Building online communities that are healthy, inclusive and allow people to be their authentic selves online is one of Riot’s core goals. This is a complex challenge and we know we cannot do it alone. That’s the inspiration behind our recent collaboration with Ubisoft, our commitment to the Fair Play Alliance (FPA), and the design of the Digital Prosperity Challenge with IDEO.
Back in October, Riot, IDEO, FPA, and Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center issued a call for proposals, frameworks, and tools that could help the digital space continue to evolve in a healthy way.
The response was unbelievable. In total we received 179 proposals from all over the world. A committee of subject matter experts from the fields of technology, games, design and education came together as judges. They review each submission to ensure it is relevant, actionable, accessible, fair, impactful and creative.
Today, we announced ten winners who will each receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to bring their ideas to life.
Winners of the Digital Prosperity Design Competition
Global Nomads Group Content Creation Lab – $50,000
The Global Nomads Group’s Content Creation Lab (CCL) takes a ‘for youth, by youth’ approach to digital programming and content design. Their mission is to bring youth voices and lived experiences, especially those of marginalized youth, into digital learning content that increases empathy, empathy, belonging and action orientation. Since 2020, youth from 40 countries have contributed to the group. The group will use the grant to expand CCL, attract more youth interns, and provide stipends to staff involved in the program to train and mentor interns.
Promoting Digital Wellness Through Education and Empowerment – $50,000
Presented by the Digital Health Institute, the report focuses on addressing the impact of screen time on mental health. The group works to create tools, teach educators, empower organizations, and inspire others through best practices in this area. Their goal is to educate 150 million people in digital health skills over the next five years. With 350 certified educators in 32 countries, the grant will be used to continue expanding the program and its reach in the coming years.
Plot Twisters: An Online Game World That Fosters Self-Reflection and Emotional Literacy – $50,000
The co-design team of 22 designers, researchers, artists and technologists has been hard at work creating Plot Twisters, an immersive online game for developing emotional literacy, personal narrative building and self-advocacy in young people Skill. The organization intends to use the money to compensate volunteers working on the project and to fund the creation of Plot Twisters’ minimum viable product, or MVP, a key step in any new game design.
From Another Angle: RPG Simulation – $10,000
This simulation allows students to gain new perspectives through the voices of different characters. The goal is to use role-play to get students into the mind-sets of important figures in history and provide a safe and creative space to engage in conversations about differences. They will use the grant to invest in the technical development of the Take Another Perspective software.
Transforming Youth Mental Health Through Innovative Peer Support – $10,000
Anxiety and depression have been on the rise among young people, especially in marginalized communities, throughout the pandemic. This led to the creation of Uplift, a peer-led digital summit that gives young people the tools they need to cope with mental health and help their friends do the same. Grants will be used to spread the word about Uplift to attract more young people to the free summit.
Tilli’s Digital Safety Cube | Fun Learning for Kids and Caregivers – $10,000
Tilli is a play-based social-emotional learning tool that combines the fun of play with the power of behavioral science to help children and their caregivers build foundational, lifelong skills and mindsets to be safe, Confidence and joy they occupy. The grant will be used to help cover design and development costs.
Tempok: A Ritual of Coming of Age for a Digital Life – $5,000
Tempok recounts the moment the smartphone first entered a child’s life. This is an important time for the children and an anxious time for the caregivers. Tempok reimagines the process of gifting your first phone from the standpoint of trust, growth, community, and responsibility. Grants will be used to help fund further user research and create working prototypes.
JOTLANDIA: Collaborative Storytelling for Children and Adults – $5,000
JOTLANDIA is a digital platform for telling collaborative stories in the real world. It’s like a multiplayer choose-your-own-adventure game with both kids and adults in mind to promote intergenerational play. The grant will be used to continue to accelerate the development of JOTLANDIA.
Deep Data Sleuth (D3) Adventure – $5,000
The D3 project was created by the nonprofit Nxt Wave Founders to empower underrepresented voices in the fight against climate change through data science education. Grants will be used to help invest in employees who will continue to bring more education and opportunities to the fight against climate change.
Gamifying Digital Literacy for Seniors to Increase Autonomy – $5,000
Ask Mabel is a fun SMS-based subscription service that sends short lessons to seniors who want to learn the basics of online technology. It’s designed for low-income seniors to help them navigate the complexities of the online world. The grant will help fund outreach to bring more seniors to the service.
Designed for Digital Prosperity Projects
(FPA) and Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center are collaborating on the design of the Digital Thriving Project. The project’s long-term goal of making it easy for anyone to design online spaces that help individuals, groups, and communities truly thrive in today’s connected world is closely aligned with Riot’s values. To make design easier, these organizations are working with a growing number of contributors to create and foster a set of well-founded, promising, and proven approaches to developing playbooks for digital prosperity, which the Riot Games Social Impact Fund is supporting these methods.
