Bachir Boumaaza

Bachir Boumaaza (born June 9, 1980), mostly known by the online pseudonym Athene, is a Belgian internet personality and Twitch.tv streamer. He is best known for using his notoriety in video gaming to raise money for charity.^[1] Moreover, he is the founder of Gaming for Good, a charitable storefront and donation platform that integrates with the popular streaming website Twitch.^[2]

Boumaaza was born in Borgerhout, Belgium, and grew up in a poor, religious household. Boumaaza claims that this was the foundation upon which he got into fighting for social issues.^[3]

In 2000, he started a short-lived political career that included his affiliation to the political party Young Green (Flanders),^[4] his candidacy for Agalev,^[5] and his co-foundation of the political party NEE in 2005. Following the elections in 2007, Boumaaza decided to break away from politics, and started among other activities to upload videos on YouTube. His channel became widely popular and accumulated millions of views.^[6] He has since then been known as Athene. The five-year period that followed included countless YouTube videos, ranging from gaming content, social activism, self-development, poker, and science until his first charity project, Operation Sharecraft was launched in 2012. Sharecraft marked the beginning of his charitable efforts, and he has since then raised more than $22 million for charity.^[2]

Early life

Born in Borgerhout, Antwerp, Belgium, Boumaaza is the son of Moroccan-Belgian couple. Both his parents worked in the Justice Department. Boumaaza claimed, in his book "Mijn Egotrip", that his childhood was chaotic due to the cultural differences between his mother and father. And that he from young age was confronted with social issues, including racism and poverty, which instilled a sense of responsibility in him to change the existing conditions.^[7] Boumaaza was at a young age introduced to video games, and claims he quickly proved to be excellent at the games.^[8]

Political career and activism

Boumaaza entered politics in 2000, and joined the progressive party, Young Green (Flanders).^[4] The party was the youth organization of Groen, formerly known as Agalev. He was, at the age of 20, chosen as a political candidate for Agalev and participated in the Belgian local elections, 2000.^[5] Having received a fair number of votes, Boumaaza was chosen as one the youngest close elected politicians in Belgium and served as first follower for Agelev. His political career was, however, short-lived as he lacked any substantive political experience. Bachir claims to have felt appalled by the moral decay within the party.^[4]

Big Brother

With the intention to fight racism, Boumaaza applied, in 2001, to join the Belgian reality TV series Big Brother. He was selected from a pool of 60.000 applicants and appeared briefly in the second season of the show. He was allegedly voted out for racist reasons (this claim is unsubstantiated), and in the aftermath of the show, he discussed his experience with, Flemish nationalist, Filip Dewinter. He later wrote an autobiography, at the age of 21, called “Mijn egotrip” which included his depiction of the events that took place in Big Brother.^[9]

NEE

In 2005, Boumaaza co-founded the Dutch political organization, NEE. Boumaaza operated as the official spokesperson and lead the organization to some success. Nee was an impartial political movement for voter who felt dissatisfied with the political system. As voting is mandatory in Belgium, NEE provided people the ability to cast blank votes in dissatisfaction of the political system. In case of election, NEE would not occupy their seat and leave it empty as a way for people show their refusal of the political system.^[10] NEE participated in both the Belgian local elections, 2006 and in the Belgian federal election, 2007 but did not receive enough votes to earn a seat in the city council or senate.

IPower

Together with a group of activists in 2008, Boumaaza started a self-development and activist movement called IPOWER. The movement advocated independent thinking, action and open-mindedness, and protested for net-neutrality. It was, however, exceptionally short-lived as it did not bring about any lasting change.^[11]

YouTube career

Boumaaza began creating YouTube videos in 2007, playing the role of an eccentric World of Warcraft player named Athene. Since then, his videos have broken away from strictly playing the role of Athene and have included personal vlogs, interviews, social and political activism, science discussions and charity work. Boumaaza has also supplemented his online video presence by broadcasting himself live on Twitch.^[12]

The Original Athene Series

The original Athene series was created in 2007, when Boumaaza played the role of a World of Warcraft player named Athene. The YouTube video “Best Paladin of The World pwning nubs on My Heart Will Go On from Celine Dion”^[13] marked the beginning of the series, and catapulted Boumaaza into stardom, earning him millions of viewers and subscribers on YouTube. The original series revolved around the strange and fictional character, Athene, and included in-game commentary of World of Warcraft, where Athene would frequently mock other players, as well as a strange personal storyline that followed Athene’s bizarre everyday life. The series also featured full-length mockumentary named “Wrath of the 1337 King”^[14] that portrayed his absurd everyday life and his delusional relationship with reality, as he could not tell the difference between fact and fiction, between videogames and reality. The series lasted roughly two years, and slowly came to pass, as Boumaaza and his film crew focused other projects. Even though the series ended in 2009, the Athene character is still at large and remains widely known from the original Athene series.

