Local E-Sports Expo Aims To Aid Cancer Patients

Did you know that E-sports and video games are helping beat cancer? Neither did I.

Esports has surged in popularity in recent years. And its market value has followed suit.

In 2019, the E-sports global market was valued at $957.5 million. This figure has grown to approximately $1.08 billion today – an increase of over 10% over the last two years.

This E-sports industry growth comes in spite of a slight pandemic-driven dip to $947.1 million. As of 2024, the Esports market is forecast to be worth approximately $1.62 billion.

A local organization is pairing up with one of the top Cancer research foundations in the United States to ensure some of the gaming money goes towards cancer patients.

Gamers vs Cancer East is a gaming expo with a 3V3 tournament featuring Rocket League to fundraise and support the most pressing needs of cancer patients today. Organized as a collaboration between the American Cancer Society and Bull City Gaming.

The gaming event will take place on April 8-10 in Cary, North Carolina at the Herbert Young Community Center.

The three-day expo will host several events that help impact our community. A set of these events are the panel discussions that will be going on during the expo. There will be a Black Creative panel, Women In Tech panel, and a panel for College Recruiting.

The Black creative panel will be led by Morgan Iverson and Danny Quick. Iverson is the creator of LumberJax, Harlem’s Renaissance and Solitary comic series for 4th Wall Comics. Quick is the creator of 4th Wall Comics and the series Aceblade.

The Women In Tech panel will be headlined by Bailey Hayes & Sara Hoeg. Hayes is a Principal Software Engineer at SingleStore. She believes the future is in distributed systems and WebAssembly (Wasm). Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen is a Director of Product Management at Citrix and leading a portfolio of software products in a global setting. She is passionate about building agile, cross-functional product teams focused on customer needs and with business outcomes in mind. She is from Denmark and relocated with Citrix to Raleigh 4 years ago with her husband who is also working as a Product Director in the Tech Industry.

Despite the unprecedented challenges we all faced in 2020-2021, the American Cancer Society continues to advance its mission to save lives, celebrate lives, and lead the fight for a world without cancer – in every community, for all people.

For more information, visit the Gamers v Cancer website or contact Tracey Smith or Jatovi McDuffie.