend eight hours playing the game now I know why but it was also another game I saw that taught critical thinking this is like an unbelievable opportunity to use gaming we think of gaming all I thought about that I was gonna walk in and see Pac-Man you know it is so much more I mean we could almost treat gaming to help people who are dealing with dementia to remember things gaming for people who want to learn financial literacy how to buy a house how to pay for college gaming to deal with some of the hate crime we see in this city you know the anti-Asian violence anti-semitism tax and LGBTQ community they could be games that's developed to teach us how to enjoy our diversity so this is a great moment and then e-sports you know those who never played a sport physically you could almost master it in e-sports this is going to become a multi-billion dollar industry of that you are going to be part of part of so the jocks of yesterday that you know we're only good at sports those days are over the gaming is the great equalizer any and everyone could play in one way or the other and lean into those things that are important so Chancellor and the entire teams that's here I'm really happy for this moment we thought of this we talked about it how do we not only become consumers but developers everyone wants to sell a product to you now you're in a position of saying we want you to buy my product your product is no longer someone designing something that you have to participate it's not reflective of who you are now you're able to create a game that is really reflective of what you think what you see in the universe that you're in and so today with CUNY City College with the students the CUNY leadership and the gaming industry we're here today and I'm excited about this and we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the visionary of the amazing deputy mayor of economic and workforce development Maria Torres Springer we've been hanging out the whole week you know rolling out some good stuff and she just knew this was the right thing to do as well as the team from the mayor's office of media and entertainment just the right team to make our city the center of innovation of all levels we want to be the center of innovation you know we've had a history of innovating from skyscrapers to the subway system to so many things happened right here in New York from Bitcoin to blockchain all of the things they start here and they continue to grow here if they don't start here they grow here because we get it right all the time and it's based on the diversity of the people that live in the city because they bring all of their energies and spirit to the innovation that's needed and it's time for us to lead in this industry of digital gaming space New York City is a leader so many areas tech film of finance of so many different areas we leaders in but not here yet when it comes to gaming development we are outside of the top five we want to change that in the next few years we want to be number one how the heck do we follow anyone with New York City we don't follow people we lead and so the goal is to use CUNY to start the pipeline of ensuring that we're going to start building out our gaming industry we know that we have the highest concentration of augmented and virtual reality gaming jobs in the nations highest number and we have so much talent here every day just some of the games that we were discussing earlier and so we want to make the city the hub and two months ago we launched the blueprint for economic recovery coming out of the deputy mayor's office and we spoke about building a future focus economy and how we must stop and step into innovations in order to do so and create the entrepreneurs the new thinkers and come up with a real good product that everyone globally would like to duplicate or to purchase anyone of you in this room could become the creators of next rock star games company or the developers of the next rocket league or mba 2k i assume that's 2000 you know i didn't play any of those games you know but you could clearly become the next head of that so today we're going to really level up we are investing in our future in the future of new york city gaming development with some big announcements today that i'm really happy for this is something we wanted to do i'm proud to announce the funding and creation of city college bachelor's degree program in game design an actual degree in game design we're investing two million dollars into this program i was a computer programmer as a young person i know how powerful it is the skills you take forever and so these two million dollars we believe is going to help reach over a thousand students over the next three years and is aimed at increasing diversity and equity and the digital gaming field far too often you're not seeing the diversity in this field we want to increase that diversity so those who play the game will look like the people who are also designing the games that's the match that we are looking for this complements the work that so many in the industry are already doing including uh new york xl's of recent announcement of their young creators program providing fellowships uh to the next generation of content developers wherever we go wherever the deputy mayor and i go if it's at google if it's at netflix wherever we go we talk about paid internship programs and building a pipeline for those young people to fill those jobs that is the goal here if you don't get exposed then you don't see the possibilities out there and we're focused on telling all of these large companies that you patronize it's time to hire from the communities that are actually purchasing your product and we're on mission to accomplish that and this is the part that i like a lot we are going to put in place the first ever digital games industry council we are bringing together the top digital game companies non-profits and industry leaders and young people to sit down in a visor city on how to grow this important industry right here in new york as well as partner with educators to create pathways from classroom to careers and game designs you can do this not only in college you can do this in high school you can do it in junior high school you have in your heads already as