Could this be the future of education? Could this be a turn of the knob? Three years ago Jaco Sauer co-founded a gaming company now known as RGB Gaming. It wasn’t until the Covid-19 attack that they decided to turn this venture into a business.

RGB Gaming officially kickstarted in November of 2021. Their main goal was to create a solution to South Africa’s lack of technological education. Mr Sauer stated that he felt like South African schools weren’t preparing students for technological work spaces as the world advances, and he felt that they could close this gap using electronic gaming.

RGB Gaming’ Target Market

Their target market includes the education sector as a whole. This includes primary schools, high schools, universities, and colleges. To RGB it is about promoting esports as an activity within the education sector. They believe that students can learn skills such as communication, teamwork, and understanding general PC literacy.

From their work in the past few years they have discovered that even some adults lack general PC literacy, and this could be due to lack of availability. Post working with tertiary schools, they have received positive results from their campaigns.

Rage Expo

 On the 9th of December 2022, RGB Gaming hosted a tournament at the Rage Expo situated at the Gallagher Convention Centre , in which 15 primary schools took part. Redhill school managed to win the tournament, Crawford Sandton was crowned second, and Steyn City grabbed the third spot.

When asked about the success of the tournament, Mr. Sauer stated that the tournament is only rendered a success if the participants enjoy themselves, in this case the students, in which they loved participating in such a thrilling event with audience and supporters. Besides the medals
and trophies, the prizes given were mouses, keyboards, and headsets. The main aim for RGB
is to plough back into the sport and watch it grow.

2023 Events for RGB

RGB has a great host of tournaments lined up, not all of them will be as big as the rage expo as some of them will be hosted at certain schools, with other nearing schools visiting to take part.
In Gauteng, the next big tournament will be a school hosted event, it will be hosted by one of the
Kyalami schools which will have 8 or 10 schools taking part in it.

Another big event will be on the 26th of January, this will be a high school expo. 30 high schools will be involved and the main focus will be technology, this will include, esports, robotics, and coding but will also involve the highschools showcasing themself to potential students The event will
take place at the Bryanston Knowledge Hub. So far RGB have 23 events planned
for the 2023 year.

Limits of the eSporting World

Everything new will have its limits and impacts. RGB helped us see the limits and the impact they have had in their first years of work. One of the limits faced was gaming being seen as just that,
and not having a place in the education world.

This mentality has been a huge stumbling block, even though it has been proven that through gamification people retain more information faster and for longer. Another problem is the lack
of availability of equipment, like PCs or consoles. Lastly, some schools simply choose to
invest their money into other things that aren’t esports.

The Impact of eSports

Esports is reported to be one of the fastest growing sports in the world. South Africa’s growth with the rest of the world might depend on the availability of electronics. Nonetheless, the room for expansion is unlimited. The players are increasing by the day, casually or professionally.

The opportunities that it will bring for children will be exponential too.
A lot will be changed by technology, and a lot of it will benefit esports.