MILA, Empowering Girls through Gaming

While the Swahili language is the most widely spoken in Africa, its original script, Ajami, disappeared due to the introduction of the Latin alphabet following colonisation. As men were groomed into secular education and Swahili women remained home, women were largely missing in history books and they were inherently left out of decision-making.

We wish to develop The Multimedia Integrated Learning Application (MILA, which means culture in Swahili), an app that draws from the various talents of young girls to build their capacity for reviving the Ajami script, and presenting female narratives in Swahili heritage preservation. MILAs' objectives are:

• Presenting stories of Swahili women by making use of games, videos, interactive challenges and educational content

• Training young Swahili women to integrate technology including on visual story collection, graphic design and illustration

• Provision of an alternative sustainable livelihood of young girls by including them for supporting the game development process

Lamu, a popular tourism destination in Kenya, has the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in the world and is among the few places where classical Swahili dialects are still spoken. However, its intangible cultural heritage is diminishing partly because the community is excluded in preservation efforts, especially women. 

It's one of the most remote and marginalised Counties in Kenya whose residents have little access to employment and poor infrastructure, leaving the youth vulnerable to drug abuse and crime. Lamu has a significantly low education level and an even lower technology uptake. According to the census, about 23% of the population is said to have never been to a learning institution, less than 5% of the population is digitally literate, and only 17% have access to the Internet. Statistically, men are twice as likely to have access to the internet or use technology than women.

With women and girls facing various cultural and economic barriers, they have further been left in the fringes of decision-making, and remained mostly in the in-formal employment sector. With tourism and heritage conservation being dominated by men, their roles as stewards of conservation is limited, and very few receive economic benefits from tourism in the area.

We will create an app (MILA) that revives Swahili orthography while preserving Swahili history, culture and traditions through incorporating gaming and content engagement in the form of videos and interactive text elements. 

To develop MILA, we will train young girls to build their capacity in three areas: Digital Content Creation, Data Collection, and Storytelling. Upon training, we will partner with the graduates to design the game jointly in the process of heritage preservation where they will curate the content to be used in the game.

Together with the graduates, we will create MILA to have a user-friendly interface that will be easy to use with or without English fluency. In order for the application not to be too bulky, there will be a mix of client side and server side content hosting. This will allow the content to be dynamic, fresh, and scalable.

The curriculum is designed to educate on the old Swahili script and culture by immersing the player into the life of a real-life historical character or scenario of historical nature. This allows for the player/user to learn the old writing style and while learning about the swahili culture and history.

We are targeting girls and women aged between 15-35 years in Lamu. For sustainable preservation of heritage, we believe women and girls need access to information and in-demand skills in digital literacy to help them benefit from their heritage. Furthermore, we believe that the use of the mother tongue is important in fostering community collaboration and reducing transgenerational illiteracy.

The impact of MILA is therefore not just in the app, but in the collaborative process during its development. The process will provide an inclusive entrepreneurial opportunity for the young women through digital capacity building, and an experiential learning opportunity that will have a tangible deliverable outcome for improving their skills through making the game.

MILA is not just important for the young women but other youth as well. Users will be able to improve their cognitive and analytical abilities which will be useful in their academic performances. Meanwhile the increased knowledge in their history will increase personal self-esteem and awareness to help them be effective agents of change. They will also be able to learn about their cultural history and promote intergenerational collaboration that helps build a bridge between the past, present and the future generation.

Our target population is faced with three problems: a culture and heritage at risk, poor access to digital services, and gender inequality.  MILA will be able to tackle all three problems in one App not just through the technology itself, but through the process of development of the game as well. By using the development of the games and content for the app as an experiential learning opportunity for the young girls during their training, they will be able to integrate the skills building activity, with improved access to technology, and involvement in cultural heritage education and preservation.

There has never been an attempt to digitize the Ajami Script, let alone bring about awareness about its existence. This also sets a precedent within the Kenyan Coastal communities, especially the Swahili Community, as it will be the 1st attempt at not only digitizing culture and heritage, but also converting it into a game.

