DECODE GLOBAL

GDC13: Games Can and Should Change!

nicole — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:04:41 +0000

By Tuuli Saarinen

Jason Rohrer showcasing his latest experimental game, The Castle Doctrine.

Game Developers Conference is the biggest conference in the world for people working in game development. It’s a week-long gathering of the industry’s greatest minds, and a brilliant place to learn where the industry is headed. I’ve been wanting to attend the conference for years, and finally had the chance to do that this year.

Will Wright presenting his proposal for the last game humanity would play, as a part of a yearly game design challenge

It was amazing talking about Get Water! with the attendees, and seeing all the positive reactions. People really seem to love the game and what we’re trying to do with it. The number of people that think we’re doing something everyone should be doing is surprisingly big, and I had some great discussions with both independent and big production developers on where they think the industry is headed. Hopefully playing our game will inspire them to consider dealing with social issues in their games. That, and introducing more diverse game characters, such as our very own Maya, the 12-year-old protagonist of Get Water!.

Although the conference was full of companies and games focused in profit only, it was clear that a number of developers think things need to change, and many are doing their best to drive change the best they can. I can’t wait to see how attitudes have changed next year, not to mention five years from now!

Conference Expo floor, they day’s just getting started so it’s not completely packed yet.

The New Water Cycle: How Lack of Water Affects Girls’ Education

nicole — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:06:13 +0000

By Hannah Weintraub

This morning before I went to school, I spent about ten minutes tidying my room in an attempt to appease my mom in her quest for cleanliness. After half-heartedly chipping away at the piles of clutter that were strewn around, I felt satisfied and began to prepare for school. Leaving my chore unfinished came with few consequences other than a slightly agitated parent and an increasingly decrepit bedroom.

Thousands of miles away in countries across the globe, millions of girls do not have the luxury to ignore their chores like I do. Instead, their families rely on these girls to spend hours of their days collecting water from faraway or unreliable sources. The time that these girls spend, which the organization Water.org estimates collectively clocks in around 200 million hours a day, takes girls away from the schooling and consistent education they need to succeed.

So, many would think, a simple solution to this problem is to just build more water sources closer to these communities. This approach has proven to be successful in many regions. In Tanzania, the United Nations reports, when water sources were moved within 15 minutes of girls’ homes, their school attendance increased by 12 percent while boys’ school attendance increased by far less.

Still, moving a well does not always address the root issue that keeps girls out of school; that often times, communities do not value their women or see the purpose in giving them an education in the first place.

The reason that women and girls make up over 76 percent of those who collect water is not because they are better equipped to walk the arduous miles to water sources or to carry the heavy jugs of water. Instead, many communities view women as disposable commodities that can be easily dispensed to perform backbreaking and dangerous tasks. Even in some regions where children are not relied on to collect water, many girls are still kept out of school at much higher rates than their male peers.

In a 2005 United Nations report on women’s role in water collection, researchers found that organizations that coupled their water development projects with gender education and empowerment classes created much greater advances in women’s education and community involvement than organizations that went in and set up wells without a focus on gender inequality. Still, gender empowerment and building wells must be concurrent. Even if a woman is empowered and a community is ready to value her, her potential for success is lost if she must still walk miles away to far-away water sources.

Again, an international issue is more intricate than it might first appear. Luckily, there are organizations that are willing to sift through the complexity to find solutions to this problem. One of the most innovative approaches I have seen is the organization Decode Global’s mobile game, “Get Water!” In the game, players must help a young girl collect water so she can return to school. Meanwhile, users learn more about the water crisis affecting women through insightful factoids. In order for “Get Water!” to get on its feet and begin to create change, it needs support through its fundraising site.

The important part of this game is that it fosters a dialogue about the disproportionate affect lack of water has on a woman’s education. The biggest question the game poses to the player and to us all is: why are women being pulled out of school while their male classmates are allowed to stay and learn? The answer to this question may be the wellspring that could save many generations of women from future inequities.

