Are you a school administrator interested in teaching children about the hazards of cyber bullying? An airline employee looking to educate your passengers in terms of safer air travel? An Army colonel hoping to ease the re-integration process for soldiers returning from war? These are just a few of many possibilities Sharon Sloane, WILL Interactive’s President and CEO, envisions for this contest.

“We want to cast a really wide net and find out what the public or organizations that we haven’t worked with are thinking about with regard to ways that WILL’s simulations could improve society,” Sloane said.

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Basically, they are asking for people to submit ideas for a full-blown educational simulation that, if deployed, would have a positive social impact. WILL will then pick one of the submissions and create and distribute it.

Frankly, if almost any other sim company offered this, I would be less excited.

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The winner of the Challenge will have the unique opportunity to select the subject matter and help guide the creation of an interactive simulation. The finished program will be distributed nationally to address an issue of major societal importance in an effort to create real, sustainable change. The competition is open to applications from all organizations and individuals through February 29, 2012. Learn about the Challenge.

WILL’s business philosophy—”doing well by doing good”—motivates its desire to create positive social change through the use of its Virtual Experience Immersive Learning Simulations (VEILS®). The Challenge is an opportunity to engage the public in order to improve the world, while raising awareness of how impactful interactive simulations can be in positively influencing attitudes and behaviors/actions.

“Since 1998, we have been using VEILS® to help many organizations address issues that affect their operations and their people. Now we have the opportunity, for the first time, to throw open the doors and ask the general public to tell us what societal issue should be addressed,” said Sharon Sloane, President and CEO of WILL Interactive. “We are excited to make a difference in such a public manner, and to invite a new audience to understand the power of simulations that allow individuals to play out real-world scenarios before they live them out.”

VEILS® is an immersive technology that harnesses the engaging characteristics of game-based video simulations to capture the attention of individuals at a level that leads them to positive action. In VEILS®, users become the lead characters in an interactive movie simulation. They make decisions, see consequences of their choices, alter storylines and experience outcomes.

In use by millions of students, law enforcement personnel, soldiers, healthcare professionals and executives across thousands of schools, organizations, and all branches of the military, VEILS® have helped reduce instances of military suicide, educated youth about the dangers of drugs and the importance of responsible cell phone use, and assisted thousands of homeowners in avoiding foreclosure. Access demo versions of existing simulations.

HOW DOES THE CHALLENGE WORK?

To enter the Challenge, Entrants are required to submit by February 29, 2012 a proposal that contains contact information, a socially relevant learning objective, an explanation of the social issue and why the Entrant believes a serious game simulation will help address/combat the problem, a description of the target audience description, a brief marketing and distribution plan, and organizational/biographical information about the Entrant. Download the Official Rules.

Once the application process is closed, WILL’s team will select the five most qualified applications to be put forward for a public vote that will be hosted through WILL’s website and Facebook pages, and will be factored into the final decision.

The winner of this Challenge will have the social issue identified in their entry addressed through the development of a VEILS® game-based video simulation, and will receive, at no cost, the perpetual right to use the simulation. WILL Interactive will absorb all product development costs (approximate value = $500,000) to develop the VEILS® simulation, which will be distributed nationally through the joint efforts of the winner and WILL.

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High-resolution images from WILL’s existing simulations are available for download.

About WILL Interactive: Potomac, Md.-based WILL Interactive, the nation’s most experienced and most awarded developer of computer-based video training simulations, has produced 70 VEILS® and won numerous learning, media, and technology awards since its founding in 1994. WILL’s clients and partners are among the nation’s most respected organizations, including every branch of the U.S. military, the National Football League, Verizon, MedStar Health, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Fannie Mae, McGraw-Hill, and thousands of schools and universities across the country.

So far WILL has produced about 20 movies the Army focusing on safety, post-traumatic stress, combat operational stress, compassion fatigue, suicide prevention, and ethical decision-making.
During the experience the viewer has the opportunity to change a character’s fate by making simple choices along the way. Courtesy photoAt this year’s GI Film Festival, WILL Interactive premiered The War Inside, a film designed for Army-wide distribution as a cornerstone for their soldier behavioral health and post traumatic stress education program.
The War Inside sheds light on the psychological challenges of coming home with combat stress and the toll it takes on individuals, families, and society. The viewer plays as one of four different characters connected to a platoon that has just returned from combat. Each character explores the challenges of coming home.

