Across the country, schools are rethinking how they build teamwork, leadership, and digital readiness among learners. Esports or competitive gaming, has evolved from a casual pastime into a credible part of education, offering learners a space to collaborate, problem-solve, and express themselves in a digital world.

From Cape Town to Pretoria, high schools are integrating esports into their extracurricular calendars. Teachers and coaches are discovering that gaming nurtures many of the same values as traditional sport, focus, communication, and resilience, while also building the cognitive and technical foundations associated with STEM learning.

It’s no longer an unconventional activity. South African school leagues have been developing for several years, providing structure, recognition, and even pathways into professional gaming. Among the most established is the Telkom VS Gaming High School Esports League (HSEL), presented by Samsung, which now includes 97 registered schools nationwide and culminates in live finals at Comic Con Africa and Comic Con Cape Town.

At Paul Roos Gymnasium in Stellenbosch, esports has become part of holistic learner development. Around 70 learners participate each year across Rocket League, CounterStrike 2 (CS2), and EAFC, balancing practice with academics and other sporting codes.

“The kids get another opportunity to meet new learners with a like-minded mindset,” says Johannes Stoltz, coach and Head of Esports at Paul Roos. “Educators are seeing tangible benefits, learners develop stronger communication, teamwork, and leadership skills, along with digital fluency, strategic thinking, and problem-solving abilities that directly support STEM education and future careers in technology.”

“We always have some of the smartest learners in the grade competing,” Stoltz adds.

“Gaming creates great leaders and problem solvers because they’re constantly thinking under pressure and adapting fast. For many schools, adopting esports is also about ethos, giving digital athletes the same support and recognition that traditional sports has always enjoyed.”

At Parklands College in Cape Town, the enthusiasm for esports has grown rapidly.

“Our learners were already highly competitive players,” says Michael Paul Roth, Head of Esports at Parklands College and Chairman of the South African Schools Esports Association.

“Once they discovered there was a national league, they immediately recognised the opportunity to represent their school in their favourite medium. Today, 56 learners from Grade 7 to Matric compete in various titles, and the number continues to rise. Parklands’ CS teams have reached the HSEL finals four years in a row, with half of all LAN finalists in 2025 coming from the school.

Roth says esports has strengthened inclusion and community on campus.

“It provides a space for learners who aren’t necessarily academic or sporty to show their mettle. It allows them to participate, decompress, and feel like they’re part of the College.”

The HSEL has become a launchpad for this kind of growth. Since 2018, it has provided a structured, national framework for learners to compete across Rocket League, CounterStrike 2, and EAFC.

In 2025, St John’s College claimed the CS2 title, while Curro Durbanville took the Rocket League championship. All matches were streamed live on Twitch, giving learners national exposure and allowing families to follow the action in real time.

The results speak for themselves, several learners who began in HSEL have since joined professional teams, with players as young as 15 to 17 years-old already being scouted by top South African organisations.

“The HSEL has become one of the most exciting spaces for youth development in South Africa,” says Johann von Backström, Senior Manager: Content and Gaming at Telkom VS Gaming. “It’s about more than competition. It’s about helping learners build confidence, teamwork, and a sense of purpose through gaming.”

As esports grows within schools, it’s also beginning to spill over beyond the classroom. Squad Up Saturdays, made possible by Samsung and hosted at Design Quarter, turns that same team spirit into a shared, in person experience.

These monthly events invite learners, schools, parents, and gaming community fans to spend a day at the Samsung Design Quarter Experience Store DQX in Fourways, immersed in gaming culture. Visitors can watch HSEL matches live, join friendly tournaments, and experience how gaming builds confidence and community in a fun, family-friendly space.

“Squad Up Saturdays is about connection. Its where schools, parents, and learners can experience what esports is all about, teamwork, energy, and fun,” added Bronwyn Hume, Samsung Head of Marketing, Consumer Electronics.

Whether you’re a first-time player, a curious parent, or a passionate supporter, Squad Up Saturdays offer a welcoming space to play, learn, and be part of South Africa’s growing gaming community.

For information on how to participate, visit Squad Up Saturdays.

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eSports, once seen as a niche pastime, is rapidly gaining ground in South Africa. This rise is not just about gaming and entertainment, but about cultivating essential 21st-century skills in students.