Also, in the context of gaming itself, the fact that its an immersive and continually changeable app allows for the game story to evolve in different ways from what you would get in normal games in that every so often a new story line is available to explore as you navigate the corridors of Lamu’s historic past from the eyes of women. Its uniqueness is carried in how easy it will be for the very women that curate and collect content to actually create new game levels and gaming storylines and effect them without the need for a lot of technical know how.

The game will be most innovative due to its process of design as it engages the end user both as the developer and content creator of the game.

We want to use gaming technology to sell the experience. These technologies will allow us to provide highly graphical experiences on top of the story that we are telling.

Our technology is mostly software that will sit on top of hardware accelerated displays on mobile and web browsers. This software makes use of simple graphics capabilities on Mobile and Web platforms, in the forms of Canvases and OpenGL (critical technologies in delivering high resolution experiences that are highly dynamic). These technologies allow mobile and web games to function without glitches on rendition.

Our use cases are also not very intensive on the hardware and devices capabilities (for instance, we are considering use cases that may be easily replicated using simple OpenGL experiences - and not needing capabilities available only to Vulkan - this means we are sticking to use cases that most devices will be able and capable to deal with).

We are planning to make use of established Open Source Software and Game Engine Technology in the development of our gaming experiences. We also want to experiment with scenarios where we can use multiplayer experiences. In such scenarios, we will be using Open Source Game Server technologies and integrating them to our solution scope.

Games are increasingly becoming tools to address social change, and have enhanced education for kids and adults. BBC as well as the National Geographic have created a number of games that have been educational in nature. There are five Case studies that prove game learning works better than other methods as it has 20% higher post-training self-efficacy, 11% higher declarative knowledge, 14% higher procedural knowledge, and 9% higher retention.

A majority of the successful Game Titles (e.g Angry Birds and Candy Crush) create story lines to enhance their gaming experience. The concept of immersive game experiences allows game developers to create an environment around their games that create a bond between the player and the game itself to make it the perfect storytelling medium (TechTimes, 2015).

Team members Ahmed and Aly have experimented with game development to provide immersive cultural experiences on the Swahili culture. One was for a UNESCO heritage preservation project where they developed a game along the traditional dance called Kirumbizi which mimics the dance and preserves how it was played out through digital composition https://github.com/SwahiliBox/... They also worked on collaborative gaming framework, ‘Koozooker Labs’ initiative, that successfully allowed for crowdsourcing of code to create games. They concept was built around social game development, GameJam, a platform that allows you to develop a simple base game, then put it out there as a contest to crowd-source ideas. The GameJam platform achieves this by employing a very rich and powerful Javascript scripting tool at its core. https://gamejam.koozooker.com/...

This project will contribute to the goal of realization of girls digital education, preservation of culture, and promotion of active participation of women and girls in conservation of heritage to help them obtain alternative livelihoods. The expected outcome will be to have a sustainable income flow during the off-peak tourism season or unforeseen events such as natural disasters, terrorist threats, or pandemic using unique traditional skills in making arts are preserved for future generations digitally. 

The project will involve women and youth in the preservation of heritage sites using a sustainable and community-based participatory approach. The local community will be the purveyors of preservation of heritage through technology. The equipment of local women and girls with the skills and tools for accessing technology would ensure that they are offered the opportunity for equity in decision making and engagement.

The primary output of this project would be both a quantitative increase in the number of women and girls trained and the increased self-employment in Lamu through digital technology, and a qualitative increase in engagement in the community in both economic and cultural preservation sectors. 

Strengthening the local capacity in heritage preservation would see to both the increase in tourism and craft cottage industry so as to yield positive long term impacts on the community’s financial security, levels of employment, and safety and security of the environment and community at large. 

A self-sustaining industry will be obtained which centers around maintaining the rich cultural history and monetizing the sharing of these traditional practices and heritage sites that would positively impact the community in the interest of bettering the economy, ensuring a sustainable balance of heritage and putting economic power in the hands of the community rather than rely solely on foreign employment

The linkages between the activities and the impact will be achieved according to logical framework below. 

