Interview by Jonathan Kersting
What if your next career move, business connection, or breakthrough skill came from a gaming competition?
In this episode of TechVibe, the Pittsburgh Technology Council's Jonathan Kersting sits down with Jacob Shodiya, the force behind EXP Pittsburgh, to explore how this one-of-a-kind event blends esports, cybersecurity, career development, and community into a single high-energy weekend. Jacob explains how EXP and the Cyber Combine are designed to let participants “be their own resume” by showcasing real-world tech skills in front of employers.
Here are three great reasons to listen:
First, you’ll discover how the Cyber Combine works, from invitationals to live competitions, and how it’s helping talented participants land six-figure jobs simply by demonstrating what they can do, not just what’s on paper.
Second, Jacob shares why Pittsburgh was chosen as the flagship city, highlighting its 25,000+ tech jobs, university research strength, and growing innovation ecosystem, and why EXP sees the region as a launchpad for national growth.
Third, you’ll get an inside look at the massive opportunity network surrounding the event, including a career fair with more than 50 companies, scholarships for students, networking mixers, and even a Valentine’s weekend couples tournament with travel prizes.
Whether you’re a student, job seeker, gamer, entrepreneur, or simply curious about where tech and talent are headed in Pittsburgh, this episode reveals how EXP is turning competition into opportunity and redefining what a career event can be.
Get more details on EXP-Pittsburgh here.
The Pittsburgh Technology Council produces TechVibe to explore Pittsburgh's technology and innovation ecosystem.
Transcript:
Combine Podcast-20260202_143715-Meeting Recording
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[00:00:00] You're listening to Tech Vibe Pittsburgh.
This is your front row seat, Pittsburgh's technology and innovation ecosystem. I'm your host Jonathan Kersting with the Pittsburgh Technology Council, and we are just a few weeks away from a very big tech event happening here in Pittsburgh. I'm talking about EXP, and it's happening on February 13th. 15th and I, this is like a multifaceted thing that we're gonna have to unravel today with our guest hanging out with Jacob Shodiya today. , thanks for being here at the tech council. We are very excited for this event. I mean, it's a little bit of everything. It is a cyber combine. It is a it is a job fair. It is. You name it, you have it going on. We think this is so big for the region, and I'm just, we're just so excited to see this go down.
So I'm excited to learn more about it and welcome to the show today. So how you doing? I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I'm doing great. It's great morning. We've all survived the cold and the snow and the ice and the sleet. Speak for yourself. Fair. I [00:01:00] have everybody hopefully everybody melts out.
And they'll be able to show up at exp Pittsburgh. We're very excited. We've been working on this for several months and you know, like you said, we'll get into it and talk about why we picked Pittsburgh, but it's a story. Yeah let's start telling the story first and foremost. We jump into it.
I started off with saying we got all these things going on. Give us like the the elevator pitch. It might take us two rides to the top of the building 'cause you got a lot to pack in here. But give us the basics and then we're gonna jump into why Pittsburgh. And I'm gonna tell you why you made a good choice taking this to Pittsburgh.
I like that. Okay. So exp is an event, it's a premier upskilling event that promotes gamers, professionals, innovators through eSports technology and cybersecurity. The idea is we built, we're building this infrastructure of creating opportunities for individuals who not only want to get into eSports, not only want to.
Get a career in cybersecurity and tech. But they also wanna compete against, you know, people their colleagues in each of these different industries. The exp as a [00:02:00] whole, the event came to fruition by one of our partners. The owners of play all gaming. They're eSports company brand from the northeast.
They operate, you know, New York, New Jersey Pennsylvania. And they partnered with us as well as Andromeda. Travel agency to put this event together in Pittsburgh. So when I say us, I mean the cyber combine. And the cyber Combine is a cybersecurity upskilling eSports tournament. We've been in operation for the past two years.
Our parent company, bridging Cyber is all about giving cyber professionals the opportunity. To challenge themselves, live in front of employers, to showcase their skills, be your own resume, and get hired on the spot. That's, I love it, man. That's just cool, man. It's I mean, just combining with the football combine, like out.
Yeah. See, not everybody gets that, John. Not everybody gets that. They're like, his hacking skills are amazing. It's like I just, I'm just, I love the fact that this is what it's come to because I think we're now engaging, you know, a whole new generation in a way that like meets [00:03:00] them and it actually shows employers what their skills are.
'cause some of this stuff doesn't translate in a boring resume. When you can be down there and actually. See how someone's got some crazy cool tech skills and they can literally put it to the test. Absolutely. They can measure it, right? Absolutely. Like you, you think about a lot of these different movies and TV shows that we watch and you see like the guy in the chair, the girl in the chair, they're the hacker and they're infiltrating like different mainframes and different systems, but it's it's exciting in the movie.
