Charlotte Gaymers Network

To break through gridlock on fair housing, city planners, citizens, and government officials in wealthy Westchester County, New York, try a new tactic: Using a simulation game to try out different development scenarios. The result has been increased civic participation and efficiency.

Game inventors have created a new game to help students who suffer from ADHD and other mental problems develop and stimulate their brains in a safer, more targeted way than normal medicines.

In Saudi Arabia, female gamers were barred from gaming conventions so an all-female gaming convection was born, offering women a place of self expression and encouraging careers in science and computer programming.

In Honduras, tens of thousands of people have hearing disabilities. The National Autonomous University of Honduras has developed software that converts spoken language into an avatar on the computer who signs for the hearing impaired. Teachers in classrooms can teach hearing impaired students with this new software.

Due to the inaccessibility of inactive munitions to provide hands-on de-activation experience to security experts, training individuals is difficult. Inactive munitions cannot be shipped to other countries, thus other methods have been explored. A military disposal technician, Allen Tan, created a 3D printing technology that can now create replicas of multiple bomb models. Plans can now be transmitted online and printed in 3D anywhere in the world for study.

Too often, poor community members are not included in public discourse over how public spaces should look-- rather, the urban planning is more top-down. To change that, the UN’s Block by Block project is using the computer game Minecraft to include locals in shaping the physical spaces in their own communities by teaching them digital design skills. The UN program has engaged over 17,000 people, and 20 crowdsourced designs have already been built in cities around the world.

Equal Voice Network looked at low voter turnout rates in El Paso and decided that just registering voters wasn’t enough. The coalition developed a creative way to increase education and engagement in local issues: a game. Votería is a play off of Lotería, a traditional Mexican pastime similar to bingo, with updated images and text explaining key current issues and political figures.

Finland is tackling bullying with a national prevention program known as KiVa. In addition to classroom lessons and other resources, the program uses computer games to teach kids what they can do if they see bullying in progress.

Games can help government employees feel more engaged in their work. The United Kingdom’s Department of Work and Pensions uses a game called Idea Street to encourage innovation, and the City of Louisville, Kentucky, awards digital badges for creativity and collaborations. Sustaining staff interest in games can be a challenge. It helps to have clear rules and to align games with the top motivations of employees.

The Fresno school district is getting surprising results following the rollout of Strides, a student portal app that gamefies the learning experience and in doing so incentivizes students to stay engaged. Like with other social media apps, students earn points and maintain streaks, but in this case they rack up awards for attendance, academic performance, and extracurricular participation. Still digesting the success of the technology, schools are working to strike the right balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to ensure students remain interested in the app and their school work.