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Games Who hasn't played a game at least once in
your lifetime? monopoly, a card-game, puzzles. And there is football, tennis, and, of course,
video-games. Do you remember what playing games are like?
That challenge, the motivation to succeed, that thrive to improve and outdo yourself
and the social interaction and playing with others - was all a lot of fun!
But today, games aren't just about fun anymore. We now recognize that games are not only entertaining,
but have a lot of potential to affect social change. There are whole movements based on
this: Serious Games for Change, Half The Sky Games, Health Games for Change -- they all
prove that games can be extremely effective in teaching skills, and also imparting and
reinforcing social messages. And with mobile phone games quickly gaining attention as a
very accessible and personal platform for playing games, with as many as 6 billion current
mobile users and increasing everyday, we are in the middle of what is called the mobile
games revolution. But what does this have to do with non-communicable
diseases and the improvement of people's lives in urban slums -- which is what we would like
to address? It's a serious issue -- with 250 million people worldwide suffering from chronic
diseases. The good news is most chronic diseases are preventable and manageable. The bad news
is, conditions in urban slums make residents particularly vulnerable to chronic diseases.
Circumstances such as insecure tenure lead to a lack of political agency, weak infrastructure,
and limited income generation options. And healthcare in urban slums can be costly, inadequate,
or sometimes of poor quality. In recent years, more attention has been given
to providing affordable healthcare to those in low-income urban areas. However, healthcare
organizations on the ground tell us that even when healthcare provided is affordable and
accessible, many low-income urban residents do not use them. Sometimes it's a problem
of not being aware of the available healthcare options, but most of the time is not understanding
that even choosing to ignore chronic diseases, its symptoms and long-term effects in their
lives and families. Sure, we could provide more affordable and
easily accessible healthcare services to urban slum areas, but in order to really change
things, in order to really create an impact on people's lives, there is an even more fundamental
need to educate and create awareness on chronic diseases, to communicate healthcare options,
and change behaviors about health to show what people can individually do to improve
their health. And games have the potential to do this. Especially
when combined that with social networking and media.
Now, we know games. In July, we have traveled to Somaliland in
northern Somalia and held a week-long workshop on sustainability to high-school students.
We also used interactive media to promote learning.
In August, in India we played a simulation game that we developed for electricity management
in small communities. In September, in Malaysia, in the outskirts
Kuala Lumpur we have got soaking wet, but were surrounded by the cheerful voices of
primary school students, after playing our community water distribution and trust building
games. The 5 of us here today, from Masdar Institute,
are co-founders of the ARC Initiative, a human development organization that puts people
first. Participation, collaboration and sustainability -- are our building blocks and we believe
that lives of the people living in urban slums today can be improved through games.
Our experience has shown us that the potential of games to inform and change behaviors is
enormous. Therefore we propose a health "game and info app", which we call, WISEBOB. WISEBOB
takes on a new approach to chronic diseases for everybody, but specifically for those
in low-income urban areas. The WISEBOB app is structured into four sections:
- a fun, user-friendly game, designed to teach, change perceptions and attitudes, and communicate
health messages within a familiar, local context - also an info-page that teaches you about
chronic diseases, shows healthcare providers around you and even opinions and reviews of
other users. It's like the Yelp! or TripAdvisor of healthcare.
- it also includes a chatroom which enables you to share your experiences
- and a feedback page to keep everything updated. With WISEBOB chronic diseases are preventable,
manageable, and its users as patients will not be feeling left alone anymore. WISEBOB
is motivating, and provides hope. And this is what the slum needs.
But wait a second...an app in a slum? We know that while mobile phone penetration
is high in urban slums, smartphones and Internet access are lagging, although not far behind.
That's why we have created an integrated business model that effectively generates revenue along
every node of the value chain. The deployment of WISE BOB to urban slums app will be supported
through affordable smartphones that will be sold through local shops in the slums and
low-lost internet access through an innovative micro-internet-service-provider model: micro-ISP.
Micro-ISPs are basically people providing WIFI internet access from their homes by selling
passwords and spreading the costs over all the users. The more micro-ISPs join, the stronger
the wireless network becomes, allowing for more smartphones and more WISE BOBs. This
will ultimately lead to better awareness and healthier people, while also generating revenue.
ARC will market the app through the micro-ISP, local organizations and healthcare providers
and will generate income through nominal internet-access fees and in-app advertising. Our business
model is highly scalable, providing exceptional value to all stakeholders.
There has been a recent boom in communications technologies worldwide, which is now diffusing
in developing regions extremely quickly. Mobile phone growth has been accelerating
at a breakneck pace. Mobile internet diffusion has been accelerating even faster in the last
few years resulting in new and sizeable market opportunities. Coupled with the recent drop
in smartphone prices, which has breached the $50 price point, this has opened up new opportunities
for providing affordable, quality internet connection to urban slum communities and a
very valuable and profitable market for smartphone apps - which generate significant advertising
revenues. Taking this into account, even with a conservative
estimation model, we will break even within 2 years
Given our experience in India, our one-year milestone includes the market penetration
of an urban slum in India, development of the app, the micro-ISP and a 5000 unit smartphone
pilot. The 5-year plan includes a rapid expansion into 9 slums, 4 countries -- and the potential
thereafter is enormous, and could affect more than 20 million people.
To summarize, what does the app do? WISE BOB enables education and awareness,
increases understanding of the available healthcare options and perhaps most importantly it encourages
good quality healthcare through reviews and ratings and saves precious time and money
to members of the community. Although we expect challenges, we are fully
prepared to meet these with audio-only capabilities and by leveraging existing social networks.
Our initial plan is to deploy the WISE BOB app and its supporting infrastructure in India,
later expanding into Indonesia and other areas of the world, including Africa.
Thank you! Please visit our website and follow us on Twitter.