Workshop: Mike North
August 18, 2011
Technology aficionado and part-time mad scientist Mike North, CEO & Founder at reallocate.org and Chief Technology Officer at Nukotoys, dropped by YetiZen today to lead a collaborative workshop on positive-impact game design. Mike challenged us to create a game that was not only fun and viral, but would also have an observable benefit on one of the real-world problems currently faced by Mike’s non-profit company ReAllocate. Unlike in America where road systems have evolved alongside the development of automobiles, many of the roads in Africa were originally foot paths that were only later adapted to be uses by cars. Consequently, these roads are very dangerous, and pose a serious risk of death or dismemberment to the young students who use them walking to and from school each day.
Our goal, was to create a game that would educate children about road safety while still being fun for them to play. Mike divided us into small collaborative groups of 3-4 members, and helped us brainstorm and focus our ideas. Once we had solidified our game concepts, we explained and demonstrated our ideas. After having our fill of fun playing each other’s games, we gathered to share our take-aways from the process. We all agreed that it had been a fun and enlightening experience, and left the workshop feeling refreshed and ready to tackle our problems with reinvigorated spirit.