GRID - Gaming for Dev

Mariam Nusrat is an innovator and a problem solver. She wear two hats in her professional life, the Founder of GRID - Gaming Revolution for Inspiring Development and an international development practitioner. She founded GRID at the age of 28 with an aim to create low-cost mobile games to educate, engage and empower people for positive change. Games have the power of what Mariam likes to call "the three Is", they can interact with the players in an iterative way to inspire positive behavior change. 

Mariam has presented GRID at several high level forums including, two sessions moderated by President Clinton at CGIU Meetings and two Tedx events. She is also the recipient of the CGIU Honor Roll Alum award, 2018 AdamStart Entrepreneurship Award, 2015 Andrew E. Rice Award for Leadership and Innovation and the GWU Public-Service Grant Commission Award. 

There are a billion people living under $1.25/day and 0.5 billion playing video games for at least one hour every day. The challenge of improving the lives of the bottom billion is huge, but so is the reach of video games. Given the interactive, iterative, and inspiring nature, 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. 

GRID is a social impact gaming studio which aims to create digital games that educate, engage and empower people, especially those among the bottom billion, towards positive behavior change. We have created games on reproductive health (MoHiM, Nari Paila & SurrEndo) on climate change (EarthFenders), Math learning (Calculasia), compassion for animals (KritterKneads), and Coronavirus (Coronacombat) and are currently working on games on financial literacy, opioid crisis, child protection and entrepreneurship. 

GRID focuses on solving the "last mile problem" at a global scale. 

Most interventions serving the underserved and vulnerable populations are supply-focused, aiming to "provide" people with different solutions but not going the last mile on creating a demand for it. The last mile problem is grounded in challenges of information asymmetry and behavioral constraints. 

This the same last mile that hinders the use of bed nets for prevention of malaria, use of condoms as birth control or allows open defecation to persist despite rapid expansion in provision of toilets. We need to focus on the supply AND demand side of interventions and ensure that the bottom billion is equipped with information and awareness that inspires behavior change. 

Efforts that do focus on behavior change have largely leveraged traditional tools like pamphlets, brochures, and in some cases radio and TV PSAs, but very rarely video games. 

I believe that technology innovations can play a critical role in helping development professionals make the “last” mile a “first” opportunity. One such innovation is the use of video games to raise awareness and trigger behavioral change amongst project beneficiaries.

GRID creates low-cost mobile games to educate, engage and empower people for positive change. Games have the power to leave an impression on our brains that far transcends the boundaries of the virtual world and we are committed to leveraging this power to inspire positive behavior change.

We are approaching a world where smartphones as low as $20 are spreading to all places — even areas where basic conditions like proper sanitation are luxuries. This boom presents a window of opportunity to use simple mobile games to inspire meaningful behavioral change around the world. 

We have committed ourselves to taking games to the bottom-billion and focusing on creating games that they can relate to, learn from and get inspired with. GRID games are not only built for low-end smartphones but are also adapted to the context in terms of content, language and art. 

The horizon for social games in unlimited; games can educate, engage and empower people on a broad range of topics such as financial literacy, reproductive health, animal rights, climate change, child protection and many more. GRID is one of the very few gaming studios that is creating games that target 60% of the SDGs. 

At GRID we are tackling critical social issues such as menstrual health, racial stereotyping, poor financial literacy, climate change and future of work. 

Our games target a global audience and each game has a specific beneficiary group. For instance: 

• Our mobile game MoHiM aims to break this stigma by educating, engaging and empowering young girls so that they can feel safe and confident on their period, be that at school, at work or at home.The game is available in English, Urdu and Swahili languages. 


• Our game Nari Paila aims to raise awareness on reproductive health among teenagers and young adults between 13-30 years of age. The game was launched in Nepal in partnership with Georgetown University's Institute for Reproductive Health. 
• 

Our game "SurrEndo - The Surrender of Endometriosis" raises awareness and empathy around the disease, endometriosis and was developed in partnership with George Mason University. The target audience is friends and family of endometriosis patients who can use the game to learn what a good support system should look like. 
• Our COVID19 game CoronaCombat targets the general public for raising awareness around the new coronavirus. 
• Our game EarthFenders targets youth across the world for effective climate action. 

