 Welcome to the wide world of e-sports, a show devoted to all things e-sports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today, our topic is empowering students through STEM, the role of e-sports and gaming. My guest is John Cash, the founder and global professor at John C. Smith University's Gaming and e-sports initiative. Welcome, John. Thank you, Catherine. Glad to be here. And thank you for your staff too, the guys behind the cameras doing all the operations. Absolutely, we really appreciate that. So why do you think STEM and STEM are important for students? Well, first of all, as you probably know, Catherine, approximately 80% of future jobs or opportunities and careers will need some type of STEM or STEM component to them. So that's one thing right there, just the size of the opportunity. The other opportunity is that we need to ensure that underserved students have this opportunity to be properly educated in e-sports and, well, in STEM technology. E-sports is an easy segue to get students who may not be engaged in STEM and STEM more engaged. Why? Because they're doing it every day. They're doing it on their mobile phones. They're doing it on their computers. They're doing it on their consoles. So now they are exposed to this industry in a way that they are already integrated in. And it makes it easier for the education team. And then we'll be able to introduce other STEM-themed opportunities. So, John, you're a great example to students because you have quite a few roles in e-sports and gaming. Tell us about the roles you have in various organizations. Sure. So as you guys probably see, I have my American flag on the back. I'm a service-disabled Air Force and proud Air Force captain. That's how I completed school with a ROTC scholarship. And I've been in corporate America after getting my MBA for about 15 years and also in the sports entertainment and agencies. But I love, again, building businesses and growing opportunities. One of the ways I give back is by teaching. And so I'm a graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC, where I grew up. And one way I give back is to teach. And so I started teaching at Johnson C. Smith University. And my business mind kicked in. I saw that at the time, there were over 200 predominantly white institutions in the country that had some type of e-sports program. There's zero for HPCUs, which stands for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. So I took it upon myself to start to develop programs for underserved K through 12 and HPCU students in e-sports and gaming. And with the support of Dr. Bernadette Lawson-William, the faculty chair, we developed and launched the first HPCU e-sports program in approximately six months, developing curriculum, bootstrapping together a lab, as well as also developing a team. And to give you an idea and give your audience an idea of how many HPCUs there are, Catherine, in the country, there are approximately 100. And I would say they fall into triangle, basically going from Philadelphia down to Texas all the way to Florida. And I'm also involved in an organization called Gaming Community Code, founded by two HPCU graduates, Ryan Johnson and Chris Thiet. They attended Oakwood University and North Carolina Central University respectively. Along with what I was doing, we all kind of parted together and now have put together an education and league program that's doing great things right now. So I'll pause with those two pieces there. But again, we're really excited about what we started at Johnson-Seasmith University and the relationships we're making in the industry, as well as the opportunities for education, internships, and careers, as well as league play for our students. So John, how did you become interested in e-sports and gaming and developing collegiate opportunities? Well, first of all, I'm an old school gamer. I'm not going to age myself, but I used to go to arcade. So there you go. And then when you had Sega and Atari, I was around for that too. And next, of course, came Madden. I was a Madden theme when John Madden e-sports came out. And then NBA 2K. And just recently, I look at first person shooter games. And I also look at Rocket League and other games. But that's how I got engaged. I just kind of saw the business opportunity as well as being a gamer. And we know that approximately, I think, it's like 90% of people, 18 to 35, are gaming, probably on a weekly basis. So again, that market is there. And we know it's a huge business opportunity, Captain. We talked about that. The e-sports industry is a $1.6 billion global industry as of 2020-2021. Now gaming, which is everything else inclusive, is approximately $175 billion global industry. e-sports, as we know it, really kind of originated in South Korea. And it has grown across the world. US has been a leader, China, Japan, Europe, and South African, South American countries now. But that's how my interest started. Really kind of business and the opportunity to empower students that were underserved in this market. Yeah, I can relate to that. I'm definitely super interested in the business piece. But the history of e-sports is fascinating. And so I appreciate you bringing that up. And I do think that it's going to even get bigger as betting becomes more common. So what do you think that e-sports and gaming industry can do to address inequities like discrimination, cheating, parent concerns? We know that there are a lot of parent concerns. I think that being addressed much, much more. Unfortunately, the George Floyd and social unrest over the past two and a half years has kind of accelerated that. But people are looking differently at discrimination, sexism, racism, anti-LGBDQ, misogynistic. And even some of your bigger developers, and I'm not gonna call people out, but some of your bigger gamers and developers have actually had to file suits and pay off huge amounts over the past couple of months. But I feel that the culture understands that we need to regulate