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  • Shape the Future with the 2024 G4C Student Challenge, International Chapter Festivals, and More! 🎓️ 🎮️

Shape the Future with the 2024 G4C Student Challenge, International Chapter Festivals, and More! 🎓️ 🎮️

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Games for Change
October 23, 2024

Welcome to the October newsletter! Join us as we globe-trot through our international Festivals, with highlights from G4C Africa and G4C India’s vibrant celebrations. Check out the themes for the 2024-2025 Student Challenge, plus exciting professional development opportunities, and discover our specially curated games for LGBT History Month. Take a quick break from Super Mario Party Jamboree and join us for a world tour of gaming for good!🍄 

— Team G4C

We’re thrilled to share the social impact themes of the 10th annual G4C Student Challenge! Over the past decade, the international game design program aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals has empowered over 55,000 students and 1,100 educators around the world to become innovative change makers and leaders who address real-world challenges

Since its inception, the G4C Student Challenge has expanded beyond the United States to 46 countries and 232 cities worldwide. Along with the increased reach, we’re providing free toolkits for teachers, parents, and students toolkits that are free to download. 🎮

The 2024 - 2025 Themes are:

  • 🕊️ Peaceformers: supported by the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative, invites students to design games set in imagined civilizations where peace depends on equitable resource sharing. By navigating complex decisions around food, water, and shelter, students explore how leadership and fairness can foster peaceful coexistence in times of scarcity.

  • 🪴 Nurture Yourself with Nature: backed by Earthwatch Europe, addresses eco-anxiety by highlighting the healing power of nature. Students design games that guide players through five pathways to strengthen their connection with the environment, showcasing how nature can improve mental health and resilience in the face of climate change.

  • 🍽️ Outplay Hunger: supported by World Food Program USA, tackles the global hunger crisis. Students create games focusing on reducing food waste and promoting healthy diets, encouraging players to take action in their communities and rethink how we produce and consume food. The theme features teaching resources from Take Action Global (TAG).


Whether you are an educator, a parent, or a student, the Student Challenge is a unique opportunity to learn about the power of play in creating meaningful change, fostering creativity, and addressing real-world issues through game design.

But wait—there’s more! Participating educators have access to our free Professional Development Catalog, which contains ample workshops from coding in Minecraft to coding in Unity! Take a look at some of the upcoming Free Professional development workshops to master all things game design!

  • Discover how easy it is to make an innovative game across multiple platforms with a single code base.

  • Understand eco-anxiety and learn about the drivers, consequences, and solutions through games with Earthwatch Europe.

This year’s Student Challenge is made possible through the generous support of key partners, including Verizon, Hasbro, Unity, Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative, Earthwatch Europe, World Food Program USA, Take Action Global, General Motors, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Motorola Solutions Foundation, Take-Two Interactive, and Press Start Academy.

Recently, our International Chapters—G4C Africa, G4C Asia-Pacific, and G4C India, hosted Festivals showcasing the transformative power of games to drive real-world impact. These Festivals brought together innovators, educators, and leaders in the game industry. Featuring 47 speakers and 29 sessions across a combined 7 days of programming. Attendees engaged in workshops, panels, immersive arcades, and game showcases, all underlining the role that games have in education, health, wellness, positive impact, and innovation for a better tomorrow.


🛫 But that’s not all! Up next on our International Chapter World Tour is:

In less than two weeks, the G4C Latin America Festival kicks off! Running on November 8 (Brazil), 19 (Mexico), and 27 (Colombia) across three countries, this year’s festival will explore 'Global Health and Ancestral Wisdom' through gaming. Can’t attend in person? No worries—we’ll be streaming all the festivities live!

The last stop on the tour is the G4C Türkiye Festival! Taking place on December 7-8 at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul. Get ready to dive into the theme “Press Start for Change” as we bring together cross-sector visionaries to explore the power of games to create a better future. Stay tuned for more exciting updates and opportunities to get involved!

  • Discover the benefits of gaming in the workplace and how it can build cognitive, social, and emotional skills relevant to organizational success.

  • Learn about UbiSim a VR simulation tool that helps train nurses using virtual reality technology, that helps nurses prepare for real-world scenarios in healthcare settings.

  • Uncover a form of digital body mapping through XR with Soul Paint, a VR game where players can explore and gain awareness of how their feelings and experiences manifest in their bodies. 

  • Dive into this CMU article featuring “personality bots” that can hone in on how unconscious bias can affect our social context and how we can learn from it.

Hades: Play as Zagreus, the prince of the Underworld, who seeks to escape the realm to get away from his unloving father, Hades, and reach his mother Persephone in the mortal world.

Our Life: A nostalgic visual novel where you design your character and grow from childhood to adulthood with the lonely boy next door. Create an experience that’s all your own in this near-fully customizable, choice-heavy story.