At GRID, we aim to create games that can provide lifelong learning to individuals and empower them to make better decisions about their lives, their health, their money, their children’s future and their environment. These games align fully with the "elevating issues and their solutions" dimension by building awareness and driving action to solve the most difficult problems of our world. 

We are also Elevating understanding of and between people through changing attitudes and behaviors around issues like reproductive health and are Elevating opportunities for all people, with a focus on the bottom billion. 

I founded GRID at the age of 28 with an aim to create low-cost mobile games that could inspire people for positive behavior change. 

I was always intrigued by the role that technology can play in helping us solve the problems around us in a more meaningful way and GRID is my way of finding out. Having grown up playing games such as Sim City, Need for Speed or GTA, I knew games leave an impression on our brains that transcends the boundaries of the virtual world. I wondered to myself, if games on building cities can teach urban planning, can games that make learning fun promote education, those about women’s rights promote equality or those teaching family planning improve reproductive health outcomes?

GRID lies at the nexus of three of my passions, education, technology innovation and behavioral economics. While the world of social innovation is new to me, the idea of “games as development solutions” feels like a cause that I am deeply familiar with and that I have been pulled towards for a very long time. GRID allows me to be the thinker and the do-er at the same time.

Oprah said: Follow your passion, it will lead you to purpose.

And passion I followed. When I started GRID, it was a product of pure passion. I was in school for my second master’s degree and building my career as an international development practitioner, so the juggling was real! But having become passionate about the idea of using games to tackle tough issues that I have come across, and at times personally experienced, as a muslim woman growing up in Pakistan, I could not wait for someone else to respond to my calling. 

And before I knew it, my passion gave me energy, it added more hours in my day, it inspired me to connect and collaborate and it made me find a purpose in problems around us. I was able to view these problems with a solutions lens, can I make a game to raise awareness about women’s reproductive health, animal cruelty, financial literacy, child abuse, climate change and so many more.

My passion gives me power, it gives me pride and it gives me purpose. And it is a value I hold dear to my heart.

As the Founder of GRID, I believe in the magic behind ambition. I was ten when my father, a Pakistani conservative muslim father, came back from work and sat me down for a little talk. While most talks aimed at young Pakistani girls focus on being "good daughters, "good sisters" and "good wives", mine ended up about having ambition. My father wrapped his fingers around mine, made a fist and told me...the world is in your hands. While I have received (and forgotten) my fair share of parental advice, there was something about the certainty in his tone that stuck with me. Throughout my life, I have truly believed that there is no goal far enough, that I cannot reach, if I put my entire passion, effort, creativity and existence behind it. 

At GRID we make games that are not just a tool for entertainment but have the ability to inspire in a positive way. Using my experience and ambition, I was able to identify and leverage four windows of opportunities that give GRID a comparative advantage; (i) games are a universal language and appeal to the human psychology in a truly global way (ii) the widespread penetration of low-end smartphones in developing countries, (iii) the private nature of mobile phones to provide information around culturally sensitive topics such as reproductive health and finally (iv) the ease with which games can be scaled-up across different countries. 

At GRID, we, like the rest of the world, have been grappling to deal with the covid19 pandemic. Our expected fund flows were deeply impacted and we had to find ways to ensure that our operations continued. 

The pandemic challenged us to think about how we can become a part of the solution. At GRID, we believe everyone can be a hero during this time and that agency lies within each of us. There is heroism in staying home, there is heroism in helping your neighbor get groceries and there is heroism in using your skills to contribute to the society. At GRID, our super power is the ability to make games. And so we created CoronaCombat- a fact-seeking, myth-busting game that raises information on Covid19. 

We created the first version of the game in 9 days using our internal funds and launched it on April 10th. Since we had no marketing budget, the game has been growing completely organically and has had more than 1100 players since its launch. 

CoronaCombat has received immense attention since its launch, including a shout out by Chelsea Clinton on Twitter, as well as media coverage by ABC News in the United States.  

I founded GRID at the age of 28. Under my leadership GRID has grown to a team of 7, created 8 games and raised more than $200k. 

While serious games have immense potential, the growth has been relatively slow because (i) the average cost of game development is very high (ii) the marriage between gaming studios and social sector is rare and (iii) when games are developed, they focus largely on a western audience. 