young people the type of games games that could be designed we want to bring you to the table and clearly set the standard on how this industry must go grow using public and private partnerships we could obtain the level of gaming that we want and so i want to finish with this today we are going to push forward we begin this quest together this is how we're going to get stuff done in the city and accomplish a fair and equitable city when i leave in any one behind this is a great city but it's not great because of the tall builders it's not great because of the museums the theaters and all of that stuff it's great because of the people and too many people did not fail and reach their greatness and their full potential we say no to that not only are you going to be successful gamers but you're going to use the tools to help help those who have been left far behind in the past thank you amazing announcement i'm happy to be here thank you mayor adams now i'd like to introduce someone who's been a fantastic partner and will continue to be we could not do this without the partnership and of amazing institution and there's a lot at stake here the jobs in an industry like this really run the gamut from game development to all of the occupations within publishing to data science to research to marketing to the financial services that need to be part of the ecosystem and in my mind there is no reason why cuny can't be the number one pipeline to all of those jobs and so with that let me welcome our amazing Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez thank you maria and the answer is yes by all means by all means uh let me just um Matthew so Matthew Fonco to uh mom or dad yeah poli sci what are you doing oh i'm the president of the e-game club mijo why are you doing that you should be doing something worth your time i just want you when you get that diploma you take a picture of you and the mayor that you're introducing and you say you see what i was doing college right because that is a chance of success so congratulations to to you and to the mayor and this is a great partnership uh i want to give kudos to uh our host the president from city college vincent budron the entire team here also the leadership at ostos community college uh president desi coco the philippines who couldn't be here who are the partners in the pipeline right because this is this is the the beauty in the mayor's message is that he is encouraging all of us and saying you need to start working with this students early he mentioned at high school right back in k-12 pushing us to do more partnership with the great chancellor chancellor banks and the doe right so those pathways begin fairly early you begin thinking about that this is easy because the students are already engaging this you need to have them visualize like you said becoming producer not just consumers but they understand already the space you don't have to tell them too many things so they can visualize why is it important and exciting and then have them go to a community college like ostos get their two-year degree knowing that they're going to continue to a four-year degree have them with paid internships with experience in all this in all these companies that is music to our ears as the deputy mayor is saying there's so many other fields right that are perfect in our college environment to be able to add into the mix marketing finance uh think about the video games need artists to be able to produce the beautiful animation so the game is important right if you play those games i don't but i hear my kitchen the basement do the music is really important right so there's room also for the talent of our musicians to be part of the mix the people who are doing producing musically to do that so it's a whole gamut of industries of talents that we know we have here at cuny that can be tapping into this industry think about also then when they go and they join leagues right the sports management the work that can be done in that area right so that we can become the number one hub in the country where those games are being played and those leagues are being played right and our teams are beating everybody else around the country right we want we want those that talent those dollars and we also want to showcase the diverse talent that uniquely cuny can produce at scale right because we want that to be reflected in all these games you want to be reflected in this kind of industry so i applaud the mayor for the support that we have for this initiative this is only the beginning at the city university of new york so that we can have many many more mathews walking down they are at commencement with so many degrees proud and going out there making good money donating money back to cuny right that's important right so the mayor can give some less money right and everybody benefits in the city so we want that entire ecosystem of an equitable economy to be here and we are so happy to have a mayor that is supporting us to do that at work at cuny and we'll do our part and thank you so much for the support thank you chancellor you're going to be very busy mathew in the years and decades to come we're very excited to watch your continued success now i'd like to introduce philip courtney who is the ceo of urban arts to share a few words thank you so at urban arts we are committed to closing the widening opportunity gap we help underrepresented students harness technology explore their creativity in order to defy the odds the odds that we're hearing about today and define their future five years ago we created the school of interactive arts a few graduates here today sarah who showed her game and darsie and dekwan sage we created this program called the school of interactive arts because we saw a huge demand from our students we work primarily primarily in k-12 schools the pipeline you're talking about and so we created this this program called the school of interactive arts because it was a huge appetite for students to play games but also more importantly as you said as a consumer to produce it to make them and we have graduated hundreds of students from that program many of them have gone to schools around the country and to top universities private universities but never has there been an