Hannah Weintraub is a communications intern with the Global Campaign for Education U.S. Chapter, an advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring universal quality education. She is a senior in high school and is co-president of her school’s Women’s Advocacy Club.

With Get Water! We’re on a mission to make a change!

ange — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:11:21 +0000

At Decode Global, we have the crazy idea that not only can games be a lot of fun, but they can also make the world a better place!

Video games are a dominant form of storytelling in the 21st century. How we design them, what we choose to say and express with them, and how we engage with and play them, to some extent reflects who we are, and what we care about.

Games also unite us. In every culture and every country, people are playing games. We often quote the staggering statistic that worldwide 3B hours are spent each week playing games. To us, this is a call to action.

At Decode Global, we asked ourselves: “If games are universally important to us and something we enjoy, why couldn’t they also be effective tool for social change?”

With Get Water!, our first mobile game, first and foremost we want to entertain you. We want you to fall in love with the story of book-loving Maya, who would much rather spend her days at school than collecting water. We want you to have fun competing with your friends to see who can collect the most water and mangoes. We want you to enjoy using a boomerang to scare away crazy peacocks that are out to crack Maya’s water pot.

We also want to get the message out that water scarcity is a big deal, and is one of the main reasons girls miss out on school.

But we just can’t stop there. It’s also important to us that through Get Water! we are able to make things better. This means we are committed to ensuring women and girls benefit from better access to education and clean water.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve had the opportunity to meet with both Women For Water, and their impact partner Support My School, to discuss ways we could work together to increase the reach of Get Water!

Women For Water is a Washington-based organization, under the umbrella of Global Water Challenge. They have the mandate to mobilize a billion women and girls to band together to raise awareness and funds for new water access in communities of need around the world.

Support My School, based out of India, is building mass awareness on the importance of water and sanitation and its impact on education, especially for girls. During their first year, they have transformed the lives of 43,000 students in over 100 schools.

During a recent trip to India, we met up with the Support My School team and also had a fun day drawing and playing basketball with the students at Chitera School. Chitera is one of the schools that has benefited from improved facilities thanks to the efforts of Support My School.

We’ve just teamed up with both organizations for our indiegogo campaign. We are working together to spread the word about how games can be an effective tool for social change, the importance of clean water, and to ensure real improvements are made in girls’ access to education.

We still have a long way to go in reaching our goals with Get Water!, but we’re off to a fantastic start!

If you’d like to contribute to our campaign, you can help in one of two ways:

Through donating. Not only will you be contributing to the development of Get Water!, but you’ll also actively be improving girls’ access to education and clean water.
Through Twitter. Help us spread the word about the campaign through Twitter and Facebook. Join in on Mondays and Wednesdays at 4pm EST to make the #getwater tag trend globally on Twitter.

Thanks for your support!

Have Fun. Make a difference.

Get Water! Indiegogo Campaign – Have Fun AND Make a Difference!

nicole — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 05:33:37 +0000

The Holidays are right around the corner and we are feeling merry at Decode Global.

After several months of brainstorming, coding and drawing, we are getting closer to releasing our first mobile game for social change, Get Water! .

However, before you embark with Maya on her magical journey, some final touches and funds are required. For that matter, we have launched an international crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo in order to finish developing the game and support the efforts of our social impact partners, UNICEF Canada and the Global Campaign for Education, US and Women For Water.

Indiegogo is the leading web platform for crowd-funding where anyone can raise money for their projects or ideas. Each month, millions of dollars are raised through this website founded in 2008. The beauty of this platform rests on its power to engage individuals in contributing to the realization of innovative and impactful projects!

UNICEF Canada is the leading charitable organization for children in Canada on mission to empower and mobilize Canadians to invest in the positive transformation of every child’s future. By partnering with UNICEF Canada, we are committed to donating a share of the contributions raised for the purchase of UNICEF Survival Gifts. As Get Water! highlights the reality of millions of girls, who like Maya, have to spend countless hours collecting water instead of going to school, the funds for the Survival Gifts will go towards the purchase of school supplies and water enhancing materials.