You can read the full story here.

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The War Inside is the latest immersive simulation offering from Potomac, Md.-based WILL Interactive. The product allows an individual to complete specific virtual experiences. “Unlike many simulations with which you may be familiar that focus on equipment, gadgets and virtual worlds, we are talking about simulations that focus on people,” Sharon Sloane, President and CEO of WILL Interactive, told the attendees.

The product places soldiers and their families, friends and comrades-in-arms, in a series of post-deployment, high stress scenarios. The viewing audience is able to select a recommended course of action in response to circumstances that unfolded in each scenario. Follow-on scenes allow the audience to see the implications of their selected behavioral response play out.

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From the article:

Sharon Sloane began her career as an educator and learned one key lesson: “Experience is the best teacher.”

But a person cannot live out every decision before it’s made. So in the late 1990s, Sloane patented an interactive video technology to help people play them out virtually.

“The decisions people make are not based solely on knowledge, skills or information, [so] we really needed to address the other side of the brain,” Sloane said. “How do you engage people at a level that is emotionally engaging to them as well as cognitively engaging?”

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Video games with elaborate simulations of alternate realities that deal with detailed subject matter are generally reserved for battling aliens or car thieves on video games like “Grand Theft Auto” and “Dead Space.” Now, they’re also for learning with WILL Campus providing several simulations for teaching about social stresses, growing up and responsibility.

With titles that treat topics like prescription drug abuse, hate crimes and school violence, the WILL programs help to bring hard-to-discuss subjects out in the open for a full class discussion.

He goes on :

Along the way, students are confronted with how to deal with peer pressure, anger management, leadership and how to prevent a violent flare up at school. I think that the story is compelling and a good way to educate students about these social pressures. In fact, every teacher and principal should play the game as well.

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Teachers worried about how they would integrate the game into the curriculum and whether it could motivate students who often fell asleep in class. The IT staff wondered whether DimensionM would overwhelm the district’s computer network. Administrators were concerned the benefits would fall short of the costs.

But the students were eager to play, and Garland educators spotted an opportunity: Put the kids’ competitiveness to work by staging a year-end tournament for the top gamers.

Teachers worried about how they would integrate the game into the curriculum and whether it could motivate students who often fell asleep in class. The IT staff wondered whether DimensionM would overwhelm the district’s computer network. Administrators were concerned the benefits would fall short of the costs.
But the students were eager to play, and Garland educators spotted an opportunity: Put the kids’ competitiveness to work by staging a year-end tournament for the top gamers.

It also features a a few quotes from WILL President & CEO Sharon Sloane:

“Kids can smell hokey from a mile away,” says Sharon Sloane, president and CEO of Will Interactive, which makes video simulations for teens that address social issues such as violence in schools and drug abuse.

Detective Frank Dannahey, an investigator in the youth division of the Rocky Hill, CT, police department, helped provide real-life content for the company’s It’s Your Call, a game designed to teach cell phone safety. Dannahey tried out a beta version with half a dozen middle schoolers. He says districts should take the time to get students’ feedback. “If they like a game, they will get their friends to play it. We shouldn’t leave them out of the process.”

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Young people in the United States start playing video games as early as age four or five.  Often the amount of time they spend at the games causes parents to be concerned. But now parents may have to encourage children to play more games.  Youngsters can find a promising career in the video gaming and technology industry as serious games are rapidly expanding along with games for entertainment.

The article also includes a quote from our own David Versaw:

David Versaw is chief financial officer of Will Interactive, a leading game development company in the Washington suburbs. The company has created video simulations for the Army’s suicide prevention programs, for FBI training on hostage negotiations and for the healthcare industry.  Versaw says there is a growing need for serious games.

“It is a great medium to reach people, people in academics started to understand the power of gaming,” he said. “The current state of the economy has slowed things down a little bit here recently. But we are busier now than we ever have been.”

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