Being a Pakistani woman, an innovator and an international development practitioner, I was able to not only identify these gaps but also find a way to solve them.  I focused on putting together a multidisciplinary team of young professionals that all have a common passion for video games. This gave us the ability to identify social issues where games can push the needle and then create games that are both educational and fun.

I also leveraged my leadership skills to mobilize a truly global team, the technical arm of which is based in Pakistan. This not only helped us make games that are both fun and meaningful but also lower the costs of game development to 1/5th of comparative costs in US. 

Hybrid of for profit and nonprofit.

GRID is a social initiative that was set-up as a for-profit social venture (Gaming Revolution for International Development) in 2013 and was followed by its nonprofit arm (Gaming Revolution for Inspiring Development) in 2016. The nonprofit arm aims to develop low-cost mobile games that inspire positive behavior change within the US and globally and is the focus of this application. 

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. 

Why Games: 

• Games have the 3 iS: Given the interactive, iterative, and inspiring nature of digital games, they appeal to the 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. 
• Crystal Ball effect: With regards to skills for the future, games offer a safe environment to simulate the effects of everyday decisions and depict their long-term consequences. 
• Universal coverage: We are approaching a world where smartphones as low as $20 are spreading to all places — even areas where basic conditions like proper sanitation are luxuries. This boom opens a window of opportunity to use simple mobile games to inspire people around the world towards preparing for the future of work. Games are popular across borders and age groups & therefore present a unique platform to reach the masses in a fun & engaging manner.
• Measuring learning progression: Video games, with knowledge tracking functions, create individualized learning plans for the learner versus a one-size-fits-all. 

Summary of ToC:

• Inputs: 
  • Needs Assessment
  • Game development
  • Partnerships for funding, content and implementation

• Outputs: 
  • Downloads
  • Outreach to target beneficiaries

• Outcomes:
  • Changes in attitude and awareness measured through in-game knowledge checks
  • People empowered to make better decisions about their health, money, environment and their futures.

• Impact: 
  • Improved health and socioeconomic outcomes for people around the world, in particular the underserved and vulnerable populations

GRID has 3 comparative advantages: 

• Focusing on the bottom-billion: While educational games maybe gathering traction, they are still relatively limited in their use in the international development and social sector. Furthermore, gaming studios that are working on social change games have a largely western focus, creating games for high end devices and those that are tailored to the US and European markets.  We have committed ourselves to taking games to the bottom-billion and focusing on creating games that they can relate to, learn from and get inspired with. The games are not only built for low-end smartphones but are also adapted to the context in terms of content, language and art. GRID is one of the very few gaming studios that is creating games that target 60% of the SDGs. 
• 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.
• Building an evidence-base: Given that there is very little empirical data on the effectiveness of games for behavior change outside of US and Europe, we make a focused effort to ensure our games are complemented by rigorous quantitative evaluations. Further, all our games are designed to capture in-game learning progression of the players and provide statistics on impact. 

With total downloads of more than 15000, GRID is able to inspire people around a wide-range of social issues. 

In one year: 20,000 through our current portfolio

In five years: 100,000 across 5 different  countries through an expanded portfolio

The potential outreach for digital games is immense. Think Pokemon Go for positive social change; a game that had youth around the world chasing a shared goal. Our model has the potential to mobilize players on a large scale and have them playing together to elevate humanity. 

As an organization, 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. 

As an organization, our goals are to continue leveraging the potential of digital games to provide lifelong learning to individuals and help them make better decisions about their lives, their health, their money and their children’s future, all while having a good time. Games that are not just a tool for entertainment but have the ability to inspire and influence people in a positive way.

 We are now at a critical stage in our growth and expect to grow in three key directions: 

• Creating more games that cover a wide spectrum of social change issues.
• Continue partnerships with organizations working in the social sectors and the private sector to fundraise and ensure GRID games reach the bottom billion. 
• Explore revenue generation options through game features such as in-app purchases, advertisements and donation buttons.

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.

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 scalable solution for meaningful behavior change. Once the game is developed, it can be scaled up across different regions and adapted to different contexts in a cost effective manner. 

Context-vigilance: GRID games have a focus on user-centered design and we ensure that all aspects of our games (scripts, character depiction, art, language) are context-vigilant. 

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.