Why can't it be exciting in a competition? And that's what we're really trying to bring is all of these different options, not just the hackathon, not just to capture the flag, but really showcasing. Everyone's skills in tech, cyber and STEM as a whole. So I'm really excited to showcase this in Pittsburgh.
It's exciting. And so the exp, this is the first year for this side of it and bringing this to Pittsburgh. So how cool is that? That's why we're like, Hey, you chose a pretty cool city. And like I said, I'll tell you why in a minute. You're right, when we were partnering with play all gaming and they came, they gave us the idea of exp they were really pushing.[00:04:00]
For Pittsburgh. And we asked him, you know, why, what are the metrics? 'cause we've okay I mentioned to you before we've done this event previously in Maryland. We've done this event in Atlanta. We're in the process of doing something in New York. The cyber combine. But the exp when he brought it to us, he was like for one, he did the research.
He's talked to several people in the travel, on the travel board in the CVB about the fact that there's like thousands of tech jobs in Pittsburgh. I was like, thousands. He's yeah, over 25,000 tech jobs. And I was like. We're listening. What else? Now you got my attention. Exactly. 'Cause you know, a lot of people, they're like a steel city.
That's what it is. What else is there? And he said there's so many different options for innovation in terms of a lot of the large corporations that are housed in Pittsburgh. A lot of the different artificial intelligence research that's being done in Pittsburgh as well. I think the different universities like Carnegie Mellon.
Huge for technology tech and it and then of course university of Pittsburgh it is huge with with in, with their Nvidia research and then their I AI research. So with all of that, we were just why didn't we pick Pittsburgh before? So you're [00:05:00] little bit of the nature of the game here, Jacob we're the late one.
We're glad you got here anyhow, it's super cool. And think it, and that's the point. And when he said he wants the flagship first of its kind exp to take place in Pittsburgh, we were like. Let's do it. After all that research and explanation, we said full steam ahead. Let's go ahead and lock it in. Love it.
So what gets me so excited about this is, first off, you guys being in Pittsburgh is, I think you're gonna encounter, hopefully, I'm hoping that we get lots of people from Pittsburgh to show up to this thing. And I love the fact that you're bringing people from across the country, possibly around the world.
To Pittsburgh to be part of this. And we love people coming to Pittsburgh 'cause there's so many people are just surprised when they get here 'cause they don't realize that, I mean, I mean Pittsburgh is a tech city now. Yes, we still love our steel and that was a big part of our past and we still make steel here and that's fantastic.
But tech is it's over a third of our economy here and we get excited about is events like this can get people that maybe. Wouldn't have as much access to tech as they think. And so this gets them in front of it and they don't even know it. Like they're coming for one thing and they're like, wait a second, I can get a job doing this.
And it's yes. [00:06:00] And yeah, this, you guys are hitting on so many great levels here and we're excited to have Pittsburgh be a showcase for you guys to really show how this type of event can work wherever you take it. But we hope you. Bring it here all the time, you know, as far as make it a regular thing.
That's, hopefully that becomes part of the case. We'll see that. Absolutely. No, absolutely. That's the key to the thing. We never want to do a one trip pony. It's always, we're planning for multiple years, multiple activations. So this, isn't this the first one, but it's not the last one. Absolutely not.
Exactly. So let's talk more about this combine thing right now. I'm very excited about this. And I'm not even a sports guy, dude, and I hate to say I'm not even like a gaming guy either, you know, but I appreciate it all, but I just love the concept of there being this NFL combine where talent comes up to show what they can do.
How's this gonna work? Walk me through the scenario here, Jacob. Okay. All right. , Let me start with how it came to fruition and how it works. Cool. So the combine itself it started with our, like I said, our parent company bridging cyber. The co-owner of the combine Ricky West, he created the bridging cyber.
He was all about cybersecurity, upskilling challenges. He wanted to [00:07:00] challenge his students, you know, give them the opportunity to, you know, learn on the field and be able to jump into the industry. And he actually, he was introduced to me by one of my colleagues. And Mariah Denson and she said, Hey, you know, I have a gentleman here who wants to take his upskilling challenges to the next level.
So my company, Amel Arcade, we develop gaming tournaments eSports tournaments, all different types of stuff. So we kind of fused bridging cyber and Umbr arcade together into the cyber combine, and we created these eSports tournaments. And there's different stages. So we started with the invitationals.
That's when anybody from any wall of life, any experience level, whether you're green or whether you're seasoned who has an interest in competing in cyber challenges, robotics challenges, AI challenges, game development challenges, tech challenges, all comes together and we participate in this invitational where there are approximately five to six challenges that you compete in a course of half a day and you go in and out of competing against people who are.
All walks of life, right? What [00:08:00] happens is from the invitational level, we then go up into the prelims. We always take, I'd say about a hundred percent of the people come into the invitationals. 'cause it's all about getting you acclimated into the system. How do the challenges work? Okay. It's a learning where we are.