this better and that there needs to be a place where all individuals can play and not feel threatened. To be quite frank, that's one of the reasons why we started the HBT e-sports league within gaming community because of so much racism that will be experienced by students in other leagues and online play. But I feel that the trend is going right now, Catherine. People are understanding, much more accepting and on a business sense, it makes business sense as well as moral sense to do the right thing. Absolutely, and I am familiar with that litigation as an attorney, I do pay attention to that. So, what do you think about career opportunities for those interested in the industry? What type of education or training should they be focused on? Glad you asked that. There is tremendous amounts of education and education out available and career opportunities available. First with STEM and STEAM. So, as far as education, yes, you can go to university, you probably can go to a trade school of some type and probably a workforce development of some type that might provide you key learnings within the industry, whether that's coding, gamification, operations management, media, any of those areas or game development. You could probably learn those in those type of areas. Now, when you're looking at careers, so you have three paths. Everybody knows that college is in for everyone and everyone doesn't need college, but you need some type of education. So, I'm a big proponent of just education per se. And then, so those are opportunities. Then when it comes to careers, it's not, yes, we are talking a lot about STEM and STEAM, but it's also other traditional. So, for example, again, I gave those examples for STEM, coding, gamification, game development, shout casting, broadcasting, media management. Those are all careers, STEM related careers within the eSports gaming industry. Look at the opportunities safe with the MBA. Maybe you always wanted to be in sports entertainment or sports market. Well, maybe you don't work for an MBA team, but how about if you were working for the MBA teams to K-League. So here in Charlotte, for example, we have the Charlotte Hornets with Mr. Lamela Ball, who's rookie of the year doing this thing. But Lamela was also a huge game. But in addition to that, Charlotte has one of the 20 eSports MBA teams. We call them the Hornets-Venom. And they're coming up on their third season of play. They're a professional team. We have a relationship we're building up with them. So that's an example for your audience. And then you have traditional opportunities. So say you're interested in marketing or brand management or business development or sales or HR or communication. Those are more traditional opportunities, but the industry still needs some skill set. So I think it's a win-win overall. And then when you're searching, they're a major site across the globe. Hitmarker out of London is a huge site for eSports gaming opportunities. Of course, you can use traditional sites as linked in as some others. But again, and of course relationships, right? The best way to market yourself. Developing mutually beneficial relationships with people and sharing what you want to do and then being able to back it up with the experience and or education to do the work. So the pandemic has really affected eSports quite a bit in that it became a really big deal when traditional sports were shut down. And then traditional sports had to actually think even more seriously about eSports and gaming. So how do you think education has been impacted by the pandemic and also opportunities career-wise? Because now we have opportunities to work remotely. So how do you think that that has all impacted the education and career aspects of eSports and gaming? Yeah, in general, with the pandemic and remote learning, I think that varies on age of students. I think the younger the students, the more difficult it is. I can be wrong. I don't teach K through 12, but just from what I hear, I think the pandemic has brought difficulty on remote learning in some areas. But at the collegiate level, I've been doing remote learning classroom for five years. Well, about four years. So this was nothing new for me because we have a global classroom at Johnson C Smith. So I'd have students in Florida, I had students in Texas and they would dial in, we do Zoom and everything would be great. I feel that the pandemic has shown us that we have to be able to pivot effectively. And as far as education, K through 12, I think it's gonna be a little more difficult. But for those, I would say, maybe more in a high school collegiate and professionals, it'll be easier because I think communication is key. We have already developed and built relationships. We know how to do that regardless of the platform. But for younger youth, I think it's a little difficult. When it comes to eSports and gaming, I think that is the great connector. People who are in this industry are passionate about it. They, we develop a lot of reputations. I've been doing business with people in education or in business for the last two and a half years, never physically met them. But we've been working online, playing online, sharing online, educating online. Even you, I think we might have met at the 2021 eSports Business Summit or the Trade Association Summit. You know, I'm just starting to meet people now as you know, the world has somewhat opened up and we're sharing this. So that's my take on it. Again, I'm concerned for my case is 12, but I feel that collegiate and professionals have our pivoting better, but we still need that personal interaction. So I hope, well, I know that won't go away. So I hope we can do more of that. You know, it's interesting. I taught an intro to eSports course through University of Hawaii OSHA program and it was to people over 50 so that I could kind of introduce them to what this was all about, including the metaverse and NFTs and things like that. And I found that the virtual