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

Georgetown University Institute of Reproductive Health (IRH): Content and implementation partners for Nari Paila, a game that raises awareness on reproductive health. The game was funded by IRH as part of a USAID project. 

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

UNICEF Pakistan: With UNICEF Pakistan, we have 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.

American Pakistani Foundation: Our COVID19 awareness game CoronaCombat was translated into Urdu through a grant provided by American Pakistani Foundation. 

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.

Value Proposition: Making behavior change interactive, scalable and fun through digital games, on a global scale. 

Key GRID activities:

• Serious games development, with a focus on behavior change among the bottom billion
• Thought leadership in the serious games space 

Customers & Beneficiaries:

GRID's beneficiaries are often people around the world that are aspiring for positive behavior change, while our customers are social impact organizations and donors who are implementing programs to support behavior change in social sectors. E.g: Our game Nari Paila's consumers/beneficiaries are young adolescents in Nepal while our customer was Georgetown University's Institute for Reproductive Health who had an on-going reproductive health awareness project in Nepal. 

Revenue Generation:

• Fee for development of games
• grant funding, 
• innovation competitions, 
• potentially in-app purchases and advertisements (to be explored in the future)

GRID will employ three strategies to expand financial growth:

(i) Continue partnerships with organisations 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. 

Georgetown Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) - 2018 & 2019: Nari Paila was developed in partnership with Georgetown University’s Institute of Reproductive Health (IRH). The game was launched in Nepal in collaboration with the National Health Education, Information and Communication Center (NHEICC) within the Nepali Ministry of Health and Population. The game was funded by IRH as part of a USAID project. The contract value was around $100,000 and was provided as payment against development of all Nari Paila apps. 

George Mason University - 2018 & 2019: The public health department applied for a research grant from NIH to support the evaluation of a game that builds empathy for endometriosis patients. The grant was used to contract GRID for the development of SurrEndo. The contract value was around $30,000 and was provided as payment against game development. 

American Pakistani Foundation( APF) - 2020: $1000 grant for translating our COVID19 awareness game CoronaCombat into Urdu.

Our fundraising goals are a minimum of $100k per year*. This amount allows us to:

• Develop 2 new pilot games
• Expand and market 4 of our existing games
• Invest in business development and fundraising activities

Several development agencies and NGOs are eager to channel funds for innovative solutions that can inspire behavioral change. We are always seeking funding partners and opportunities to benefit from grants/funds that finance technology innovations. 

Furthermore, we are exploring sponsors who would be interested in marketing their products through GRID games, for example P&G may wish to brand Always through MoHiM (our period game) since it is opening up a niche market for their products.

*Given the funding constraints in light of the COVID19 pandemic, we are prepared to keep ourselves afloat with a much smaller budget. 

Our organizational budget for 2020 is estimated to be $150k. Our 2019 budget was $140k. 

However, given the funding constraints in light of the COVID19 pandemic, we are prepared to keep ourselves afloat with a much smaller budget. 

1. As a female-owned tech start-up, the capacity building support through the Elevate Prize Foundation’s two-year program is crucial for our growth. 

2. Validation: Being recognized as one of the recipients of the Elevate Prize provides us with the validation that is critical in positioning ourselves in the arena of games for good. The visibility and prestige attached to the Prize will benefit us in our next stage of growth. 

2. Opportunity to collaborate with other game-changers: Given that we are creating games that enhance the work of organizations in our focus areas, we see collaboration opportunities with fellow Elevate Prize Global Heroes. Our key means for growth is through collaborations with partners. We identify organizations that are working on the same issues and are interested in using our games to enhance the impact of their programs. We then explore opportunities to either have them directly fund game development or co-apply for grants that align with our joint priorities. Receiving the Elevate Prize will allow us to forge new partnerships. 

3. The funding will be absolutely critical in helping us turn 2020 into a year of growth from a year of adversity. We are able to develop games in a phased-in manner and therefore align them with the availability of resources. We will define the scope of our pipeline projects based on the funding available through the Elevate Prize and external partners. 

We are currently looking for collaborators who can help us in the following ways:

• Developing game content to focus on entrepreneurship and digital literacy skills
• Translating and localizing the game into other regional languages to scale its reach
• Incorporating linkages to real-life resources 
• We are interested in partnering with researchers who can help evaluate the impact of the game as well as grassroots organizations that can enhance our outreach.