option a public option for them to study this very important growing subject in their backyard and so this is for me and for us a historic day i say we give the private universities a run for their money so big thanks to ccny stan altman barry some of the architects who've been working on this for a couple of years now and to the mayor's office for this historic moment we're going to be strengthening the pipeline of our students we're going to be serving about 15 schools in in harlem and the south bronx we're also going to be growing our internship and mentorship program which as we discussed as we heard today is very very important at the onset of the pandemic we noticed that our students were very isolated we also heard from some of our corporate partners like take two for example the largest game publisher in the world that their employees were also restless and wanting to give back so we created a one-to-one mentorship program where they could connect virtually we have been trying to recover from that ever since because the demand from these corporations the corporations that have money that want to invest is huge and the desire of these employees to give back is huge and the impact is amazing i just wanted to read you a couple of quotes so one mentee this is the student said of this program i learned how i can play my apply my skills to the work field and where my place could be in the video game industry this is a two-way street right the mentor said i gained a new friend a renewed motivation to use my privilege and any privilege i have to help others i would absolutely love this for our company to do more of this i know that all of my co-workers want to pay the experience for and ultimately create a more diverse workforce in this industry so it's a two-way street and i see a lot of i'm very excited about what we're going to do in the mentoring and as you said paid internships it's not an internship unless it's paid so thank you all this is this is a great moment for us moment for the city it's it's it's very important for the students that we serve to have a place at the table and to have a front row seat at the future of economy and this initiative is going to do that thank you so much thank you philip really love what the brilliant work that you're doing and it's it's important that this work start really early and the work in the k-312 system is just so critical to building the diverse pipelines that will really make this all our collective efforts as meaningful as possible and so finally i would like to introduce the ceo of nyxl james fry and welcome one of new york city's favorite teams and two time conference champions as well and new york excelsior thank you and welcome hi i'm james fry honored to be here today i am the ceo of nyxl which is new york city's premier esports and gaming entertainment company and we very much believe in the deputy mayor and the mayor's mission to make new york city the gaming capital of the world we own the new york subliners professional call of duty team the new york fury the professional valerant team and the new york excelsior the professional overwatch team our teams and our organization bring the diversity attitude and energy that exists in our great city to everything we do one of the things we always say to people who are competitors from other cities we tell them whatever you've got we've got it better and that's what we believe is the spirit of new york we are also putting our money where our mouth is and and supporting their program very much by launching what is called the yxl program the young creators program where we are going to give ten new yorkers um 50 000 one year internships and we are going to continue that program for as long as we can applications are open until may 26 any of you students in here who want to be part of the org and make content or make games or do whatever you do we are open for business and we want you to come join us if you come down to our office which is in the 49th floor of the world trade center it looks like new york city by design we love this city we believe in this city and we're going to make it the gaming capital of the world with the support of the deputy mayor and the mayor i want to next introduce the founder of the company president of the company farsam camille who has some things for rc mayor mr adams everyone thank you uh james sort of alluded to we have here today the new york excelsior which is the first professional e-sports franchise that represents this great city we take a lot of pride in that team we're going to welcome them up here in a minute for a special moment to meet the mayor and also introduce them as an honorary member of the team before we do that however i just want to say to the community overwatch players here and the e-sports club thank you for doing what you do we notice it we see it there would be nothing that gives us more joy than in the future a member of this team coming from this region and if not a player on the team then candidates for all the rules that we very much intend to open up here in the market it'd be awesome if it came from people who are actually local um so we're excited for this moment and i want to thank everyone for for inviting us here and with that said want to invite the team up here uh for the for the jersey hand over because you have to show this i have my number on it any questions if you have any on topics before everybody moving deputy mayor what's the timeline for the availability of the degree i think that i deduced that matthew will graduate with a poly-side degree what's the first class that will be able to graduate with a bachelor's degree please um so generally speaking this fall the four-year program will start and also with at city college but there's also a great arrangement and partnership with hostos so the students who are in the two-year program there there will be a nice a transition as well and that will start i think graduating by 2024 so please correct me if any of that is inaccurate no totally accurate um we're building this program one of the reasons it's appropriate at city college is we have classes and digital arts programs computer science that are already on the books already taking students so so we will start enrolling students