The prelims is where things get serious. They get a little gnarly. And the reason why they're gnarly is because we add in our sponsors and our employers at the prelim stage, so our sponsors add a little bit of a bragging rights to it. It gives you the ability to, you, you win certain challenge and you win money.
So like even after exp next week, those who make it to level two will be up for grab for a $500 prize win. Automatically you win, you get MVP, you win, you walk home with 500, even if you don't win the third stage. Okay, cool. You win $500. Love it. Nice. You go home, you're done. You're good.
And then also one of the best parts about it and what we really pride ourselves on is we make sure employers are there because as I said earlier about not. About, about being your own resume. We try to make sure employers can see your skills, right? Live and in person. [00:09:00] It's not just about, Hey, let me interview you.
You're talking about it. Maybe this is what it is. No, I can see your skills. I can hire you because you understand threat intelligence. I can hire you because you understand how to code your way out of a paper bag. You understand how to not only attack, but also defend my mainframe. So those are the different things that we try to make sure.
Seen by employers, seen by different organizations so they can hire these individuals, these skilled individuals on the spot. And I'll talk about the third stage another time. I don't wanna give everything away. Got no worries. No, this sounds secret. This sounds so exciting. That's why I did, if you're listening to this and description, we got links.
So you can go to the website, learn more, and then register and show up and be part of this. 'cause I'm thinking then this is just. It's just amazing stuff. Yeah. So I mean, like I said, and so the other part is you mentioned before, of course, the employers being there, so there's also a career fair aspect to this as well too.
Yes. So you're gonna have some top tech companies here talking about the open positions that they have, stuff like that. Tell me more about that. So it goes back to what you said about Pittsburgh, like Yeah, when we first discerned that we were going to definitely go to [00:10:00] Pittsburgh, there were a couple companies that, you know, of course came to our in front of us.
One of course, being a Pittsburgh tech council, we were like let's talk to these guys, let's, you know, see what. You know, what we can understand and who we can partner with. But once you all open the door and we also open the door to all of the different companies and brands that are here.
You know, there are different agencies, there are different headquarters. We have right now a list of 50 companies that are ready and prepared to see these competitors and to see, and anyone who wants to come in. And you the cyber combat and this career fair. So what we're hoping is from not only this recording, but also from, you know, our tour this week of promoting ourselves is let's get more companies in there.
We don't have to stop at 50. We actually want to get like a really thick career fair. I like that, that people can walk up and down and, you know, get jobs before the end of this event on on Sunday. Just building the awareness I think is just so important as well too, even for folks that maybe aren't ready for a job quite yet, but they're there checking out some of the action and they're just realizing like, wait a second, I recognize some of these names.
What they're hiring, they're in [00:11:00] Pittsburgh, they're wherever. So that to me is just so cool. So I think this worked in some of, there's the immediate thing, but there's also that longer term, like just building that connection so people realize that, you know, there are pathways into a tech career, you know?
Absolutely. And it's absolutely, and it's not the traditional way all the time with having a resume. It's. Saying that yes, I'm a team player. Like we get it. Like it doesn't work. Exactly. It's all good. You have to have that passion. You have to have that your t but you also have to have those skills.
And I think what's impressive about our career fair is not just. Tech and cyber companies. Yeah. We also have companies in hospitality. We have a, also have companies in HR and workforce development. Like we have a good breadth of companies. Even if you have customer service skills, there are jobs that are waiting for you at this career fair.
So whether you're a college student, whether you're someone who you know are, is looking for a position or a role if you're a high school student where there's some companies who are looking for apprentices, so come in. Try your hand and, you know, see what you can potentially get, how you can get hired at this.
[00:12:00] At exp. Wow. That's crazy. I love hearing that you're, this is across the ecosystem and that to me is just fantastic because yeah, everyone, everybody engaged one way or the other and that seems like you guys are doing that. This is quite the undertaking to pull this thing. This is pretty cool.
Might be bending the laws of physics here in Pittsburgh, you know? Oh, I love it. That's how good things happen. People have to push it like this. Yes. And I think that's how people start making just a big difference. And yeah, so I mean obviously, so I feel like with all these different people kind of coming together, the networking has to be just a phenomenal opportunity here at the tech council of the things we love doing is getting our members together at our events because the idea that people, when they run into each other, they had no idea they existed.
Nothing, I think nothing bad can happen when minds good intention minds come together to yes, meet and learn what they can do better. I don't know. Absolutely. I get into it. Yes. No, networking is one of the core things that we, even when we, you know, I used to be a tech instructor, so I would always tell my [00:13:00] students, you know, make sure.
That when you're in these spaces, whether it's a career fair, whether it's a competition, whether it's a conference convention network, communicate. You never know who you're sitting next to. You never know who you're standing next to. You never know how you're going to interact with them.
