Project summary

Commence Games is hosing a one-day symposium in partnership with UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Sector and Eight Goals One Foundation. This 'From Play to Policy Symposium', dedicated to gamification and game-based approaches for civic participation, intercultural dialogue, anti-discrimination, gender equality, and social inclusion, will serve as a platform to co-develop an actionable framework feeding into a policy brief & toolkit on gamification and civic literacy. The toolkit will be shared with Member States and publicly available.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

This is a global convening dedicated to gamification and game-based approaches for civic literacy and participation, intercultural dialogue, anti-discrimination, gender equality, and social inclusion, will gather 200-300 leaders from policy, gaming, culture, civil society, and academia from 100+ countries will gather at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France to:

• Build new alliances between the gaming and gamification ecosystem, governments, and civil society to scale gamification methods for human rights, dialogue, and social cohesion.

• Highlight how gamification and edutainment can serve as tools to build inclusive, just and peaceful societies, through creative, participatory tools.

• Demonstrate how civic games can foster intercultural dialogue, strengthen cooperation, and counter discrimination and exclusion, allowing participants to test innovative ways of engaging across cultures and generations.

• Explore how gamified approaches can support participatory policymaking, encouraging inclusive decision-making processes through playful civic engagement.

The symposium will be achieved through careful planning in collaboration with UNESCO & 8One inviting relevant international speakers for thought leadership, and developing gamified panels with multilingual translation, online diffusion, and participatory workshops along with the toolkit and actionable framework.

How will this funding be used?

The funding will be used to cover the expenses related to organizing the symposium, such as venue rental, catering, promotional materials, translation, participatory workshops as well as the toolkit to be developed post event and travel expenses for speakers.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Commence Games is founded and led by Tracy Saad (CEO), and supported by a Policy Advisory Board.

Board of Advisors 

• Basma ElEtreby – Public Policy - Egypt

• Abdallah Hossam – Business Development  - Egypt

• Mira Kuderinova – Public Affairs & Government Relations - Kazakhstan

• Daniel Mackisack – Political Innovation - Germany & New Zealand

Commence Games

Commence Games is a gamification studio, dedicated to making politics fun, accessible, and engaging for everyone. We develop interactive tools such as card games, facilitation kits, workshops, events, designed to demystify political topics, build critical thinking, build civic literacy without partisan bias and empower people to gain agency as they engage civically. Commence Games is a non-partisan, bias-free entity by design with a global-centric focus. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where diverse perspectives can come together to engage in meaningful discussions about politics, beyond the arguments. Our past collaborations include: 

• Offlimits: Media Law Pack (in partnership with UNESCO’s Beirut Office): a bilingual political strategy card game to introduce a new media law in Lebanon to journalists, influencers, and policymakers. 

• Political Trivia and Political Pockets (with the support of Friedrich Naumann Foundation Lebanon & Syria): two card games building political knowledge and economic literacy. 

• Learn & Play Citizenship (in collaboration with Skill Up Academy in Lebanon): a civic education game for children under 13 based on the nationally accredited curriculum in Lebanon. 

• Migration Data Game (in collaboration with Migration Youth and Children Platform and UNICEF): a digital game to understand how to use data effectively when advocating for migration policy internationally. 

• Offlimits: Child Marriage Pack (in collaboration with the Gender Equality group of the Governance Lab programme of the UN Global Compact Network Lebanon and Out of The Box and the support of British Council in Lebanon): a print-and-ready game to build awareness on child marriage and advocating for a civil law that sets the legal age of marriage at 18 across the country.

Eight Goals One Foundation

Eight Goals One Foundation (8one) is an India-headquartered civil society organisation with projects across the globe, specifically catering to eight identified goals: Well-being, Gender Equality, Peace, Environment, Hygiene, Nutrition, Education, and Employment. 8one actively seeks and builds panoptic collaborations across demographics and geographies to create synergies for meaningful dialogue and action. 

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

The most likely causes of project failure could be:

1. Low attendance due to insufficient promotion or competing events.

2. Difficulty securing high-quality speakers.

3. Logistical issues with the venue or scheduling.

If the project fails, the outcomes could include:

1. Wasted resources (time, money, effort).

2. Missed opportunity to raise awareness and launch research on gamified participatory policy-making.

3. Damage to the reputation of Commence Games, UNESCO and 8One.

What other funding are you or your project getting?

We are applying to traditional grant funds as well as government, angel investor and sponsor funding. If we get funding from other funders to cover the whole project, then we will return all Manifund funding. We are trying to move quickly and organising this conference will run more smoothly if we have a guarantee of funding and don't need to wait for decisions from other funders.