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement that aims to end the global education crisis. Education is a basic human right, and GCE’s mission is to make sure that governments act now to deliver the right of everyone to a free, quality, public education. We’re pleased to be partnering with the US Chapter of GCE to increase awareness about the barrier’s to girl’s education and to drive sustainable change.

Women for Water is a campaign under the umbrella of the Global Water Challenge, raising awareness of the women and girls that are disproportionately impacted by the water and sanitation crisis. Driven by a fervent belief that women and girls are agents of change, the campaign is inspiring a billion women and girls to band together and catalyze a movement to raise awareness and funds for new water access in communities of need around the world.

By participating in our Get Water! Indiegogo campaign, you are not only contributing to the development of our fun game but also improving girls’ access to clean water and education!

So why not start making a difference today?

Check out our campaign which will be running until January 29^th. As a bonus, you will also receive a special Get Water! perk. More importantly, please help us raise awareness about this global issue affecting millions of girls, every drop of help counts.

Thank you for your support and Happy Holidays!

Decode Global Welcomes Two New Researchers!

nicole — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 22:30:16 +0000

Have you ever wondered about studying the social impact of games?

As we enter into the last stage of game development, it is of great importance to us to ensure that the social message conveyed by the game resonates with our audience. More specifically, we are committed to determining if our game has an effect on people’s knowledge and understanding of water related issues and its impact on girls’ education.

Measuring games’ concrete social impact is a new area of research that has yet to be fully developed. The Harmony Institute is a compelling example of research center focused on revealing the influence of entertainment in society and its potential for producing lasting social change. Harmony Institute’s work revolves around analyzing different forms of entertainment such as documentary films, television shows and other transmedia projects to measure their impact on social issues such as education and climate change.

Similarly, we are also motivated to evaluate our ability to create sustainable social change. To help us undertake this task, we are happy to welcome two researchers to our team. Renee Jackson and Emily Sheepy are graduate students in the department of education at Concordia University who will be working with us for the next months. Renee will be spending time at the lab observing our work while Emily will be developing tools for measuring social impact.

We look forward to seeing how their research unfolds, as their findings will shed light into how to measure the impact of games for social change. Namely, they will be looking at how games can be used as an effective tool for educating people about international development challenges in a fun and engaging way. Here at Decode Global we are all about developing meaningful mobile technology for social change. Therefore, it is paramount to ensure that our work makes a sustainable difference in communities around the world.

Follow us on our exciting journey!

Enter the “Name-the-Game” Competition!

nicole — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:32:54 +0000

Name-the-Game Teaser from Decode Global on Vimeo.

Meet Maya. A feisty and bright teenager who wishes she could spend more time in school instead of spending countless hours collecting water.

Maya’s case is the reality of many women and girls. The scarcity of clean water in many developing countries have led women and girls to spend 200 million hour per day collecting water, reaching 40 billion of hours annually. Girl’s education is heavily compromised as the task of colleting water for the household falls under the responsibility of female family members.

With this mind, we at Decode Global are developing a mobile game that draws attention to this staggering social issue that affects millions of women and girls worldwide.

As we get closer to releasing our game, we are thrilled to share with you a first sneak peak of Maya’s journey. More importantly, we want YOU to be part of this journey by helping us name our game. The “Name-the-Game” competition was launched on Monday, October 1^st on our facebook page and it is open for submissions until October 15th.

It only takes a click and a name idea to participate in the contest and get the chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. The five entries that receive the most votes will be presented to our jury who will select the winner.

And who are the judges?

Ariane Charbonneau is a web content manager at ONE DROP, an initiative of Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil^®. With her distinctive unappeasable curiosity, she also maintains links with various bloggers, which ripen into collaborations, such as donnetamusique.com, a 2.0 marketing blog for music industry professionals. Ariane’s artistic flair has earned her two awards at the 2011 Independent Music Awards for “Best Album Art” & “Best Website”.

