Author Archive for Colson parker

Delane Parnell: Bringing E-Sports to Students

If you haven’t heard of E-sports or have little knowledge on the subject let me fill you in quickly. Electronic sports (E-sports) has been taking the nation by storm amassing a huge following and proving that if your good enough at video games it can viably become your job. Originally the e-sports field was only for the most elite gamers who spent all of their time training in games and living off tournament winnings. Recently that has been changing at a rapid rate. The following of E-sports has been growing which in turn is leading to more and more people who want a piece of the action.

Delane Parnell was born in Detroit, Michigan and was pretty much born to be an entrepreneur. At age 13 he started working at the cell phone store of a family friend. At age 16 he and two associates left the business to start there own tech startup company focused on phones. After that he went on to start a car rental company as well. Being your average boy as well as spending a lot of time working with tech, Delane had an interest and joy in playing video games. This was where his claim to fame came in. In 2017 he started his company PlayVS with the goal of bringing E-Sports to high school students.

The problem Delane was solving was that kids around the nation, and globe wanted to be part of the E-sports scene but unless you had your entire life to dedicate to practice you would never be good enough. So he created a way for high school students, who have studies and lives outside of the world of gaming, to become part of the world of E-sports. PlayVS allows high schools to start an E-sports team that students can be a part of that allows them to play, as well as compete against other high schools. Due to E-sports being entirely online there is no travel required for the leagues and there is little cost as well. You simply have to get everyone online and let the competition begin. Delane figured out all the tools that were needed to make competitive high school gaming happen were there, he just had to put the pieces together. More then 13,000 schools have made teams through PlayVS and compete during the school year. He has become a leader in the E-sports field and opened the door for many people and students to participate in the online world of competition.

Alex Schulze, Andrew Cooper, and Their Journey For Cleaner Waters

 

Perhaps one of the newest modern trends in businesses of our day and age is the reduction of plastic in an effort to keep our oceans clean and the creatures that inhabit it thriving. Many companies have been changing there products to more biodegradable, eco-friendly materials and resources to keep the environment clean and help the epidemic of ocean trash that our seas are currently facing. While these businesses are helping keep our oceans clean in the long run, it doesn’t help the trash that is already there. According to National Geographic there is 5.25 trillion pieces of trash floating around the oceans which they estimated comes in at about 14 billion pounds. In addition, those stats don’t include the beaches and shores around the world that are covered in garbage and waste.

Que the entrance of Alex Schulze and Andrew Cooper. These two men were on a surfing trip in Bali, Indonesia when they decided they have had enough of the trash. Both men were born in Florida and were licensed captains as teenagers. They had spent there whole lives on the water and it was always something they deeply cared about. These two men founded the company 4Ocean with a mission of cleaning the waste that is polluting and corrupting the seas across the world. They knew it would be a massive undertaking but that didn’t slow them down in the slightest. The two men from Florida started there first operations center in Boca Raton, Florida and started simply with volunteers who shared their same love for the ocean. Today they have grown too six bases of operations that span the globe: three reside in their home of Florida, one in Texas, one in Indonesia, and one in Haiti. They have also amassed a fleet of ships that are geared up to remove the mass amounts of trash. 4Ocean is still largely volunteer based but they have spread their mission far and wide and have many hands and minds working to fix the problem.

How is this all funded? A great question that Alex and Andrew have already thought of. All of the trash that 4Ocean extracts from the sea is turned into 4Ocean Bracelets. The bracelets are then sold by 4Ocean on their website for $20. The promise of the business is that for every dollar you spend at 4Ocean is a pound of trash that is being removed. So while $20 for a bracelet seems expensive, your paying for a snazzy wrist decoration as well as a cleaner ocean. The boys turned their passion into a both a business and a movement and because of it our oceans are becoming bluer and bluer by the day.