in the fall and that means especially with the hostos graduates we should see them um getting ba's two years after that so we're we're coming in hot and we're going to graduate students really fast okay so we're going to free you guys up y'all don't want to be part of all well one thing we're not going to do is use all methods to fight an old war to fight a new war should say we have new tools new methods new things that are available for us and we're going to constantly analyze them and make the right decision I said this over and over with COVID COVID pivots and ships if we're rigid we won't defeat it and so we're sending new yorkers we are urging people indoors we're masking doors if you are in settings on the subway system like it's already in place we just make the smart decisions boosters vaccinations is crucial when you look at our hospitalizations it is now the reason about hospitalization is heavy on people who are non-vaccinated so it's crucial to do so so we're not going to panic we're going to continue to be prepared that's the key does that indicate there won't be a return to the old restrictions a new approach because we're in a new stage nope it doesn't you know as we when we get off our morning calls we make a decision on how we're going to move forward forward we're not at the point of mandating mask we're not at that point yet we're not at the point of doing anything other than urging new yorkers while you're indoors in large settings social settings where you're masked continue to lean on that lean on our clear message of vaccinations boosters we're going to do more advertisement we're going to really start reaching out to our faith-based institution to give them tests we've done an amazing job we have a testing system in place that no else in the country is able to do so so what does that mean someone gets COVID they stay home they're not doing what we were doing before going out and infecting others they're staying home we now have the antivirus we didn't have that before we have more tools so we don't have to fight the war we had before this is a new war and we're going to use all those tools to do so to mandate anything that we had previously are you are you hesitant no it's not hesitant it's not hesitant it's we're wiser we're smarter and we are because of we're wiser and smarter you're not seeing our hospitals going through the state of emergency that we were at this is not the numbers like when we were starting out COVID we're not like that anymore we're hospitals were overburdened we're speaking with H and H we speak with our privates we speak speaking with our our schools they're all saying the same thing they say listen we got this we're not overwhelmed we have it the number of cases in our hospitals are small the number of deaths are small my H and H team my medical team are all saying let's drill down on the message of indoors wear masks get boosters vaccinations we're not at the point that we have to put the mandates in place Mr. Mayor you just said that we're not at the point of putting mask mandates in place but the matrix from the city health department says we are at that point that's one of the recommendations at the high level so kind of begs the question what's the point of the matrix that know the recommendations are going to be followed look at the remember what was part of the matrix part of the matrix looked at hospitalizations the hospitalizations we were looking at was based on the hospitalizations we dealt with before all war new war so if we just go straight here the numbers and let's just respond just to the numbers then we're not pivoting like COVID COVID pivots it doesn't follow any rules so if those hospitalization numbers were dealing with people on ventilators people dying of people tying up our emergency rooms we would have looked at those numbers and said okay we're fighting that all battle again but we're not no not the ventilation crisis not the emergency rooms being overwhelmed not our hospitals over being overwhelmed our hospitals are telling us hey we're not at that place we were before so the matrix is right but we're looking deeper at the numbers and doing a real analysis on the ground so we can make the smart decisions mayor accountability is important i mean we see the great things we're doing from dyslexia screening with all of our students to the investments and scott college funds to building out the pipeline with with gaming you know mayor mayor accountability this is i said it over and over again if two boasting fans can have control of our school system then done it the nicks and the mets and the nets fans should have control of it also we're the right combination to control our school system that's important we would love to get some of the other important items we need the NYCHA funding which is crucial that is something we want to talk about there are four 421a we would like to see an extension of 421a so there's time to the end of the session to get some of this stuff passed and i just think it's important that we that we get it done we would love to get speed cameras the the head of the committee in assembly stated he didn't hear enough from us which i don't quite understand the way it's done in albany you speak to your cop your colleague that's sponsoring the bill you know i don't vote on a bill we have some great allies out there there sitting in a genotus a genotus is there he believes in the bill other believes in the bill bring it to the floor of your committee let the committee vote on it we're hoping they have a second thought could this build speed cameras save lives we see the rash of crashes that are fatalities in lives being lost we should not play politics with saving lives let's get this bill to the floor let's get it up or down vote yes are you wearing a miami shirt someone give a new york shirt what's up with that can you on a more serious note yes can you speak to why the health commissioner is issuing an advisory on indoor masking if transmission is so high rather than issuing a commissioner's order because we you know and i can't say this enough there is no straight one in one equals two you know i'm a i'm a computer program and in binary you know one in one is doesn't equal to the goal is to come up with a master