Jason Della Rocca is the former executive director of the International Game Developers Association. He founded Perimeter Partners, a consultancy that provides strategic level guidance and expertise to the gaming industry. Jason was named to Game Developer Magazine’s 2009 “The Game Developer 50″, a list which profiles 50 of the most important contributors to the current state of the game industry.

Lilly Vogelesang is the Product Manager of Professional Products at Toon Boom Animation. She works closely with studios, educational institutions, and online customers to bring exciting new features to the product line, including Harmony, Storyboard Pro, and more! After working in the world of 3D animation in California, she returned to her hometown of Montreal to work with Toon Boom.

Patric Ojala is the Director of Technology & Production for Digital Distribution at Remedy Entertainment. He has extensive experience in 3D game production, and graphics research and development. He holds an MSc in Digital Signal Processing.

Submit your ideas and help us spread the word about this important issue!

We Are Decode Global. We Are Here.

ange — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 15:36:37 +0000

In honour of World Humanitarian Day, I wanted to take some time to introduce Decode Global’s international team of humanitarian technologists.

Our Fellows: Roy, Nikita, Everton, Viivi, and Daniela are an amazing group of young technologists from all corners of the globe who are in Montreal – working hard – to do good.

They met each other on June 1st, when I threw them together for a weekend, and asked them to build a game that addressed the issue of street kids and hunger in 48 hours. They RHOK’d it! And received an honourable mention for their game at the Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) Game Jam.

This was the start of what has been a fantastic 2.5 months. They’ve learned a ton – about mobile game development – about how to work together as a team – about the global importance of safe and easily accessible water sources – about the difficulties facing women and girls that must spend hours of their day collecting water…

We’ve got a busy couple of months ahead as we get ready to launch our first mobile game. But if any group of people can make a positive difference in this world – this team can!

In addition to our team of Fellows, we also have a ton of people working behind the scenes to help us plan and deliver our projects.

Our amazing humanitarian intern Nicole, was instrumental in helping us secure our place as a finalist in the UN Women’s Project Inspire Competition. We’ll be pitching our project at the finals in Singapore on August 31st!

Tapani, Dan, Bjorn, Joachim, Rustam and Sandra cheer us on, give us valuable feedback, help us plan projects and contribute code.

A huge thanks to all of you!

We are Decode Global. We Code For Global Good.

We Are Here.

Angelique

Coders4Africa on Decode Global’s radar

nicole — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:58:13 +0000

At Decode Global, one of our goals is to create a global network of “humanitarian technologists” whose mission is to code for social good. The term emerged in 2010 and designates a new form of experts in the field of humanitarian assistance who deploy their technological expertise for social impact. The rise of Volunteer Technology Communities (VTC) in the aftermath of the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes led to the development of this “humanitarian technologists” network.

As members of this community, we encourage organizations, who like us, aspire to create a sustainable social change through the development of socially beneficial technology. In this sense, we would like to highlight the tremendous work of Coders4Africa, a non-governmental organization founded in 2010, whose mission is to educate and certify Pan-African software developers creating IT tools using mobile, web and database platforms. Coders4Africa’s 6 co-founders are based in Canada and United States and have supported the development of a Pan-African IT community by working closely with organization’s local managers in Senegal, Kenya, Ghana, Burkina-Faso and Cameroon. Today, Coders4Africa counts more than a thousand members on its web portal: www.coders4africa.org.

From September through December 2012, Coders4Africa will proceed to the training of 30 African developers who will create 5 different mobile and web applications that will impact the communities they live in. Following a “real life project training model”, the trainees will be working on real projects in different sectors (agriculture, healthcare, business, education and social needs) while acquiring a fundamental training that will help them conquer the information and communication technology (ICT) shortcomings in their community.

