This year Nissan Infiniti hosted KGV and Island School at their Infiniti Innovation Hub for a start-up day. The brief for the day was aligned to the government’s ‘Smart City’ programme.
Out of this, SPEAR was born. This team of Island School students wanted to answer the growing global issue of childhood obesity. Over 60,000 of the 300,000 primary school students in Hong Kong are considered obese. The root causes of this can be attributed to a fast-food culture and a sedate lifestyle with children, rather than participating in sport and outdoor activities, more likely to be tied-up with private tutoring and computer games.
Gamers always believe that an epic win is possible and that its always worth trying, and trying now. Gamer’s don’t sit around*.
Computer games, a cultural phenomenon played by 2.7 billion people around the world (that’s 1 in 3 globally). SPEAR decided to make the issue part of the solution by rewarding exercise with game currency; creating a platform that partners existing fitness tracking devices and apps with game companies. Exercise is not only converted into an in-game currency, but can be used to unlock exclusive content, reveal hidden easter eggs and lead to levelling-up through health related rankings and leagues.
Every game designer should make one explicitly world-changing game*.
Priscilla said, “It’s very difficult to find the motivation to do exercise, especially when we have a lot of work to do. However, one thing we realised we had in common with so many people our age, was a love of gaming! So with SPEAR, we hope to get children and young adults up and moving whilst simultaneously allowing them to enjoy their games more.”
Gaming can make a better world.
Let us know – alliance@online.island.edu.hk – if you can help in the following areas:
- Platform development.
- Game development companies.
- Health and fitness tracking solutions.
- Relevant third parties.
- Start ups & ventures.
- Design and marketing.
*Jane McGonigal, Director of Game Research and Development, The Institute for the Future