Since Swahili is spoken by almost 2,000,000 people in the world who have very few games that are related, we expect that the longe term transformation can impact millions of lives. However, immediately in the first year, the project will target to serve 30 young girls who will be trained, and 30 women who will work with the young girls to collect and curate stories and information that will be used for the content. During the data collection in the second year, an additional 150 community members are expected to be involved.

From there, upon the development of the game, we expect to training 150 youth on how to use the game and provide free access to the technology. With access in schools and kiosks, we expect 5,000 students in schools and youth to have access to the platform. Through the business partnerships with companies and individuals interested in selling their products on the platform, we expect it will eventually lead to a reduction in over-reliance on cash crops and fishing and diversify the local income, allowing for a better, sustainable lifestyle for at least 500 residents of Lamu, and 1,000 Swahili speakers within 5 years. 

In the first year, we intend for the solution to immediately benefit first the 30 girls trained, 30 women who curate their stories in the first year. Our goal during that time will be skills building. In the later half of the year, we expect the 60 women and girls will work together with 150 locals to help in the digitization and gaming development and validation process. This will help improve awareness and increase awareness and agency in preservation of heritage.

In the second year a game development, we expect that its popularity would have grown to allow for the education use to impact by improving education levels of 5,000 youth who will be able use it and benefit through increased education and capacity in Swahili history, heritage and culture.

When turning the game into a source for revenue through the business partnerships with companies and individuals interested in selling their products on the platform or advertising, we expect it will increase income opportunities for at least 500 residents of Lamu within 4 years. From there by rolling it out and replicating it beyond Lamu to other parts of the East African Coast, we expect that it will impact 1,000 Swahili speakers within 5 years. 

Unfortunately there is very little access to internet and digital knowledge in Lamu, meaning our training is starting from basics. To grow the young girls to become active participants in developing the game will require a lot of rigorous training. Furthermore, cultural barriers limiting women from interaction and travel will limit our options on training opportunities that require travel. Lamu is also a hard to reach area which will make travel for consultants very expensive.

There is also very limited know-how both locally and in the global context on the art of game development and design.  Ajami as a linguistic tool/script system has never been digitized (font wise).

Considering that we are starting from scratch with training as well as developing the new script, a considerable amount of financial investment will be required compared to other projects or languages.

To combat access to internet and digital knowledge in Lamu, we intent to raise funds that allows us to provide tools for the girls to take part in the training and development of content. We will also develop a simple curriculum that allows for this training to be easier to understand. 

AAA Platforms and its directors are well networked in the Game Development Space in Africa and overseas to allow us to source for talent on utilizing script that has been used for Arabic which is similar to Ajami. There are people or organizations that have digitized the Arabic Language and also put them into interactive game systems. We aim to network with these organizations to find ways to apply that to Ajami, since Ajami was originally inspired and derived from the Arabic language script.

The development team includes four members: Samia Omar Bwana as the Project Lead, Nasra Omar Bwana as the Content Creator and Curator, Ahmed Maawy as the Technical Lead, and Aly Salim as the Gaming Developer. All the team members are all Swahili and from the Coast of Kenya to allow for them to have a better context of the community need. All four are volunteers for the project. 

Samia Omar Bwana, Project Lead: Cultural heritage conservation expert who has worked as the County Executive for Culture in Lamu County and founder Halal Safaris Africa. She also has a background in Psychology, with a particular interest in behaviour change communication.

Nasra Omar Bwana, Content Creator and Curator: Digital curator and researcher utilising media and visual storytelling to revitalise discourse on Swahili history and culture amongst the youth on the digital platforms Swahiligal and Hiistoriya. Nasra is a digital strategist at Turkish Radio Television Network(TRT) and previously worked at the Centre for Urban Research and Innovation at the University of Nairobi as a researcher and project manager.

