Gaming for the future: Sustainability through game play
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.
Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Founding Story
Omar
Mohammed
Fix the future
, PS
, PS, Port of Spain
Less than a year
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Having been involved in workshops and collaborative exercise at the community, national and international levels that are aimed at designing strategies and work plans to support development, I was always cognizant of limitations such as time, finances and space necessary to have a positive output. In many cases such limitations prove a severe detriment to a robust outcome. Being exposed to physical game play with village members in a farming community in which they used toy pieces and paint to map out where they want their community to go in 20 years, sparked an idea to replicate such gameplay 100 fold - to give communities across the globe a virtual canvas on which they can work together to come up with collaborative solutions.
Sanitation and Hygiene, Nutrition, Water, Greenhouse Gases, Waste, Smallholder Farmers.
The primary beneficiaries will be any group(s) that want to work together to develop solutions to sustainability problems. These can be community groups, national governments, civil society or international NGOs. They will have access to the gaming platform by nature of its being opensource and will be trained through manuals and other methods to utilize the game and have user support if necessary. The platform will be marketed through direct contact with groups and through media visibility.
Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and the Middle East are the fastest growing regions in terms of internet usage and mobile telephony with almost 30% total penetration (500,000,000 persons). The implications for innovation through online tech are vast with strong multiplier effects. The design of an open source gaming platform for est. $50,000.00 USD would reduce the need to physically meet to develop sustainability strategies, with national/international meetings that generally cost 10-50,000 USD per event minimum. Such a platform would allow for statistically representative strategy design at community-global levels for multiple issues such as environment, water, health and conflict. The platform will create a space also for organisations without much resources to work together towards solutions at their local level to international groups aiming for big picture change.
The game will be piloted in Trinidad and Tobago first and two other countries that differ in profile to test the response to the game. Based on the response, the game will be modified and then released to the public as an opensource platform. The game will then be marketed as far as possible through media exposure, conferences where applicable and direct contact with key organisations in geographic/thematic groupings.
The project will utilize a leading game design firm as well as students in representative regions in the design and future support to game players which will aid in capacity development and sustainability of the initiative. It is expected that they will eventually serve as regional support.
Initially, funding will be sourced to cover the design of the game platform itself, towards creating an opensource version for use by the development community. This will be the main capital expenditure, as it is opensource, modifications will be done with no cost to the host organisation. Management budget will be gained from using advertising revenues on the game and a small license fee that can be applied to supplement income.
Working within the international development field for 5 years, I am aware of the need to collaborate and work together, having managed partnerships for development at the national-international levels. I am also completing a Masters in Business Administration with a specialization in entrepreneurship and innovation in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as currently being involved in the design of an agricultural social enterprise in my country.