Coders4Africa stresses the importance of promoting capacity building through the usage of technology as a tool for social innovation and community engagement. As humanitarian technologists, we welcome technology driven projects fuelling social change and believe that there needs to be more of this type of community involvement. As technology penetration rates grow, we hope to encounter more of these initiatives, and share Volunteer Technology Community’s view that “we are only at the beginning of this story”.

You can find more about Coders4Africa by visiting their website: www.coders4africa.org.

On cartonne au hackathon de RHoK

nicole — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 21:33:35 +0000

La première fin de semaine de juin a été marquée par l’événement Random Hacks of Kindness rassemblant de nombreux amateurs de jeux vidéo et professionnels de l’industrie.

Les participants ont été mis à l’épreuve pendant 48 heures durant lesquelles ils ont dû conceptualiser et développer une idée de jeu basé sur un thème particulier.

En collaboration avec UNICEF Canada et autres organisations notables, l’événement s’est distingué d’autres « game jam » ordinaires dû au thème souligné: la programmation de jeux pour la bonne cause.

En effet, au-delà des motivations habituelles telles que le réseautage, bâtir un portfolio, et se divertir, l’événement a réuni des participants qui à travers leur passion ou profession, ont identifié une question sociale et créer un jeu abordant cette dernière. Plusieurs problèmes sociaux ont été abordés dont le manque d’accès à l’eau potable, la situation des sans-abris, la malnutrition et les enfants des rues.

Les participants ont été incroyablement créatifs en traitant les questions sociales dans leurs jeux. En voici quelques exemples :

Doctor W.H.O (Choix du Jury) – Resistor 7

Un puzzle assorti où les joueurs gèrent leurs ressources limitées afin d’assister les individus dans leurs besoins variés.

Hunger Run (2nd Choix du Jury) – Decode Global

Un jeu en 2D basé sur une plateforme de défilement où le joueur doit fuir un mur de famine tout en sauvant des enfants en danger le long du chemin.

UNICEF Build a School (Impact social) – Équipe Plumpy Nuts

Un jeu invitant les joueurs à construire et gérer des écoles dans une zone moins développée.

Save the Worlds: Burrito Edition (Choix de l’audience) – Snail Team

Un jeu basé sur une narration racontant les aventures d’un escargot qui à pour mission sauver le monde.

Alors que créativité et motivation étaient au rendez-vous à Montréal, plusieurs villes participantes aux Random Hacks of Kindness ont également programmé pour la bonne cause. Au total, 900 personnes de 14 pays différents à travers le monde ont pu mettre leur talent à disposition de l’humanité.

Si vous êtes dans la région de Montréal et désirez voir les démos en live de ces jeux pour la bonne cause, ne manquez pas la rencontre du Mont Royal Game Society ce mois de juillet.

Vous souhaitez organiser un événement Random Hacks of Kindness dans votre ville le prochain mois de décembre ? Appliquez pour une licence « RHoK » pour faire partie de cette initiative visant à améliorer notre communauté et monde entier.

Un grand merci à Nokia, notre commanditaire principal, dont la généreuse contribution a permis la réalisation de cet événement.

Random Hacks of Kindness, June 1-3, 2012

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 06:37:20 +0000

On June 1-3 2012, thousands of people in over 20 locations worldwide will be participating in a hackathon called Random Hacks of Kindness.

In Montréal, this free event will focus on games for social change, and will be a unique opportunity for the video games community and the international development community to collaborate on how games can be used to increase awareness, drive action and solve important social challenges.

RHoK Montréal is taking place in collaboration Nokia, Microsoft, Google, UNICEF Québec, PlayMob, in addition to many others!

The event line-up includes a 5 à 7 on June 1st with guest speakers from the games industry and international development community, followed by two days of building games. Prizes will be awarded!

For more details and registration check out MontrealRHoKs

What: Random Hacks of Kindness Hackathon
When: Friday, June 1 at 6 p.m. to Sunday, June 3 at 5 p.m.
Where: Concordia University’s Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV) building 1515 Ste-Catherine St. West (corner Guy St.)