You could be talking to this a CEO of a corporation that will give you a company give you a job. That day, that minute have a conversation, network and communicate. And we're having some networking mixers during the course of the weekend as well. Yes. So we have a, we have workshops, we have panels, and then networking mixers to again, give people the opportunity to communicate, talk, and engage together.
Come together. It's rec, that's it's, you're getting John. You are. That's awesome. No, this is so cool. I'm just curious you know, have you've done these for a couple years any kind of memorable moments that you've had? Like just seeing people getting together, seeing people doing the combine, like you gotta do something kind of cool.
Absolutely. Like I said, the Combine has been in operation for the past two years. Yeah. In several cities and most recently we had a combine in Columbia, [00:14:00] Maryland. We had about, I think we had. 10, 10 all stars who came up out of the co Columbia combine. And the normal process, as I told you before, we have the invitationals and we float into the prelims.
Then after that you take it up to the next stages with the qualifiers, and then we do draft picks. Draft picks is. Literally what it sounds like, just like an actual NFL combine. It's when all the teams come in and they get to watch behind the glass, and then they have actual, an actual draft where they choose who they want.
So we had two out of our 10 all stars, we had two who, who were like the cream of the crop, like they ro rose to the top. Yeah. And after the invitationals, not the prelims, not the qualifier, not draft picks. After the invitationals, they got hired on the spot. One's making six figures, one's making 95,000 off the top of just finishing the invitationals and showcasing their skills.
Okay. That's it. That's cool. That's it. That's so cool. For us, those are the types of stories that like, of [00:15:00] course we're like, wow, we wish you could make it all the way through the program, all the way through the competition, all the way through all four stages. The point of all of this is to get people to really show themselves, right?
Stop hiding behind the resumes. I've talked to so many colleagues and so many friends and partners who have, especially the last five years since the pandemic, have put in thousands, hundreds of thousands of resumes to this job, that job remote and nearby and all this other stuff, and. To no avail, to no, no responses.
Or rejections or whatever it is. However, to see that in this situation, live and in person, an employer sees the skills of somebody and says, I want that person right now. Let me hire them next month, or Let me hire them next week. Let me hire them today. Yeah. That's the type of niche situation we find ourselves in, which is giving people that chance and that opportunity to really engage and be seen.
It's a great story. Yeah, man. No, it has been, has us stoked. This is something very unique. [00:16:00] So glad you're bringing this to Pittsburgh and using us as a launchpad for this in a testing ground. And I'm hoping you bring this back next year 'cause I'm predicting a lot of success here for you guys. So no pressure.
Thank you. Thank you. It's so much fun learning more about this, really encouraging everybody. If you just have a little interest, stop by, check it out. This sounds so engaging. Got all the details, of course, in our description here. And I said, Jacob, Shia, you are the best man, you guys, you and your team making it happen and bring it to Pittsburgh.
So I, my team, each member of my team is working hard, especially this, these next two weeks, like I said gearing up for the event. We're doing so many special things, trying to make sure. Anyone who wants to participate can. We're reaching out to Pittsburgh Public Schools to offer scholarships, actually awesome to students, juniors and seniors who want to get apprenticeships.
20. Really, we're reaching out to the high schools to give 20 scholarships per high school for them to come [00:17:00] out to exp and participate. We're reaching out to colleges. We're trying to get a lot of the different tech and cyber clubs to come out, and they're invited as well. We're trying to get, you know, scholarships.
To each of them as well. Like it's not just about the cash prizes, but once again, we got some really good cash prizes for all of the different winners. We are on the eSports side of things for the exp. We have the fight for Love tournament now again. This is February 13th through 15th. I wanna make sure I said this.
It's Valentine's weekend. We know some people want to be out with their sweetheart, so on and so forth. So we've added a perk. There's a couples, there's a couples tournament on Friday. Yes. Yes. I had to do it. There's a couples tournament on Friday. Grand prize. There's several prizes, but grand prize for the couples tournament is a trip for two.
Flights taken care of, hotels taken care of, trip or two to any of our partnered hotels. We got cities like Vegas, cities like Atlanta, cities like Puerto Rico, like we got places who are registered. We're out here [00:18:00] just trying to make sure people have opportunities, but. You can take a break.
You can take a little, you know you coming out John, I know you wanted to take him for vacation. You know it's a been cold. You can come out as well. It has. That's awesome. You guys have your bases covered. Cannot thank you enough for hanging out with me on this one. Absolutely. I mean, that is just fantastic.
Just to remind everybody, if you want more, if your front row seat, Pittsburgh's tech ecosystem, keep coming back to tech vibe. I keep telling the stories. Keep having so much fun. This has been Jonathan Kersting with the Pittsburgh Technology Council. And of course tech vibe.