Twitch aims to increase minority youth participation in esports and gaming by partnering with the nonprofit organisation, Cxmmunity. The partnership will create an esports league for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) according to an announcement by Twitch and Cxmmunity.

HBCU students will receive scholarships and educational support via its Twitch Student program, and at the same time, Twitch will help the schools expand their esports programs.

Cxmmunity co-founder Chris Peay highlights the gaming industry’s lack of representation as a graduate of an HBCU.

“Growing up we’re often taught you get good grades so that you can get into a good college, graduate from that college, and find a good job. Very seldom do we talk about entrepreneurship, let alone entrepreneurship within the esports and video game industry. It’s actually frowned upon in some fashion,” Peay said in a statement.

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Statistics from the International Game Developers Association say that although about 83 percent of Black teenagers play video games, 68 percent of the video game creators are of non-black or Caucasian descent.

Twitch aims to bring more people of colour into jobs within the video game and esports sector. Its plan is simple, it will help to nurture Black talent, under the new program.

Morehouse University is at the moment the only HBCU school with an esports league. Meanwhile, there are more than 200 schools with varsity esports teams. The schools also participate in the three major collegiate esports leagues, namely; Tespa, Collegiate StarLeague, and the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE). The first games of the HBCUs esports league will show on the Cxmmunity Twitch channel on 2nd August 2020.

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