client

Game Changers Coalition, UNICEF Office of Innovation

scope

event planning
workshop facilitation
materials design
strategic roadmapping

role

project lead
facilitator
communications & material design

challenge

Girls are players, not yet leaders.Girls represent half of all gamers around the world, but only a quarter of coders. Despite investment in girls’ skills development and in STEAM, few opportunities exist for adolescent girls around the world to transfer these skills to a career in the gaming industry.

insight

Girl-centered approaches are inherently inclusive. A girl-centered approach to reimagining  gaming is only possible when they have a seat at the table to be exposed to new opportunities and participate in dreaming up new possibilities. The approach is naturally gender-transformative, as adolescent girls recognize the need to involve boys in initiatives early-on and to actively shape the future of the industry. 

Left: Workshops should be fun and engaging; to bring the video game concept into the space, participants were asked to fill out a short prompt to describe themselves as a video game character, along with their superpower. These inputs were put into Midjourney to generate unique avatars for the workshop. Right: Adolescent girls present persona profiles to help the industry leaders understand young women’s ambitions, frustrations, and capacities they hope to strengthen.

solution

Co-create a roadmap for an inclusive digital future. On behalf of UNICEF’s Office of Innovation, I co-facilitated a 2-day workshop in Stockholm, Sweden, which gathered 50+ industry professionals and 8 adolescent girls (between the ages of 15 and 21) from around the globe. Over the course of two days, participants co-developed a roadmap to a design more inclusive digital future and continue to shape the values and activities of the Game Changers Coalition with inputs from the room.

Left: Girls provide feedback to industry leaders on new game concepts, in line with the personas they developed. Right: Girls developed their own game concepts, brought to life by Midjourney.

Girl-centered approaches are inherently inclusive. In just 2 days, participants moved from a blank slate for their involvement in the Game Changers Coalition to three focused pillars with relevant activities under each. A formal launch event took place in 2024 to expand and clarify their programming and build an online, asynchronous curriculum for adolescent girls and educators.  

  • Since its launch in 2023, the UNICEF Game Changers Coalition pilot programme has engaged over 154,000 girls, parents, and teachers in eight countries (Armenia, Brazil, Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, Morocco and South Africa), building STEAM skills through practical training and in-person game jams.  

  • Building on the commitments and pillars that came out of the event, the Game Changers Coalition has partnered with David Beckham, Bitget, the European Commission, and more to accerlate digital learning and leadership tools for girls all over the world. (Learn more about it here!)

outputs

An organizing structure and set of pillars to guide Game Changer’s Coalition future partners, programmes, and opportunities.