Humanity Arcade
Digital Health & Safety Initiative
Selected by the Stanford 2021 LEAD Incubator & Startup Accelerator
Working group: Maisaa Sarkis, Will Foster (sponsored by SchubergPhilis), Massimo Mercuri, Julia Skupchenko, and the special participation of Alexander Bock as Design Thinking Facilitator
CONCEPT
The pandemic accelerated the shift from physical to online. We may come from different backgrounds but we all share the belief that our children deserve good games that inspire them to reach their full potential.
Parents are becoming more aware of the mental health implications in their children's digital life. Most online content is aggressive, obscene, or simply low quality. We are bombarded by advertisements and disappointed by the time spent looking for games online. And sadly most educational game developers lack strong market funding for violent games, so they are almost impossible to find among the massive ads.
That is why we prototyped a digital portal that connects children with a safe, healthy selection of good-quality titles from conscious developers.
The Humanity Arcade empowers children to decide from a variety of choices in a gamified way, and they get rewarded with funny surprises as motivation to keep learning.
Key advantages over existing gaming of educational entertainment platforms
Parents -and grandparents as well- feel relieved by a “one-stop shop” they can trust, without installing additional apps.
Unlike existing streaming sites, our design avoids the risk of unsafe sponsored content (no more ads!) without the hidden costs of premium schemes.
Users pay a membership fee. Game developers earn proportionally to the active users on each game, and Cloud services do the rest of the job.
We need funding so we can work on it, development power to build the front end, and technical services to integrate the platform in the cloud.
Would you like to make this idea come true?
then send a message to humanity.arcade@altercontacts.org
PROBLEM IT ADDRESSES
The COVID-19 pandemic has made confinement a defining part of our lives. The interaction with our families and friends happens digitally. The children are remotely- schooled, their parents are working from home. In many countries the mobility is limited to getting food and medical services. To compensate for the lack of movement people exercise in the solitude of their living rooms. For the majority of the world’s population, this has become a reality because of the highly contagious nature of COVID-19. For people with disabilities, it has been the way of living long before.
Being isolated and relying on the media and social media for information has created yet another risk for health. Misinformation about the virus, dramatic economic situation, and other stress-provoking news create panic and generate fear.
From March 2020 onwards, we saw the rise of online education and entertainment. Educational institutions are implementing online and hybrid classes. Books are available in digital or audio formats. Museums and theatres are building virtual representations. Still the possibility of practicing new knowledge is seriously limited.
It contributes to SDG 3: Good Health, SDG 4: Quality Education, SDG 9: Innovation, SDG 10: Reduced inequalities