COLUMBUS, Ohio (March 3, 2020)— The PAST Foundation headquartered in Columbus, Ohio is proud to announce they will join forces with ESPORTS OHIO, the North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF), and the Samueli Foundation to form The Ohio Scholastic Esports League Collaborative (“OSELC”). This collaboration will allow students to use NASEF’s scholastic esports platform, provide competitive opportunities for student teams, and offer the framework for high schools to create esports career pathways.

“For 20 years, PAST has worked with community partners and educators to create and design innovative programs that connect with students today. These programs engage students providing them with career pathways that reflect our ever-changing, rapid paced society and connect to current workforce needs,” said President, CEO of PAST, Annalies Corbin. “Consider that the esports industry has predicted annual growth of 14%, coupled with the skills and opportunities that this program can provide students: we are anxious to begin work with our outstanding partners ESPORTS OHIO, NASEF and the Samueli Foundation.”

“NASEF is having great success developing local affiliates like this one in Ohio: students love playing with local rival schools in addition to national competitions, and educators appreciate the opportunity to work with local counterparts as they implement a new idea like scholastic esports," said Gerald Solomon, founder of NASEF and executive director of the Samueli Foundation. “We’re thrilled to provide extensive support to the new Ohio Scholastic Esports League Collaborative to help them leverage massive youth interest in esports for quality education.”

“Esports Ohio is a non-profit grass-roots organization developed by educators for Ohio students that utilizes esports as an educational change agent to currently serve over 150 member schools with over 2,600 active student participants,” said Nick Rider, Founder of Esports Ohio. "We here at Esports Ohio have a singular mission to empower students by providing educational institutions with the knowledge, direction, support and resources to implement, maintain, educate and compete in electronic sports. We are very excited to announce the collaboration with NASEF, PAST, and the Samueli Foundation. This partnership will greatly strengthen our mission and enable us to develop and implement academic opportunities for any Ohio high school student that will create pathways to university and industry success.”

Esports provides an opportunity for any student to connect a favorite past-time and passion – playing video games – to learning. This program will enable them to join a community of their peers with similar interests in a supervised setting that parents will appreciate. Within the esports community, students acquire critical communications, experience collaboration, and practice problem-solving skills needed for students to thrive in work and life.

Building an esports community teaches students to think like entrepreneurs and assemble a team of members with different skill sets, talents, and experiences. An esports team might begin with expert players and quickly realize they need other team members to assist with marketing, promotion, sponsorships, video and production, and programming.  

About ESPORTS OHIO

Esports Ohio is a free-to-join educational nonprofit esports organization and league created by teachers for students. Its vision is to create a world where electronic sports are embraced as a positive educational and developmental change agent for all students. They welcome all students, coaches, administrators, and parents of those interested in participating. Esports is an ever growing and ever-changing group of electronic game competitions. Its mission is to empower students by providing educational institutions with the knowledge, direction, support and resources to implement, maintain, educate and compete in electronic sports. They strive to give students the best possible accommodations for educational value, competition, involvement, and recruitment.

Learn more at www.esportsohio.org/home.

About NASEF

The North America Scholastic Esports Federation is working to ensure that ALL students possess the knowledge and skills needed to be society’s game changers: educated, productive, and empathetic individuals. NASEF is on a mission to provide opportunities for ALL students to use esports as a platform to acquire critical communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills needed to thrive in work and in life. The Federation’s core values are intertwined through all aspects of education and play: learning, opportunity, community, diversity, and respect.

About PAST Foundation

For 20 years, PAST, a non-profit organization, has been a leader in designing STEM education across the nation, bringing problem-based learning to educators and experiential programs to students. Recently, PAST's Innovation Lab was named as a promising example to Re-imagine High School as featured in Forbes. PAST has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for its Excellence in Innovation in the STEM 2026 vision report. PAST was the only educational entity in Ohio to be included in this publication.

PAST was also recognized in 2014, by CGI America and former President Bill Clinton for their outstanding work, and again in 2015 for their achievements in improving STEM education in rural America. In 2015, the PAST Innovation Lab was recognized by the White House Summit on High School Design.

For more information on PAST Foundation and how you can link learning to life, visit https://pastfoundation.org/ or contact Lori Trent at [email protected].