Evoke: "Online game seeks to empower Africa"

Despite struggling to set up my netvibes page, I did run across something pretty interesting (the old fashioned way...I found it in my morning scan of numerous websites).

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/01/evoke.game.africa.poverty/index.html?hpt=T2

Leveraging social media and the gaming community to become social activists is an interesting idea.

I am trying to learn more about the specifics of the "game" that begins March 3rd here:

http://www.urgentevoke.com/

But, my membership is "pending approval" and they don't provide much information about the specifics of the game until you are a member of the game. Interesting. Jane McGonigal is the founder of the game that works in conjunction with the World Bank Institute (which invested $500,000 in the game). Jane's explanation of the game is also short on specifics:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/02/15/jane.mcgonigal.ted2010.cnn?iref=allsearch

Here is the "Evoke" game trailer:

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

Jane McGonigal also has some interesting discussions of the intersections of gaming and reality on youtube:

As soon as I am "accepted" into the game, I will dig into the specifics and provide more information. Until then...here is Jane doing (or, trying really hard to do) the Soulja boy. :-)




***UPDATE***

I am actually finding more information. It appears that there is actual money/funding at stake for up to 20 people/teams to develop a "real world" plan of action. More to come.