Projected to be a $3 billion industry by 2027, with careers ranging from professional players to game developers, data analysts, and event organisers, it is imperative for schools to start introducing eSports as early as possible, to prepare students for a world where digital fluency and adaptability are non-negotiable, an education expert says.

Desiree Hugo, Academic Head of Schools at JSE-listed ADvTECH, SA’s leading private education provider, says the institution has embraced eSports to foster critical thinking, teamwork, problem-solving, and digital literacy among its students.

“Far from casual play, ADvTECH’s approach encourages students to strategise, collaborate, and compete at the highest levels, transforming virtual arenas into dynamic classrooms. By embedding these skills into an engaging and competitive framework, we are able to ensure that students are not just participants but active learners, honing abilities that are critical for success in an increasingly digital world.”

Central to this strategy is ADvTECH’s partnerships with industry leaders, which elevate the eSports experience beyond the school campus and into structured, competitive environments. These collaborations provide students with access to professional-grade platforms where they can test their mettle, refine their communication, and sharpen their leadership and decision-making skills.

The broader vision that should be driving eSports initiatives, is to prepare students for a future where technology and innovation dominate, says Hugo.

“By immersing them in a safe and managed gaming ecosystem, we are opening doors to careers in STEM, game design, coding, and beyond. Students who have a keen interest and learn to strategise in Minecraft today might code their own games tomorrow or analyse data to optimise performance in professional eSports leagues.

“This isn’t just about keeping pace with trends, it’s about anticipating the interests and needs of tomorrow’s workforce and giving students a headstart. Through this blend of competition and creativity, schools are able to support a generation equipped to thrive in fields that are redefining the global economy.”

Hugo says it’s not just about winning tournaments—it’s about experiencing life  in a tech-driven world.

“For a generation experiencing a digital economy, the skills honed in virtual design and collaboration may likely be their greatest asset in future.”

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African Esports: A Stage for Women in Gaming

SAGES Africa, in collaboration with the Institut français, proudly presents the 2024 Kongo Esports Champions in Kinshasa and the Mzansi Esports Champions in Johannesburg. As part of the “Tekken Africa Queens Challenge,” these events unite Africa’s best female Tekken players from across the continent, empowering a new generation in esports.

Event Highlights: Africa’s Elite Female Tekken Players Compete

The Kongo Esports Champions will take place from November 22–24 at the Manga & Geek Days Festival in Kinshasa, while the Mzansi Esports Champions will run from November 30–December 1 during the rAge Expo in Johannesburg. Both events include qualifiers from countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Cameroon, and Zambia. Sylvia Gathoni Wahome, aka QueenArrow, will also join as the godmother of the Tekken Africa Queens Challenge, promoting gender equity in gaming.

Prize Pools and Streaming

The tournaments will offer a prize pool of $2,500, with $1,000 awarded to the winner. Audiences worldwide can enjoy the matches, which will be live-streamed on Twitch and YouTube.

Empowering Women in Gaming and Entrepreneurship

Beyond competition, the events will host Business Meetings focusing on female entrepreneurship in gaming, supported by partners including the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Institut Français, and key African esports groups. Topics will include entrepreneurship, training, and professional growth for women in the gaming industry.

Building a Future for African Esports

Led by SAGES Africa’s President, Désiré Koussawo, this initiative aims to establish Africa as a key player in global esports by building infrastructure, fostering talent, and strengthening international partnerships. Through this initiative, African youth can leverage esports as a medium for creativity, cultural exchange, and inclusive representation on a global scale.

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Local esports team Bravado Gaming is relocating its Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) team to Belgrade, Serbia from mid-2024 until mid-2026. The objective of the move is for the team to practise in optimal conditions and to pit themselves against the world’s best CS2 competitors, while also competing in the largest CS2 leagues and tournaments in the world.

The temporary move sees the Bravado Gaming team following in the footsteps of South African sporting stars like UFC Middleweight World Champion Dricus du Plessis, MotoGP star Brad Binder – and even Grammy-winning Popiano Queen, Tyla. Already leaders in their respective sectors in South Africa, each achieved global recognition by putting in the hard yards in tougher industries with deeper talent pools and being able to access better resources – with their obvious talent helping them rise to the top in a far more competitive field.

Bravado Gaming previously experienced great success after a training camp in North America for a year from 2018 – first in Phoenix, Arizona and then Austin, Texas – known as ‘Project Destiny’. The camp in Belgrade has been christened ‘Project Destiny 2.0’.

