TL x IMC x Room to Read: A Streamathon Reflection

For Team Liquid, the written word matters.

The org came from a cradle of battle reports and blog posts documenting the Korean StarCraft that birthed esports. Since then, we’ve maintained forums, interviews, articles, parodies, and all kinds of writing. Writing is a resource all its own, and like most resources in the world, it’s disproportionately given.

Over 750 million people in the world cannot read or write, most of them being women, most of them in developing countries. Many more people lack access to strong education that advances reading, writing, and life skills. That’s why we worked with our sponsor and partner IMC Trading to launch a 24-hour charity streamathon where every donation went straight to Room to Read.

In case you haven’t heard of them, Room to Read is an award-winning nonprofit organization that teaches reading and writing to millions of people globally. They greatly help the effort to spread knowledge and word worldwide and so far they’ve reached over 23 million children through a strategy built around transforming school systems in developing countries and promoting girl’s education in particular.

Room to Read does vital work that IMC has supported for 6 years now! Each year, IMC donates a full day of profits to the charity. Through giving a day of profit and through donation efforts, IMC has raised over 6 million USD for Room to Read since 2016.

Given our own background, we were happy to join up with IMC and Room to Read through a 24-hour streamathon. Because of all the creativity, talent, and community in Team Liquid, a charity streamathon just made sense! Dabuz, Nocturnal, Chillindude, Mendo, Harstem, AverageJonas, Slysssa, Hodsic, BSJ—these 9 streamers and athletes stepped up in a huge way.

Not only did they make the streamathon possible, they made it successful. We reached over 67,000 views, 25,000 hours watched, and most importantly, nearly 8,500 USD raised from 230 donors. This couldn’t have happened without players creatively using their talents—like Dabuz playing best-of-5’s with donors or AverageJonas taking song requests for donations.

Reflecting back on the event, we’re grateful for the help from our players and support from our partner, IMC, and inspired by the great work Room to Read does. But we’re also looking to do more. We know that $8,481 is just a start. We know that there’s a lot more work to do and we want to at least help with the doing. Thank you for participating in this event with us and though the streamathon may be over, you can still donate to Room to Read and help support literacy and education worldwide.