NDI was selected as one of 20 winners out of hundreds of entrants for HP’s Living Progress Challenge. This challenge was designed to aid millions of people around the world who are excluded from opportunities due to limited access to technology or education by connecting good ideas from the nonprofit sector with top tech talent. The challenge asked organizations to submit a proposal for software applications or digital services that could be created to improve people’s lives. NDI proposed SheVentures -- a gaming platform for women’s advocacy education that puts players at the center of a dystopian world where the protagonists must mobilize their community to combat injustices against women, both large and small.

NDI’s Democracy and Technology team has piloted gaming as a tool for education in a world where youth everywhere have increasing access to smartphones. Games make learning more entertaining and can attract broader audiences than traditional in-person training. They achieve higher levels of interaction and engagement than traditional one-way education platforms. Much as street theater or radio dramas provided basic and accessible information to earlier generations, smartphone games are a way to reach the masses with compelling, fun, and educational messages.

In SheVentures, the player decides how to take on injustices perpetrated against women, and must mobilize the community in order to create lasting political change. The game will teach basic techniques in advocacy, canvassing, advertising, protest, and mass communication as the player succeeds or fails based on the ability to build power and influence through their organizational efforts. NDI hopes that the game will teach much of the same basic content as an traditional introductory training. After learning to organize against the “monsters” in the game world, players will be better able to tackle real-world problems with the same approaches.

Winning proposals benefit from pro-bono design and coding skills by an array of professionals who are themselves competing to be selected by NDI and HP to develop SheVentures. Working with the Living Progress team, NDI will be able to select submissions from dozens of professional graphic designers and software developers.

The other first-round winners include the UN World Food Program, Stanford University, The Global Water Challenge, American Red Cross, World Wildlife Fund, and Pact among others. NDI’s winning proposal was the result a collaborative effort between its Democracy and Technology and Gender, Women and Democracy departments.