Of the original six members of Project Destiny, three – Johnny ‘JT’ Theodosiou; Aran ‘Sonic’ Groesbeek and Tiaan ‘T.C.’ Coetzee – continued to see success in international competition, moving on to storied North American esports organisation Cloud 9 as part of their CS:GO development programme in late 2020. Theodosiou and Coetzee remain abroad as they now compete under the Top-10 Complexity banner, with recent highlights including a 2^nd place at IEM Sydney 2023 and 3^rd at the BLAST Premier Fall Finals 2023.

The benefits of playing out of more developed regions is clear, according to Andreas Hadjipaschali, co-founder of Bravado Gaming: “To be the best, you have to play the best. The European scene will allow us to face a far more skilled and diverse pool of teams, amplifying our rate of growth tremendously and I really believe that they’re going to turn heads. Whilst we may not have seen success recently in the Middle East as part of the PGL Major 2024 closed qualifiers, we are absolutely certain that given time alongside the plentiful support and resources that we know we can provide, along with the incredible support by our sponsors Alienware, Dell Technologies and Intel, our CS team will be able to produce results that the entire African region can be proud of,” he says.

The results of Project Destiny included a peak HLTV world ranking of #21; qualification for the Katowice Americas Minor Championship 2019; victory at the Dreamhack Invitational Mumbai 2018 and a 2^nd place at Dreamhack Winter Jönköping 2018, beating out Optic and G2 in the offline finals to get there.

Bravado Gaming co-founder Dimitri Hadjipaschali says that the better inherent latency of networks in Europe will remove a major disadvantage to the team’s training. “We [in South Africa] are stuck in a bubble because of latency. You have to be with the teams you want to beat in order to hope to be better than them,” he says.

The team’s roster for Project Destiny 2.0 is one of the strongest that Africa has ever been able to produce, including Wiljhane ‘Wilj’ Smith (20); Marchahn ‘March’Smith (22); team captain Johnathan ‘Doru’ Fox (23) and Kian ‘Triton’ Gibson (21), coached by 29 year-old Daniel ‘LaBishop’ Hufton.

“We are all massive fans of Counter Strike. It’s our bread and butter, our heart and soul and the majority of management has competed in CS for years themselves,” says Andreas.

“The objectives of Project Destiny 2.0 include reaching and maintaining a top 30 HLTV rating; qualifying for a major tournament; consistent content development and distribution and sharing their ‘zero to hero’ story. “I kind of see this as a one-shot opportunity to follow my passion for Counter-Strike,” says team captain Fox. “Alongside this group of guys, my teammates, who I can genuinely say are some of my nearest and dearest friends, it’s an absolute no-brainer for all of us to capitalise on this amazing opportunity.”

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Project Destiny was Bravado Gaming’s first foray at catapulting South African esports talent into internationally dominant regions. Despite coming from the socioeconomically challenged and relatively geographically isolated region of South Africa, Bravado Gaming had experience at the highest level of competition, featuring at the first Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major at Dreamhack Winter 2014 Jönköping, gaining insight as to what it took to maintain world-class ability.

“We can’t compete from ZA because, as many people know, we are so disadvantaged when it comes to our latency and we are stuck in a bubble because of it. You have to be with the teams you want to beat in order to hope to be better than them.” – Dimitri Hadjipaschali, co-founder of Bravado Gaming

Leveraging this knowledge, and together with our sponsors at Alienware, Dell Technologies, and Intel, Bravado successfully incubated a talent pool that we believed had what it took to shine bright on the world stage.

Basing the project out of North America, the original project took place throughout 2018 to 2019, including six-month stints in both Phoenix, Arizona, and Austin, Texas. With the entirety of the South African esports community behind the team, the goal of achieving international success was in clear sight.

Notable achievements during Project Destiny include:

• Bravado peaked at an HLTV world ranking of #21.
• Bravado qualified for the Katowice Americas Minor Championship 2019.
• Bravado won the Dreamhack Invitational Mumbai 2018.
• Bravado placed 2nd at Dreamhack Winter Jönköping 2018, beating out Optic and G2 in the offline finals to get there.