plan and shift like covet is shifted and our team of experts is taking in everything to make the determination on what the next steps are going to be with covet and so we're going to continue to lean in to tell new yorkers while endures to wear the wear the mask i try to do as much as possible we're going to continue to encourage people to do so yes how many meetings you have scheduled tomorrow and all the needs you plan on meeting with your cousins and Carl hasty and then also afterwards do you plan on also joining leaders up in Buffalo with President Joe Biden of course in the wake of the shooting so let me answer that in levels first the number of meetings the team is still putting putting that together to make sure we can speak well as many of my former colleagues and new colleagues as possible and anytime i go to Albany i like sitting down with Andrea and Carl and even you know outside of Albany so we don't know the exact number and we're still trying to tonight we're having a visual right here in the city dealing with that awful tragedy of ten innocent people were assassinated by this terrorist act and three people were also shot but the pain is going to cascade throughout Buffalo in this entire country and we're going to try to see the schedule allow me uh to go to Buffalo as as well but we also going to do uh our vigil here and we're encouraging um everyone to come out tonight and just really show our support for the family members guns guns guns too many in the hands of the wrong people too violent and then you add that to what i've been saying for a long time their hate on social media they must start taking responsibility for their actions i said it over and over again and i'm happy to hear the governor the ag and others are now understanding what i'm saying this person according to his manifesto stated that what he learned about this hate he did not get it from his friends families and associates he got it from social media that's a serious message for us we need to analyze what is on social media that's destroying the people in this country thank you uh back on the high alert level yes being expected to enter that under the current level the doh guidelines urge you to consider re-implementing d2myc you're now saying under the high level that you're not looking to reimplement a mask mandate for indoor spaces i'm just wondering if all these guidelines are there and recommending these things and you're saying that you're not going to follow them at what point are you going to be ready to follow those guidelines what would be the trigger for you to actually start mandating things so we're going to do this again because i because i mean you may have missed what i was saying first let's start with the start with the foundation there are no clear rules dealing with covid there are no clear rules you go across the country and people are giving their best effort professionally medical advice everyone is trying to figure out this new entry into our lives called covid we put in place rules based on what covid did previously and how we responded to covid based on the tools that we had now we're moving into a great delivery services service of medicine we're moving into a vaccine of booster shots of our hospitals saying eric we're not overwhelmed we're not overwhelmed so to just say well you wrote this on paper so now you must follow it that's not how i govern i govern based on what's in front of me and how to win the battle so if i'm stagnant with this with a enemy that's not stagnant i'm going to lose the war i have to win the war and we made the decision and if there comes a time that our hospitals are now in a state of emergency or we're trending that way then and my doctors that run the hospitals tell me eric this is what we need to do i'm going to listen to them right now they telling me no we don't need to do that we have this under control we don't have this crisis in our hospitals that we had previously we don't have that anymore so i'm listening to the team as i win this battle of kovat for all of us yes your administration is expected tomorrow to release the plan your plan for fixing rikers island i'm wondering if you can give us a little bit of a preview what's going to be in that plan and secondly there's a new group out today calling for a federal receivership i'm wondering is there any circumstance under which you think a federal receivership would be a good idea for rikers island okay so let me do it in two levels first am i going to give you a little part of it no second second um no you know listen don't let anybody kid you people's talking about federal receivership you know they're gonna come in everything's going to be all right rikers is dysfunctional is broken it has been for generations i come in five months later and everyone is asking why isn't rikers fixed completely yet if not let the feds come in to do so we have the first latino commissioner in rikers who's amazing he's doing a great job that's my faith i have faith in melena i have faith in the team he's putting together i have faith in what he's going to accomplish when you feed that into things that we're going to do by having every agency participate in helping fix in rikers never before all the agencies are now coming together to say how do we deal with this problem we're going to eventually do dyslexia screening in rikers to find out those young men and women who are dyslexic so they don't have to come back to rikers we're going to create a new way of of dealing with those who are i'm filing there we're getting crisis management teams to participate we're doing for rikers where no one else did before so if anyone believes that just because receivers receivership comes in that all of a sudden something that was dysfunctional for generation is going to change i doubt that all i can do was within my span of control we're going to fix rikers i need an opportunity to do so and if they're not willing to give me the opportunity to do so it's nothing i could do about it but i do find it strange that the people who are calling for receivership some of them they had rikers they didn't fix it then so now they are vociferous about receivership why didn't they fix it when they had it that's a good question thank you got to bounce