platform was a lot easier because I showed a lot of videos. And if I was actually in person, it probably would have been a little bit more difficult to do what I did. But, you know, when you talk about connecting with people all over the world, I don't know that I would have been able to meet so many people in eSports had it not been the pandemic because, you know, we have eSports trade association meetings on Zoom or, you know, I spoke at a conference because, you know, eSports conference on Zoom and, you know, opportunities to connect in virtual reality spaces, those kinds of things. So, you know, it just seems like it really has opened some doors that probably won't close. So what is next for you, John? All right. What's next for John Cash? Continuous growth. I didn't even mention my company and my agency, but again, I want to continue to grow HBC eSports, be it with Johnson C Smith University and or Community Gaming Community Code and keep doing great work to be quite frank. I want to attract more students. I want to drive more revenue as a businessman. And then, futures. We're already looking at the next steps and I'm looking at partners to really integrate that. Metaists here, Facebook really amplified that more, but we've been working on it since last year. We had the first HBCU career summit in the metaverse on decentralized last February. So again, we've been in metaverse and that's going to play out. We also have blockchain technology, digital. You talked about gambling within the eSports space. So again, many more other industries that are here, not like they're coming, they're here. And so how we invest in them, how do we start to educate in them, develop more careers in them and monetize them as business and ensuring that there's mutual equality and opportunity for all in these space. And that's just on a country basis in the US, but let's remember to start thinking globally. That's just so myopic, but global opportunities that can be entertained. Sure. And speaking about those issues, let's get in a little bit more regarding STEM and STEAM with regard to the metaverse, gamification, blockchains and drones. And also cryptocurrency and digital currency. I mean, those are really big. And I know a lot of people are very curious as to how those will be part of our lives and part of our work lives and part of education. Yes, it is, it's already is here. You can't pick up your telephone or look on TV or especially look online and not be bombarded with NFTs, even if you go to Clubhouse or the social media platform Clubhouse about educational NFTs, cryptocurrency, what's gonna happen with it? It's gonna happen. The problem is that I feel John Cash feels it's not regulated properly and like to keep it real until governments understand how they can tax against it. Once that happens, it'll really start to take off because there'll be a platform of stability. I mean, Bitcoin was up to what, 63,000 last year and now it's like 38, 39 right now. So that's huge volatility, but I'm sure Bitcoin probably gonna be over 75 by the end of the year. We don't know. And then you have other platforms, ether 10, people say. So I think it's kind of the Wild Wild West happens when it comes to the currency piece. But I feel as governments around the world look at how they're gonna regulate it so they can tax it, you'll have a form of stability that's gonna come. Now with the NFTs and all of that, I just saw a report somebody purchased a house in the metaverse, I forgot what platform for $450,000 next to soup dogs, the rapper. Okay, I'm still trying to understand that but even my wife is in commercial and residential real estate. Their firm actually is into NFT real estate already. So again, it is here. Catherine, it's just a matter of us looking at how we monetize it and how it's gonna be regulated. You know, I pay a lot of attention to sports tech news and I find it really interesting when they're saying, oh, people are buying real estate in the metaverse and they're buying like the Eiffel Tower and famous buildings and things like that. And so I was sort of wondering about how realtors will get involved in this. So you've sort of answered that question a little bit. I think it all comes down to supply and demand too. When you look at the baseline for metaverse and you look at the baseline for crypto currencies, I think it's gonna be driven by supply and demand. I mean, what people are willing to pay, what are the platforms gonna be? I feel there's gonna be an expansion and contraction in both of those. And like anytime you open something up, you have the expansion and then it contracts and you have purchases. So my goal is just, I mean, I'm not a 20-year-old who has another 80 years in front of him. You know, I'm a little older, so I have to be judicious in some of my investing. But for those out there, I mean, every day I'm talking to either from Jen, I'm talking from millennials, Jen, Z, all the way to boomers. It's just interesting to get different people's tapes on what's going on within STEM scene and within our technology right now. But I'm always open to having conversations to learn and grow, just like you're doing here, Catherine, learning from you. So now let's move a little bit away from that issue to making a difference for good in the world. Is that important to you? Yes, and I hope I've identified that in my actions with the development of the first HPC eSports gaming program, the most successful HPC eSports league and education platform, the fact that I've been able to watch five of my students in our first year get right internships. Now, they couldn't go to Sunny Santa Monica because of COVID, but they still got five internships within our first year. I'm always looking at being a servant leader because I truly believe that whatever you're throwing out in the universe will eventually come back to you. That's not why I do it, but that's what I think. And our purpose on life is to be a service father. That's just my anatomy. I