The symposium "Games for impact: research, learning and engagement" shows the potential and impact of designing and playing games as tools for system transformation. We will explore how games can be used in education, research, stakeholder engagement, and outreach to create meaningful learning experiences, facilitate dialogue and collaboration, and engage with complex local and global challenges. The event will bring together students, researchers, educators, practitioners, and other stakeholders to share experiences, showcase game-based approaches, and explore how games can help people better understand systems, experiment with different perspectives and solutions, and contribute to positive change.
We are inviting experts from the Netherlands and internationally. Our first confirmed guest speaker is Darko Petrovic, Business Development Lead for Gaming, Sport, Media and Entertainment at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
Darko leads WFP’s gaming partnerships and brings extensive experience from countries and humanitarian emergencies around the world. His work explores how games, play and partnerships with the gaming community can raise awareness, inspire action and contribute to the fight against hunger. He is also involved in WFP’s collaboration with Games for Change, including the Game the Food System initiative, bringing together game developers, students and players to explore food and nutrition security and more resilient food systems.
Watch Darko discussing how games can help address world hunger at the Games for Change Festival:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbiRPVUtMdw
Our next guest speakers will be announced soon, so stay tuned!
The symposium will also connect with games and resources from Games at TABLE together with the WUR Games Hub. This part of the event will be introduced by Federico Andreotti and Jet Vervoort, Wageningen University & Research (WUR).
The event will launch the WUR online and physical game library, building on the Games at TABLE experience. The library will collect games and resources for education, making them easier to discover, access and use across WUR. The initiative aims to build a community around game-based learning and empower WUR teachers to integrate games into their teaching.
Explore the Games at TABLE library: https://www.tabledebates.org/games
In the second part of the symposium, participants will play game prototypes developed during the postgraduate course "Transforming food systems through game design and play". Course participants will present their games and invite everyone to play, discuss and explore different perspectives on food system transformation.
