THE BRIT LIST: CHARITY
GIVING BACK
THE CEO and founder of PlayMob has had an impressive few years. In 2012, she was nominated as one of the Top 100 Women in Tech in Europe, she was part of the ‘Growing Business Young Guns’ class of 2012, while PlayMob has collected numerous awards, including Best Start-Up. A public figure in games, Ower has spoken at numerous events including Women In Games, London Games Conference, Special Games Summit and more.
Her business PlayMob is all about using video games for good causes, and has helped support the likes of WWF, War Child and Water Aid. Last year the firm secured investment of £2m. “I started working in games start ups creating titles for education and training back in 2001,” she says. “This space caught my attention. Being a gamer I loved the idea of being able to learn while you game so I was intrigued to do more in the space “
But after reading Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken, Ower became determined to make the world a better place using video games. “McGonigal’s book and her research on how games could fix the world really inspired me. “It encouraged me to take my skills and learning further to work with non-profits and charities to do real world good in existing games.“
In spite of the already massive success of PlayMob, Ower dares to dream bigger.
“I want to raise $1bn for global causes via games,” she says. “With Playmob I really want to have as many games giving back as possible and then begin creating services for players to see how much good they are doing collectively. Once I’ve achieved that, who knows.”
Video games is a multi-billion dollar business that can inspire the young generation. The following three are using these facts to help give back to society
JUDE OWER, PLAYMOB DR MICK DONEGAN, SPECIALEFFECT
THE games industry’s unofficial charity of choice is SpecialEffect, which uses technology to offer access to video games and other forms of self-expression to young people with disabilities. The charity was set up by teacher and technology specialist Dr Mick Donegan, who continues to drive the charity along with a team that includes Nick Streeter, Bill Donegan and Gavin Tan.
STUART DINSEY CURVE, GAMESAID
AS the founder of MCVand Develop, Dinsey has had a huge influence on the UK games market and has nurtured a number of journalists now plying their trade across the industry. He left the company last year, but still works in games. Most notably, Dinsey is the chairman of the charity Gamesaid and has been active in a number of initiatives, including the upcoming Stand Up for Gamesaid comedy night.
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