Ahmed Maawy, Technical Lead: Tecchpreneur and game developer currently VP Engineering at Streamlytics, and Director at AAA Platforms. Previously, Ahmed has worked for the AlJazeera Media Network where he led Product Management initiatives around AI & MetaData Enrichment and was part of the pioneer team behind the AJ+(One of the Network’s most successful digital storytelling projects). He has been part of various creative hubs in Kenya including as staff at Ushahidi and iHub, and founder of SwahiliBox and MakersHub.

Aly Salim, Game Developer: Techpreneur and gaming expert currently working as a consultant and one of the Directors at AAA Platforms. He has worked in the capacity of IT Management in the Transport Industry for over 5 years. He works with IOT as a self taught electronics enthusiast. He is also one of the founding members of SwahiliBox and MakersHub in Mombasa, Kenya. 

To compliment our experience, we will work closely with our partners, Ikhlas Foundation, Halal Safaris Africa, AAA Platforms and the National Museums of Kenya to contribute their diverse expertise in the sectors from technology to preservation.

MILA currently has two partners related to each sector 

• Ikhlas Foundation which has a local women's training institute in Lamu where we can utilize facilities for the trainings
• AAA Platform on technology development 
• Halal Safaris Africa for using their human resource and technical support as they are best familiar with the local community and have several existing local partnerships
• The National Museums of Kenya to support the curation and collection of data and information on traditional practices, and heritage

Considering that such Swahili content is not easily accessible and many locals don't have a reliable income, our customers will be able to access the game for free. We intend to make require payment for MILA only to remove ads. This will provide a stream of revenue from companies specifically targeting Swahili audiences across Africa. As the first ever app specifically targeting Swahili speakers and using Ajami Script, MILA will be strategically positioned to have a unique niche large audience who companies with specific products targeting them such as mobile platforms, less sellers, and others will want to tap into. MILA will accumulate points for the leadership board with credit-based system where gamers can used their points to purchase products on the site with their credits or from local shops that will partner with us. Community members and companies can list their products and services as well which can be paid by credits or exchangeable as money transferred to their MPESA (the most successful mobile-banking platform in Kenya)

Since the project is primarily geared on social impacts to benefit women and girls more than a profit venture, we aim to first and foremost support the first five years through grants and donations. By the third year of operation, we expect that its popularity would have grown to allow for adequate and steady income from ad revenue. At this time we aim to incorporate a commission based system for companies and individuals whose products and services are on the game to raise revenue. When the product has been further refined, we will seek to raise investment capital to cover our gaps that we aren't able to capture from those revenue streams. We intend to have MILA to be well established throughout the Coast of Kenya and ready to roll out to Tanzania by the fifth year. At this time, we will consider a profitable exit by way of acquisition from a larger tech company for the copyright to roll out the game in other countries so as to make it a profitable venture.

We believe that by accessing Solve and the supportive community of peers, funders, and experts will help us to create contacts to advance our innovation through mentorship, advice and access to funds.

As an new business idea, we need to help us grow from the beginning to help not only to model our solution better, but also that we can also receive funding and exposure to market it.  We would need guidance and mentorship in developing a funding and revenue model. Most of our work so far has been non-profit and is supported by well wishers and in kind services and therefore would need a sustainable model that would ensure that the program can be self sufficient. 

To understand both local and global law and regulations that impact the program and how to best set up the program within the prescribed frameworks.

None of the team members have sufficient expertise in legal and regulatory matters and therefore would be critical to have advice and support to ensure that the program follows the set standards and regulations.

Based on the biggest barriers being access to funds and the unchartered area of coding Ajami script, we would love to work with Solve and meet other collaborators who might be able to help in that.

We are applying to Solve because we have a ground breaking idea that provides a solution that is out of the ordinary. Considering that it's a new and untapped market, we believe that it's a great opportunity to make a change in society.

We are applying to Solve because we have a ground breaking idea that provides a solution that is out of the ordinary. Considering that it's a new and untapped market, we believe that it's a great opportunity to make a change in society.