Poker

In 2009, while still uploading videos to YouTube, Boumaaza decided break away from his regular schedule to focus on poker. He managed to turn $5 into $300.000 within a year in through a scheme that has raised ethical concerns among the poker community. ,^[15] and wrote poker history by playing 1 million hands in 1 month. The gambling site PokerStars also gave him a sponsorship and accepted him on their team of professional players, “Team PokerStars Online".^[16] In addition, he also participated in the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), and was in 2010 invited to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), an annual televised poker tournament.

Pseudo-Science

In 2010, Boumaaza claims to have taken a small break from YouTube to conduct new research in the fields of quantum mechanics, relativity and neuroscience. His silence from YouTube broke in 2011 when he released a full-length documentary called "Athene's Theory of Everything”.^[17] Although, the work was never peer reviewed and neither scientifically nor philosophically rigorous, Boumaaza claimed that the work could have implications for science and metaphysics, and that many of its conclusions were supported by evidence in the field of neuroscience. The vast majority of the claims found within have been debunked by various accredited academics. He continued his alleged 'scientific' work, and has since then released several scientific YouTube videos, ranging from human psychology, physics, quantum mechanics and other thought provoking topics about human nature.

Together to the Top

Boumaaza formed an online YouTube initiative named “Together to the Top” in 2011. Boumaaza wanted to promote new YouTubers by featuring videos and offering backlinks on his YouTube channel. In addition to providing backlinks, he pledged to film a personal video for each of his fans who subscribed and provided a backlink to his channel.^[18] The movement grew in considerable size as it gave smaller content creators a voice on YouTube.

Union for Gamers

Boumaaza helped start Union for Gamers in 2012, in cooperation with Curse inc. Union for Gamers was a global YouTube network, made by gamers for gamers, that offered independent YouTubers different benefits. At the time in 2012, independent YouTubers were dealing with unbreakable and illegal contracts. Boumaaza wanted to provide the gaming community with an alternative, and therefore decided in corporation with Curse inc. to create Union for Gamers.^[19] Union for Gamers offered a 90% revenue share, an uncapped and a non-obligatory contract that gave independent YouTubers the personal choice to leave when they wanted.^[20]

Charity work

Operation Sharecraft

In 2012, Boumaaza started operation Sharecraft to raise money for the Horn of Africa. Together with the gaming community, he successfully raised $1.000.000 to combat the ongoing hunger crisis. Boumaaza live streamed himself, together with his friends, Reese Leysen and Tania Derveaux, for 100 consecutive days to raise funds and awareness around the issue.^[22] As a way of fundraising, him and his team would often resort to bizarre activities, often requested by donors, that included dancing, acting and other unusual activities. In addition, donators and active community members were rewarded with Razer equipment in exchange for their support and efforts. This was part of Boumaaza's sponsorship with Razer.

The charity movement was part of DC Entertainment's charity campaign, “We Can Be Heroes”, that sought to raise awareness and funds for the ongoing hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa. DC Entertainment matched all donations 100% up to a million dollars and worked together with Save The Children, the International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps to provide much needed relief in the region. All donations that were donated during Sharecraft went directly to cause and was matched 100% by DC Entertainment.^[23] More specifically, his donations through the program aided distressed areas in the Horn of Africa ^[24] and funded infrastructure projects in Mali. He reached his donation goal live on the main stage at DreamHack.^[25] After reaching his donation target, Boumaaza and his video crew travelled to rural Mali to document and stream the charity work. The aid involved infrastructure developments and medical services to destitute communities.

Gaming for Good

In 2013, Boumaaza created an online platform called “Gaming for Good” to raise money for the charity organization Save The Children. People who donated, using the platform, would receive points which they could use to redeem video games on the "Gaming for Good" website.^[26][2] The games were donated by multiple game developers to create an incentive for people to donate to charity. All donations on platform were multiplied by the United States Agency for International Development, an agency of the United States federal government. As of early July 2014, Gaming for Good raised nearly $15 million for charity.^[27][28] Boumaaza also gave several interviews and made appearances to promote his charity work and Gaming for Good, including at CNN, Bloomberg and FOX.

The Siege

In September 2013, Boumaaza and his crew coordinated a fundraising event called “The Siege”. The Siege was a large community event that included over 50 other fundraisers, and an in-game World of Warcraft event. The World of Warcraft event revolved around two top guilds, Midwinter and Method, that would race each other, and try to complete a raid-specific instance as a fast as possible.^[29] The fundraising was conducted with Boumaaza’s platform "Gaming for Good", where volunteers could create their own fundraising campaign and, together with Boumaaza, raise money for Save The Children. The campaign managed to raise over $2,000,000 in one weekend, quadrupling the initial goal of $500,000.^[30]

Race for survival

In October 2014, Boumaaza visited Save the Children's newborn survival program in Ethiopia as part of their "Race for Survival" campaign.^[22] As a way of fundraising, he live streamed himself directly from the field in Ethiopia, so people could see the impact of their donation.^[31] And although his efforts were not unassisted, he managed to raise 4 million for Save The Children. This marked a milestone, as Boumaaza had independently raised more than 20 million charity.

