Girls at the Helm (GATH)

The proposed project, "Girls at the Helm - Inspiring women and girls to board and streer the entrepreneur-ship", aims to leverage the power of mobile games to educate, engage and empower young women in Latin America and the Caribbean region to become successful entrepreneurs. 

Games have the power to leave an impression on our brains that transcends the boundaries of the virtual world and we are committed to leveraging this power to provide powerful learning experiences. 

The game will support underserved women in fostering entrepreneurship and learning skills that are relevant for the future of work. Closing the gender gap in entrepreneurship and fueling the growth of women-owned enterprises will unleash new ideas, services, and products into markets. In order for that to happen, we need to ensure women have access to all forms of capital, particularly human and social capital. 

Supporting female entrepreneurship is critical for the economic growth of the LAC region. Cuberes and Teignier (2016) estimate that existing gender gaps in entrepreneurship and participation in the workforce lead to average income losses of 15.7 percent in the short run and 17.2 percent in the long run in LAC. 

Research on female entrepreneurship in the region, found high rates of female entrepreneurship in the poorest countries of the region (up to 35 percent in Peru) but only 13 percent of women entrepreneurs in the region indicated that they expected their firm to grow over the following five years. This stagnation is the result of three types of gaps (i) human capital (skills) gaps, (ii) social capital (networking) gap and (iii) Financial capital (funding) gap. Women-owned firms may be less profitable due to differences in levels of education; access to productive resources, networks, and markets; and access to training and business development services (IFC 2011 and Bruhn 2009). 

Our solution tackles the skills and networking gaps faced by aspiring and existing female entrepreneurs across LAC. 

The game will target female entrepreneurs across the LAC region. Outreach mechanisms will focus on targeted social media marketing and partnerships with organizations working on training female entrepreneurs in the region. The team will evaluate the needs of young women in LAC by conducting a needs assessment through online surveys.   

At GRID we believe in the saying “Tell me, & I will forget, show me, & I may remember, involve me, & I will understand” Confucius. We create games offer a platform to educate, engage and empower our players in an effective manner. 

The project will aim to provide entrepreneurial support to women through a mobile game. The game will teach entrepreneurial, technical and soft skills through interactive gameplay. By leveraging technology to deliver entrepreneurship training, the game will also build digital skills among underserved women. The game will build human and social capital through two channels:

Human Capital: The game will challenge its players to earn badges related to soft and business skills. Gameplay will not require internet connectivity. 

Social Capital: The game will provide an interface which will facilitate peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange. The platform will incentivize idea exchanges, and collaboration through in-game rewards and allow players to  access on demand, whenever they have an internet connection.

The project will focus on designing and launching a mobile game that:

• Educates:  The game will build skills and teach the art of entrepreneurship 
• Engages: Provides a platform for female entrepreneurs to play and network with each other
• Empowers: Games provide a safe space for players to see the long term consequences of their current actions and hence support them with the information needed for smart decision making. The project will leverage this "crystal ball effect" of games so that budding entrepreneurs can take a sneak peek into their future and get inspired by the potential of their entrepreneurial journey

The game will not only focus on improving hard and soft skills that are relevant to building businesses but also provide stimuli for behavioral shifts. The game will have the following learning objectives:

• Providing essential business management skills through modular games associated with badges 
• Teach soft skills that are essential to entrepreneurship (time management, leadership, team building etc.)
• Inspire women to build businesses from a place of collaboration, integrity and sustainability, so they can go further & faster, all while having fun. The game will highlight stories of role models that players can get inspired by. 
• Build basic digital literacy through game play. 

There are more than one billion people living under $1.25 a day and almost the same number playing video games worldwide. The challenge of poverty is massive and so is the potential of video games.  With a push towards innovative use of technology in international development, and the effectiveness of games as learning tools, the stage is set for development games to be used for social change. 

Given their interactive, iterative, and inspiring nature, digital games appeal to human psychology in a way most other communication tools don’t and their impact on our brains far transcends the boundaries of the virtual world. Furthermore, by including relatable stories and vignettes, the GATH game will provide an on-going learning experience to female entrepreneurs and a simulated pathway that can inspire them to visualize and achieve their goals, hence becoming their own digital role models. 

GRID's approach towards behavior change is innovative and engaging. Harnessing the capacity of smartphones for behavior changes provides a low cost alternative to the heavy and expensive community level interventions. GRID is mainstreaming games in the social sector, not only in the US but also globally. By creating context-vigilant games (in local languages) for low-end smartphones, GRID has opened up the possibility of using games to educate, engage and empower people in all aspects of their lives irrespective of where they live. With total downloads of more than 15000, GRID is able to inspire people around a wide-range of social issues. 

When women and men have equal opportunities and rights, economic growth and social development accelerates. Increasingly studies are showing that investing in women is not only a moral imperative, but brings with it significant economic and business opportunities.

We believe that because of their interactive, iterative and fun nature games are able to educate, engage and inspire people in a way that creates a sustainable impact. Games have the power of the three "I"s, they provide an interactive and iterative learning platform to inspire behavior change. The goal is maximized enjoyment and engagement through capturing the interest of young women and inspiring them to gain skills that will enhance workforce participation and prepare them for the future of work.

• Inputs: 
  • Needs Assessment
  • Game development
• Outputs: 
  • Downloads
• Outcomes:
  • Enhanced entrepreneurial skills
• Impact: 
  • Enhanced female labor force participation

Cost effectiveness: 

The existing market place includes actors that are using traditional methods like pamphlets, brochures, and comic books, however video games offer a unique solution that provides the necessary privacy and lead to greater social impact due to its interactive and iterative nature. Our solution is also cost-effective, as it only requires the one-time cost of game development and making it available on the phones of the recipients but the benefits will be visible over the long-term as beneficiaries continue to play the game over time.

