Apparently the folks over at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation believe that games can help a lot with education, and throwing some serious money towards these projects.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invests a lot of money with a number of worthy causes, but the organization’s latest announced investment is probably raising a few eyebrows: It’s putting $20 million towards developing games, as well as “tools that are designed to bring improvements in education.”
The money is going to be divvied up amongst a variety of groups, particularly three game-oriented projects: iRemix, the Institute of Play, and Quest Atlantis:
The organization invested $2.6 million in the Digital Youth Network’s iRemix, an application that teaches children about skills such as creative writing, awarding them with badges as they progress though a range of difficulty levels.
$2.5 million dollars went to the Institute of Play, which will build game-based teaching tools and game design curricula for a variety of teaching environments.
Finally, the Gates Foundation gave $2.6 million to Quest Atlantis for creating video games that help children become more proficient in math, reading and science.
Money from the Foundation is also going to be used for other education-based projects, including student courses, multimedia teaching techniques, and interactive software, as well as social and print media.
Source: Serious Games Source via GamePolitics