His efforts were not unassisted, as the campaign included several other streamers, who had started their own fundraiser by using "Gaming for Good". The “Gaming for good” platform was updated, in 2014, with a feature that allowed anyone to fundraise for “Save The Children”.^[32] Boumaaza handed out Razer products to participants who proceeded to reach certain donation targets. In addition, all donations were multiplied by a factor of 16 from USAID, an agency of the United States federal government.

Ebola

In 2015, Boumaaza went to Liberia to raise awareness and funds for the recovery of the Ebola crisis. He later released a documentary about his experience on the frontline, titled “The end of Ebola”,^[33] which described his experience in the affected regions. Boumaaza sought to clear up common misconceptions about the disease and its consequences on victims and families. Boumaaza gave several interviews and made appearances to promote his charity work, including at Bloomberg.

Avengers

In 2015, Boumaaza assembled a humanitarian emergency response team. The team consisted of a group of live streamers, more commonly known as Avengers, that in case of a category one disaster would fundraise to relief the crisis. As with most of Boumaaza's projects, the Avengers had close ties to "Save The Children" as all donations went to their programs.^[34] He managed to gather around 500 streamers who pledged to fundraise.^[35]

Ethiopian drought

In 2016, Boumaaza, and his crew, traveled to Ethiopia to raise awareness and funds for Save The Children’s east Africa Child Relief fund. Ethiopia was at the time suffering from its worst drought in 50 years, affecting millions of people.^[36] As part of the Avengers project, over 2500 live streamers fundraised. The campaign raised $390.000 USD to relief the category one disaster.^[37]

Gaming for Good relaunch

In 2016, the “Gaming for Good” website was relaunched as a streaming overlay and a donation platform for the live streaming platform, Twitch.tv. As people frequently donated to streamers on Twitch, the platform provided viewers the option to support charities by donating to Save the Children. The platform did also include personal donations, which allowed viewers to support streamers directly. The platform included, among other features, an innovative video-player donation system where viewers could donate videos to streamers.

Athene Xtreme

In 2013 Boumaaza launched a gaming supplement named Athene Extreme. The supplement was developed in cooperation with Mind-FX and the co-founder of Razer, Robert Krokoff. Boumaaza felt there was a need for a completely natural gaming supplement as gamers frequently consumed unhealthy and damaging energy drinks. Athene Extreme contained a mixture of sugars, sweeteners and plant extracts. 10% of all revenue went to charity.^[38]

Real talks Podcast

Boumaaza has throughout his career documented his thoughts and insights about human nature, society psychology, science and activism in his “Real Talk Podcasts”.^[39] While streaming on Twitch.tv, he has been frequently talking about social injustice, self-development and other insights in the noble pursuit to inspire action to change the world among his community. These talks have been archived and edited into different podcasts. In addition, Boumaaza has written a book about his mindset and worldview named "Real Answers".

The Singularity Group

In 2015, Boumaaza started a cult, accepting people to come and work with him. As more people joined him, he created a group called "The Singularity Group". The group consists of volunteers who wish to make a difference. They have carried out projects like Gaming for Good, charity livestreams, documentaries etc. The group has since moved recidency to Germany to allow the group to grow.^[40]

Purpose and DUBI

In 2017, Boumaaza created two charity driven cryptocurrencies named Purpose and DUBI. The cryptocurrencies are part of a non-profit project that aims to utilize blockchain technology to distribute decentralized universal basic income to everyone on the planet. Boumaaza plans to distribute DUBI, as a social dividend, to the world as a way combat poverty, and provide a long-term solution for industries’ increasing reliance of automation that renders human labor unnecessary. The tokens are ERC20 utility tokens and will be integrated with future projects, including Clash of Streamers and DubiEx, a fully decentralized cryptocurrency exchange. ^[41]

Clash of Streamers

In 2017, Boumaaza, and his independent group of volunteers, started developing a mobile game named “Clash of Streamers”. The game is expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2018, and will function as a GamingForGood extension. The game will revolve around assembling a group of heroes, which players can use represent and fight other streamers in exchange for in-app rewards

DubiEx

In early 2018, Boumaaza, and his independent group of volunteers, released a fully decentralized and fee-less cryptocurrency exchange named "DubiEx". The exchange is user-friendly and functions as a user-interface for smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Users can trade directly with each other, with absolutely no middle man. This hands off, decentralized approach, is what allows DubiEx to become one of the most user friendly, and simple decentralized Ethereum exchanges in the world.^[42]

Documentaries

• Athene's Theory of Everything (2011)
• God is in The Neurons (2011)
• The Afterlife Dysfunction (2012)
• 9:30 Neuro-Awareness: The Real Secret (2014))
• My Life as a Gamer (2014)
• The End of Ebola (2015)
• Science finds God (2016)
• What is Consciousness? (2017)
• The Ultimate Truth (2017)

References

External links

• http://www.ipowerproject.com
• https://www.youtube.com/user/AtheneWins
• http://www.AtheneLive.com
• http://www.twitch.tv/athenelive
• http://gamingforgood.net/
• http://asimpleclick.org/