Where are the players now?
Of the original six members of Project Destiny, three continued to see success in international competition, moving on to storied North American esports organisationCloud 9 recruited the likes of Johnny “JT” Theodosiou, Aran “Sonic” Groesbeek, and Tiaan “T.c” Coetzee as part of their CS:GO development programme in late 202

JT and T.c continue to remain abroad as they now compete under the Complexity banner as a top 10 CS team, with recent highlights such as 2nd at IEM Sydney 2023, and 3rd at the BLAST Premier Fall Finals 2023.

“People had no idea that we even played CS in South Africa. To me, Project Destiny was showing that we could take on the world and prove a point.” – Andreas Hadjipaschali, co-founder of Bravado Gaming

Introducing Project Destiny 2.0
We believe that the core roster we have developed is one of the strongest that Africa has ever been able to produce. It is with this in mind that we are proud to announce Project Destiny 2.0. We are so back.

As of May 2024, our CS roster will be flying to Belgrade, Serbia, where they will be competing and training, until mid-2026. The reason we have chosen to compete out of Europe is quite simple: to be the best, you have to play the best.

Where we are used to playing the same handful of teams ad nauseam in South Africa, the European scene will allow us to face a far more skilled and diverse pool of teams, amplifying our rate of growth tremendously.

“I really believe that they’re going to turn heads. We had spent a lot of money during Project Destiny. We knew that we wanted to spend this money on these players that we knew had what it took. Fast forwarding to today, if I didn’t feel the same now as I did back then, we would never have chosen to make this investment into Project Destiny 2.0 together with our sponsors of Alienware, Dell Technologies, and Intel.” – Andreas Hadjipaschali, co-founder of Bravado Gaming

Whilst we may not have seen success recently in the Middle East as part of the PGL Major 2024 closed qualifiers, we are absolutely certain that given time alongside the plentiful support and resources that we know we can provide, our CS team will be able to produce results that the entire African region can be proud of.

[ Project Destiny 2.0 Video link inserted here: https://vimeo.com/929455721?share=copy ]

Meet the team
Our competing roster will be:

• Wiljhane “Wilj” Smith (Age: 19)
• Marchahn “March” Smith (Age: 22)
• Johnathan “Doru” Fox (Age: 23)
• Kian “Triton” Gibson  (Age: 21)
• TBC
• Daniel “LaBishop” Hufton (Coach, age: 29)

With support from our management team behind the project: Andreas and Dimitri Hadjipashchali, Tristan Rens, Emma-Leigh Hoyle, Jaco Du Toit, Karmen Scheffer, and Matab Amer, and from our incredible sponsors: Alienware, Dell Technologies, and Intel.

We are all massive fans of Counter-Strike. It’s our bread and butter, our heart and soul. The majority of management has competed in CS for years themselves! With a huge outpouring of passion from the team behind the scenes, the players are secure in knowing that they have one of the best management teams available behind them in their endeavours abroad. 

Objectives

• Reaching and maintaining a top 30 HLTV rating.
• Qualifying for a major.
• Consistent content development and distribution.
• We have a story to tell. Zero to hero, unfolding as the story is being written.
• Unique endemic and non-endemic partnerships and collaborations.
• Featuring in mass media around the project and objectives.

“I kind of see this as a one-shot opportunity to follow my passion for Counter-Strike. Alongside this group of guys, my teammates, who I can genuinely say are some of my nearest and dearest friends, it’s an absolute no-brainer for all of us.” – Johnathan “Doru” Fox, Captain of Bravado Gaming CS2

An official press conference regarding this announcement will be held in person in Johannesburg for media, sponsors, and prospective partners to engage with us regarding the project. Details will be shared via private invitation.

Bravado Gaming would love to work alongside more brands who believe in the mission of this project, whether you are endemic or non-endemic to the esports sector. There is a Project Destiny deck, which is available below, for potential partners to find out more about the initiative. Interested parties are more than welcome to contact us for additional information.

The official Project Destiny 2.0 interactive deck can be downloaded here.

For media, partnership, or sponsorship inquiries, please contact:
Bravado – bvd@bravadogaming.com

About Bravado Gaming
Bravado Gaming is a premier Middle East & African esports organisation and gaming lifestyle brand serving home to some of the best competitive gamers. The organisation was founded in 2006 and is currently headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. Bravado works with world-leading brands such as Alienware, Dell Technologies, and Intel, and continues to grow from strength to strength as they work on continuously telling inspiring stories and developing all ecosystems of the gaming industry.

Website / X (Formerly Twitter) / Instagram / TikTok / LinkedIn

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