Michelle Obama Looking for Games that Promote Healthy Children

First Lady Michelle Obama is hosting a competition to submit games that will encourage children to lead healthier, more active lives.

Apps for Healthy Kids is a program spearheaded by the First Lady that begins accepting submissions today. There are two categories, tools and games, and and a combined reward of $40,000 to the top submissions. The White House has assembled a team of judges including Entertainment Software Association President Michael Gallagher, LucasArts Engineer Eric Johnson, Zynga’s Mark Pincus and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to determine the winners of the competition, which will end on July 14.

The submissions must all conform to the USDA Nutritional Dataset to qualify, and need to function on “any software platform broadly available to the public.” The top applications in each category will earn $10,000, and the public choice of each category will earn $4,500.

Apps for Healthy Kids has offered a number of suggestions for content material such as “teaching kids to eat more whole grains” and “being more physically active,” but so long as the application falls within the healthy lifestyle criteria it is acceptable. The submission deadline is June 30, after which the judging will begin. It’s good to see the White House taking such a positive approach to gaming and gaming’s potential. It’ll be interesting to see what people come up with over the next few months.

Source: GamePolitics