10k through existing GRID games but 0 through GATH. 

In one year: WATH downloads: 20,000 in one pilot LAC country

In five years: WATH downloads: 100,000 across 5 different LAC countries

The potential outreach for GATH is immense. Think Pokemon Go for building entrepreneurship skills among women; a game that had youth around the world chasing a shared goal. GATH has the potential to mobilize women on a large scale and have them playing together to learn entrepreneurial skills. 

In our first year, we hope to reach 20,000 women in the LAC region. 

Over five years, we hope to expand GATH's reach to 100,000 across 5 different LAC countries of which at least 3 will be emerging markets. 

As an organisation, we currently reach more than 15000 through our games. GRID is able to inspire people around a wide-range of social issues by harnessing the capacity of smartphones for behavior change.  We are now at a critical stage in our growth and expect to grow in three key directions: 

1. Creating more games that cover a wide spectrum of social change issues.

2. Create games with real-life linkages to information and action. We want to create partnerships to link game rewards to real life actions and information. 

3. Building evidence base around effectiveness of games. 

These strategies will allow us to not only build better games but also reach people who need them the most!

We foresee the following barriers:

Concerns around inclusion: There are concerns around the reach of mobile games since there are areas with smartphone penetration. While we fully acknowledge this concern and encourage hybrid (digital + face to face) approaches of raising awareness in this case, we do know that smartphone penetration will continue to rise and it will be a lost opportunity to not act until there is 100% coverage. 

Conversion of apps to new countries: We are committed to scaling up our game to new regions. With expansion comes risks associated with investments in research, development, and testing of the games. We will proceed cautiously, but continuously learning from our experiences.

Through mechanisms explained above. 

We will launch our game in one pilot country in LAC, most probably Mexico, through social media marketing and partner organizations. We have existing networks that can provide support for expansion.

The GRID core team has 8 members who are all below the age of 35. We have 2 FT members and 6 part-time members. The development team is based out of Pakistan while the content and business development team is based in the US.

• We are backed by a team of experienced graphic designers and software development professionals with extensive experience of working for leading global companies including Amazon, eBay, Virgin. Skill Set:

• Android development, PHP, CSS, Java, Html, AJAX, OOP, API's, MySQL

• iOS Development, Xcode, XML, Objective C, SOAP, Eclipse, SQlite, OAuth, iBecon, Webservices, Cross Platform, Unity 3d

At GRID, we aim to leverage the universal language of video games to inspire social change. Games are popular across borders and age groups & therefore present a unique platform to reach the masses in a fun & engaging manner. Once the game is developed, it can be scaled up across different regions and adapted to different contexts in a cost effective manner. Previous GRID games have been introduced in 5 different languages across 15 different countries. 

In order to ensure inclusive international access and sustainable impact, GRID games are developed to be compatible with low-end Android phones and do not require internet connectivity to run. The games are also developed at one-fifth the cost of comparable commercial games and are available for free downloads, hence providing a long-term scaleable solution for meaningful behavior change.

GRID has been most active in the reproductive health space, where behavior change can be relatively sticky. Our game Nari Paila builds awareness around reproductive health in low-income countries like Nepal. Initial results from the Nari Paila launch suggest high rates of acceptability and interest among the adolescents in Nepal. In the first ten weeks of Nari Paila’s launch, we had more than 10000 downloads. The game also have appeal to both girls and boys. 32% of downloads were attributed to females of whom 71% are under 24 years old.

We have several partnerships focused on funding, content development and implementation of our games.

George Mason University: To develop "SurrEndo" - a game that build empathy for Endometriosis patients. The partnership with GMU is aimed at funding and evaluating this game through the Public Health school. 

UNICEF Pakistan: With UNICEF Pakistan, we have signed an MoU around our menstrual health game MoHiM. MoHiM is being integrated into UNICEF’s activities to promote positive hygiene practices around MHM in Pakistan.

FLOC DC: GRID has an on-going partnership with FLOC DC where FLOC students are involved in the development of GRID’s game StereoWiped, a game that aims to wipe racial, gender and cultural stereotypes to promote tolerance and diversity.

Furthermore, we are not only adding to the portfolio of global social change games but also to the evidence around effectiveness of games as behavior change tools. Two of our games (Gumbers and SurrEndo) have built-in evaluations as part of their implementation strategy.

GRID partners with different social impact organizations and donors to design, implement and evaluate games for behavior change. We operate on grant funding, innovation competitions, sponsorships and donations to create and deploy our games. 

GRID will employ three strategies to expand financial growth:

(i) Continue partnerships with organizations working in the social sectors to fundraise and ensure GRID games reach the bottom billion. 

(iii) Partnerships with private sector: GRID games are tackling behavior change among the bottom billion and hence creating a niche market for the private sector. For instance, through our menstrual health game MoHiM, we are not only raising awareness and mainstreaming the conversation around menstruation but also tapping a new niche of customers for feminine care products. Through private sector partnerships, we will pursue a model where the game can be used to boost sales of pads using real-life game mechanics. As the player progresses along the game, she will be able to gather game rewards that can be traded for discount coupons on the sales of Always pads. Conversely, codes found on products (pads and soaps) can be used to "unlock" different game features.  

(iii) Explore revenue generation options through game features such as in-app purchases, advertisements and donation buttons. 

As a female-owned tech start-up, collaboration is critical to our growth. 

We will benefit immensely from the mentorship, incubation and acceleration, IP registration, capacity building, and connection with experts that TPrize offers. Furthermore, we will use the funding towards game development. 

Grassroots organizations working with women entrepreneurs and SMEs in the LAC region that can benefit from making GATH a part of their programs.