Evoke Literacy:Engaging Youth in Social Innovation to Improve Literacy

Session Submission Type: Group Panel

Description of Session

Evoke is a crash course in changing the world, (www.urgentevoke.com) and is an award winning online educational game designed to empower young innovators to start solving urgent social problems, collaborate globally and develop real world ideas to address these challenges. The game was designed by the World Bank to develop 21st century skills of collaboration, critical thinking, information reasoning, and creativity and use game methodologies and entertainment to motivate players to learn. The game has been proven to be effective in engaging youth.
In 2010, Evoke engaged youth in South Africa to address global challenges of food security, power shortages, water security, economic development, women’s empowerment, urban resilience, indigenous knowledge, and crisis networking. The first 10-week EVOKE campaign attracted over 178,000 unique visitors to the site and over 2,345,000 page views. Nearly 20,000 individuals from over 150 countries registered to play. During these 10 weeks, players submitted over 23,500 blog posts (about 335 each day), 4,700 photos and over 1,500 videos. At the end of the game, 74 project ideas (known as 'Evokations') were submitted and the top 25 projects qualified for a one-month on-line challenge with Global Giving resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in additional funds raised. EVOKE was named the 2010 Social Impact game of the year by Games for Change.
This year EVOKE agents from UniMinuto in Soacha, Colombia are working to find solutions to the global challenge of human trafficking over the course of 16 weeks. The field test has 300 students working on missions to create social innovation around the issue of human trafficking with the vulnerable populations of displaced people. The Evoke agents (with guidance from professors at their university) did research and will develop solutions to specific challenges in their community, initial results from the campaign will be presented as part of the panel.
Currently, EVOKE agents are working to address the global challenge of literacy led by All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD), a partnership between USAID, World Vision and the Australian Government. An engaging illustrated short story developed by a leading science-fiction author, Kathleen Goonan (www.goonan.com) and set in the future guides agents as they embark their journey through 8 Missions and 48 activities. Activities, developed by Dr. John Comings, are designed to encourage agents to engage with their community, understand challenges to literacy, think of solutions to solve the problems and implement them. The Evoke Literacy Campaign builds the four broad clusters of skills that are designated through badges and rewards: Creative Visionary; Deep Collaborator; Systems Thinker; and Empathetic Activist.
The Literacy campaign will be field tested in South Africa and initial results will be presented as a part of this panel. Audience members will be asked to act as EVOKE agents and will play through one EVOKE Mission during the panel session, exploring both the human trafficking and literacy campaigns. This panel is an interactive journey through the EVOKE universe which will show how the game works and how skill development is evaluated.

References
Comings, J.P. Prospects (2015) An evidence-based model for early grade reading programs. 45: 167. doi:10.1007/s11125-014-9335-9

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Individual Presentations

• Evoke: Social Innovator Framework - Barbara Freeman, University of California, Berkeley

• EVOKE: Peace Campaign (Soacha, Colombia) - Robert Hawkins, The World Bank

• Evoke: Literacy Campaign - Rebecca Leege, World Vision, All Children Reading