Our post about the Village multiplayer online game has been picked up by another blog, audeamus.com, which has recently covered other such games. They all seem to have a third world/development theme - anyone know of online games covering voluntary sector type issues, which aren’t just glorified marketing videos?

Here’s some quotes and items from Audeamus’ earlier post (6th Nov):

Playing 4 Keeps (P4K) is an innovative youth media project that involves a team of Global Kids youth leaders at South Shore High School in Brooklyn, New York. These young people are learning to develop and produce socially conscious online games, while gaining skills in game design, digital media, leadership, and peer education.

They have developed Ayiti: The Cost of Life, with GameLab and help from Microsoft.

From World Bank’s PSD blog: The simply designed 3rd World Farmer is a serious game that “aims at simulating the real-world mechanisms that cause and sustain poverty in 3rd World countries”.

And on Pienso: Sim*Sweatshop is a new online serious game. In the game you are a sweatshop worker who gets paid $6.05 for a full days work. You work 12 hours per day. If you work hard and well you get all you pay. If not, you will be punished accordingly.

And from a comment on the World Bank blog: ICT4Peace blog has an item on Serious games and peacebuilding, which references a Wikipedia entry on Serious Games - many of those listed seem to be about training in more traditional areas, from a quick glance.

Here’s a link to the Kitchen Table Charities Trust, set up by John Humphrys. (See our earlier post on such charities.)

Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, this week gave a lecture to NCVO in memory of Nicholas Hinton. He is very keen to hear sector comments.

The lecture, ‘Changing lives, changing society’, explores the appropriate roles of the government and third sector, and argues against an “isolationist” model that sees either sector as able to provide social justice alone. He also argues that one of the greatest ways the sector contributes to society is not just through individual acts, or even changes to individual laws or policies, but by shifting the ethos of the country: when a campaign on one issue wins recognition of a principle, it opens up space for new campaigns and further change.

You can read the talk at the OTS/Cabinet Office web site, under speeches, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/speeches/.

Post your comments here and we’ll make sure they get passed on.

In the early stages of development, Village aims to be a “multiplayer online real-time strategy game that immerses the player into the role of an entrepreneur building companies to bring prosperity to the villages of the third world.”

Sounds interesting, although it seems that you need to be in the US to be able to really help it get to the next step.

A great example of using technology in a creative way. Any British org able to come up wtih something as exciting and ICT related?

Amazon natives use Google Earth, GPS to protect forest home:

Deep in the most remote jungles of South America, Amazon Indians (Amerindians) are using Google Earth, Global Positioning System (GPS) mapping, and other technologies to protect their fast-dwindling home. Tribes in Suriname, Brazil, and Colombia are combining their traditional knowledge of the rainforest with Western technology to conserve forests and maintain ties to their history and cultural traditions, which include profound knowledge of the forest ecosystem and medicinal plants. Helping them is the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), a nonprofit organization working with indigenous people to conserve biodiversity, health, and culture in South American rainforests.

Via NetSquared.