Who? Me??

I was watching Jane McGonigal’s TED talk and her logic of gaming being a parallel learning track for this generation’s youth is pretty convincing.

For example, a researcher at CMU through a survey has found that by the age of 21, a youngster has put in almost 10,000 hours of online gaming.

Add to it Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hour rule of success, and you have a whole generation of teens who are virtuoso’s in gaming.

Compare this to the 10,080 hours of education that you attend in your secondary school (i.e. if you dont miss a single day of school), and you have an alternative track/medium where an individual is deeply engaged. I had earlier blogged about how games can be used to engage people at work. Well, the same holds true for education, and the platform is almost set. Now it’s for game designers to design games like Superstruct and Evoke, so that modern day games (where the world spends 3 billion hours of online playing every week!!) can be harnessed to educate, collaborate and design new-age solutions for the world.

Jane further goes on to say how games can be used to solve world problems – you can watch the rest of her talk here

Related Links -

Slide deck on how gaming can be a learning technology

When it comes to work, ours is a curious lot. Always willing to check new things (as long as it takes us away from our work ).

So it was no surprise when on our way to lunch we noticed a simple sign at a hall … it said “Youth Venture Workshops”. Since we are in the career space and passionate about entrepreneurship, off we went. The workshop was having their lunch break and we took that opportunity to talk to some of the organizers. Their idea was simple, they talk to individuals who have a burning desire to change something in the society, and help them achieve it through guidance, team building, and funding. They identify potential social entrepreneurs who have the drive to change the society and help them.

The organizers were kind enough to invite us to stick around and watch some of their sessions. The teaming sessions were simple, and involved a lot of play … just the right thing needed to build a team of young and energetic people.

The workshop turned out to be a subscription based program, for which one has to enroll in the month of June. So we gathered took information about their site and went back to work. After coming home, I decided to check up on their site, and read about the youth venture. Turns out that Ashoka Partnership is one of the largest association of social entrepreneurs!!

At the program, we talked to some of the participants who were volunteering, and it was a good experience to see people take charge of the desire to change something in society and act upon it. The next time you blame society for something, remember it can be fixed