WAL­TER AL­IBEY

7Gen­er­a­tion Games, an Amer­i­can com­pa­ny has formed a part­ner­ship with or­ga­niz­ers of the Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al In­vi­ta­tion­al Open Com­bat Sports Cham­pi­onship and the T&T Sam­bo and Com­bat Sam­bo Fed­er­a­tion, in a deal that is set to trans­form T&T's ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem through sports.

The com­pa­ny which of­fers chil­dren be­tween the age of eight to 15 years the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn math eas­i­er through ed­u­ca­tion­al games and oth­er com­put­er apps in both Eng­lish and Span­ish, is set to be launched on the open­ing day of the Com­bat Sports Cham­pi­onships on April 28 at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Cou­va.

Al­so, in­ter­est­ed per­sons will have the chance to know all they want about the com­pa­ny through its co-founder and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) Maria Burns Or­tiz dur­ing the two-day cham­pi­onships on (April 28-29).

Dur­ing an in­ter­view at the Trinidad Hilton Ho­tel in St Ann's on Wednes­day, Burns Or­tiz said the com­pa­ny has been in talks with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to make an en­try in­to the na­tion's Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary schools.

She said her com­pa­ny will dis­pose of the mis­con­cep­tion that some peo­ple have bet­ter math brains than oth­ers, point­ing out it's all about prac­tice, per­se­ver­ance and en­cour­age­ment. Her math video games will pro­vide an in­ter­est­ing and in­ter­ac­tive way of solv­ing math ques­tions that will peak the in­ter­est of chil­dren.

She said, "Math is very sim­i­lar to sports. You need to prac­tice, you need to be de­ter­mined and you need to be dis­ci­pline to ex­cel. This is pret­ty much the same qual­i­ties you will need. In fact, we have cre­at­ed this game as a way of giv­ing back, as we re­alise that in sports on­ly a small per­cent­age of peo­ple move on to be­com­ing suc­cess­ful. How­ev­er, with ed­u­ca­tion you will be able to be self sus­tain­able."

Burns Or­tiz said, since the in­cep­tion of the com­pa­ny in 2012 they have seen tremen­dous im­prove­ment in math per­cent­ages at schools in the Unit­ed States. How­ev­er, the games are not on­ly for schools, but for com­mu­ni­ties all over the globe and 7Gen­er­a­tion will be pro­vid­ing on-the-spot helpers to guide peo­ple if the need aris­es. The com­pa­ny is al­ready set to make en­try in­to Chile to serve the South Amer­i­can mar­ket and has iden­ti­fied T&T as a lo­ca­tion to cov­er the Caribbean.

Ja­son Fras­er, pres­i­dent of the T&T Sam­bo Fed­er­a­tion said he wel­comes the part­ner­ship and the com­pa­ny as he be­lieves many ath­letes in T&T have very good ath­let­ic abil­i­ty, but lack the aca­d­e­mics to back it up in their lives.