mean, whether I was a service member or whether I'm a teacher or whether I'm a business man, I think there's always mutually beneficial opportunities and that's why I'm so thankful to be on your show, Catherine. I'll continue to do that in business and in education. So I hope you can one day come to Hawaii and speak or lecture. Do you think that'll happen? Yeah, my bags are packed. Again, being in the Air Force, I did have a stopover at Hickam Air Force Base. So I've been there and I've been to Hawaii three times. We've never visited more than one island, so my wife will be ready for that too. We were actually in Oahu three years ago, or four years ago. We took my daughter, so we had a great week-long stay. We hiked up halfway up the diamond gate. They didn't want me to, they didn't want to go all the way. I wanted to go all the way. We took great pictures on Waikiki Beach and we loved all the Asian cuisine. I fell in love with Oudon noodles big time when I was there last. All right, well, next time you'll have to hike all the way up to the top of Diamond Head. That's a, you know, very important. So what do you want your legacy to be, John? That's a good one. My guess is easy. My legacy is that John Cash worked hard to be an impact player in the world. And also I'll give you another one. I've heard this one from Steve Harvey. Steve Harvey, as you may know, is a very popular TV host now. But before that, and he still is a very popular radio host. I had the pleasure of being able to work with Steve Harvey's group, his radio show, Morning Show, for about three years when I was on the marketing agency side. And he would have a lot of quotes, a very well-read and well-established man, very deep. But one of the things he talked about his legacy is like footprints in the sand on the beach. I want my footprints to be so deep, it's gonna take many, many Oahu beach waves to wash them away. And that's how I would like to be remembered. Fantastic. So, before we kind of close this up, I do want to take a look at your websites and so people can know where to find you. Let's take a look at your university. Sure, Johnson C. Smith University. Again, in Charlotte, North Carolina, we're right in the downtown metro area of Charlotte. And right here is a special ad that just came up. We were just recognized myself and Dr. Bernadette Lawson Williams, the other young lady in the picture with being an innovator in the world with the development of our Johnson C. Smith e-sports lab located on that campus. It was all bootstrapped, we begged, borrowed and didn't steal, we begged and borrowed to get some information and build that out. So that's right on that campus. Please come by and visit us. We are world renowned, we are really working on items. This is one of our first headlines. This is one where I've worked and negotiated to deal with Johnson C. Smith University and Wyatt Games. As you know, one of the top gaming developers in the world, we have five internships that we shared with them and we continue our collaboration with Wyatt Games. And now let's look at the community. Sure. Website. Well, this is the Wilson Center first and then we'll go to community. Wilson Center, I basically reached out to Wilson Center on a mutual opportunity. Wilson Center is a big time think-tank in Washington DC. And this is exciting, Catherine, because a think-tank in e-sports, well, yeah, it works. They were highlighting how, again, e-sports and education, how HBCUs are leading the field. And they reached out to me, I worked with Wilson Center as well as Microsoft to develop a program highlighting HBCU e-sports and initiatives. It was really great and we actually got some business opportunities out of that relationship from referrals. We're working with one of the Wilson Center's partners, which is called Games for Change. And we look forward to following up with them again this year. Terrific. All right. And this is Gaming Community Co. Again, founded by Ryan Johnson, Chris DA, two HBCU graduates, young cats doing great things. They're very passionate about what they want to do, both for education as well as game play. And some of the success that Gaming Community Co has realized is within the last year, we've realized over $2 million and the majority of that being a 501c3 goes back to HBCU to help with e-sports lab buildups, education initiatives, scholarships. So again, Gaming Community Co is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm in Charlotte. So Charlotte in Atlanta for some of you folks about a four-hour drive, just so you understand how close it is. But I came on board, I sit on the board. I also helped with strategic development and education initiatives with Gaming Community Co. And we're proud of the fact that we're probably up to about 10 employees now and at least four interns. So again, empowering people through education and e-sports. Fantastic. So I'll let you have the last word and tell us if you're open to collaboration and how people can get in touch with you. Yes, always open to collaboration. I'm on LinkedIn easily. John L. Cash, I think I have MA, MBA. You can find that. My email address, the easiest one, I'll just give you my work address, jcash at jcsu.edu. Jcash at jcsu.edu. For those of you who want to find out more about community, it's www.communitywithaX, CXMMUNITY.CO. Again, community is www.CXMMUNITY.CO. And again, you'll see us all on your social media platforms for those also. And I will love, I'll put my number in there too. Anybody can write it down quick. It's 678-787-8098. 678-787-8098. We have been growing like this organically through support of the type of initiatives that you do, Catherine. And so I'm thankful for this opportunity with your show. Thank Tech for Why. Thank you so much, John. You're very impressive and an inspiration to all of us. And thank you to our viewers for joining us today. Next week, my guest will be Thomas Makazewski to talk about reaching sponsors and advertising using LinkedIn. See you then.