Welcome to Episode Four of Y6 of The Academy of Esports podcast! I’m your host, James O’Hagan. Thank you for joining me as I welcome a giant of the medical device field who is now using decades of experience— and his own personal journey— to build bold, collaborative mental health roadmaps within responsible, therapeutic video game environments in his new venture with Mike Wilson. It’s an honor to speak with Ryan Douglas, co-founder & co-chairman of DeepWellDTx. Ryan takes us on a journey that goes far beyond the “one and done” attitude of many developers. His is a manifesto rooted in s ..read more

Welcome to Episode Two of YEAR SIX of The Academy of Esports podcast! I’m your host, James O’Hagan. Thank you for joining me as I welcome a good friend from across the sea, Stuart Dempsey, the Founder and CEO of GamerFest Dublin, Ireland’s largest esports event. In the aftermath of Brexit, Ireland was elevated to the role of premier English-speaking nation in the European Union. The impact of this on esports opportunities is massive. To speak to this– and offer two decades of marketing and branding experience to our audience– is a longtime friend of The Academy of Esports, Stuart Dempsey. Sinc ..read more

Welcome to PART TWO of Episode One of YEAR SIX of The Academy of Esports podcast! I’m your host, James O'Hagan. Thank you for joining me as I welcome back my friend, Amir Satvat, the global head of startup operations at Amazon Web Services. Before stepping into their current role, Amir experience included chapters as a principal publishing producer and key positions in business development and strategy at Amazon Games. They also served as COO for AWS' Inside Sales and Demand Generation Businesses, while spending over a decade in tech and healthcare sectors, working on strategy, operations, and ..read more

Leah Koons is a 10+ year gaming event and marketing veteran who has navigated and developed business relationships for endemic and non-endemic brands to the gaming industry. In our conversation, Leah invites the listener to learn how to be a successful and lasting presence in the game industry. For Leah, a bachelor's degree in psychology was the start. But it was an early decision to focus on the business of games that has led her path of success that includes working with the likes of Team Liquid, Alienware, and Riot. And now, Leah has just launched her own marketing, consulting and event bus ..read more

Dylan Liu is not one to not have an opinion on the state of collegiate esports. That is one of the things that makes him such a compelling guest for a conversation! Since 2011, Dylan has been involved in collegiate esports while founding the team at his alma mater, Texas A&M, and now serving as the CEO of his company, Uconnect. Uconnect provides a platform to help collegiate programs and clubs to connect with potential sponsorship opportunities. This wide-ranging conversation pulls no punches and looks critically at the current state of collegiate esports, and the overall business of espor ..read more

James Fudge has nearly 25 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering the video games industry, having worked for such companies as Avault, IDG Games' Games.Net, Computer Games Magazine, GameSpy, IGN, GamePro, GameShark, GamePolitics, GameCulture, Crispy Gamer, and more. Over the last three years he worked behind the scenes at The Esports Observer, where he served as senior editor for two years helping to shape the quality of the writing, steer editorial policies, and generally train writers on best practices for content creation and journalism. In this episode, James and James (J ..read more

As Head of Education at British Esports, Kalam focusses on delivering growth and development of esports in education across the UK and beyond.  The recipient of the prestigious Pearson National Teaching Award for his outstanding commitment to digital innovation, Kalam, an experienced teacher, educator and educational leader previously served as Esports Programme Lead at Barnsley College, where he co-wrote the Esports BTEC (Business and Technical Education Council) in association with Pearson and British Esports. In this episode, we dive into the BTECs and their impact in on students in th ..read more

The work of Stephen Reid is a major influence on The Academy of Esports Podcast. Stephen is a passionate advocate of both play as a powerful learning mechanism, and technology as a tool for learning. Spanning an education career of 20 years, he has used over 140 off-the-shelf games to teach in over 70 countries worldwide. Minecraft sits at the heart of his teaching toolkit for curriculum, and social and emotional learning, as well as unique learning projects such as the creation of an entire school with Minecraft and a single 3D Printer, summer camps on farms, in museums, and on archaeological ..read more

In this conversation, Dr. Samantha Blackmon, Associate English Professor at Purdue University, discusses not just her work at the university but also as a researcher interested in DEI issues in gaming. Dr. Blackmon champions working specifically on ways to bring people together from the games community, the games industry, content creators, and esports in order to bring about positive change in the games space. -- Dr. Samantha Blackmon // Website // Twitch // Twitter  Not Your Mama's Gamer Podcast AnyKey Purdue University Games Make a Difference Symposium -- Esports is organized competiti ..read more

In this episode's conversation, Dr. Roberto Gallardo, the Director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development comes onto the podcast to talk about the current state of Internet connectivity in rural and urban areas. The issue is very much front of mind for many, especially in how it impacted education access during the height of the COVID pandemic. Now, as more dollars are flowing into the connecting homes to the Internet, Dr. Gallardo helps to answer some of the big questions around how Indiana is encouraging Internet access in areas that have been overlooked in the past. -- Dr. Roberto Ga ..read more