
The annual world sport design awards $20,000 in grand prizes for inventive and impactful video games that advance the UN Sustainable Improvement Targets
NEW YORK, NY — [NOV 10, 2025] — Video games for Change (G4C), the main nonprofit that empowers sport creators and innovators to drive real-world change, right now introduced the kick off of the 2025- 2026 Games for Change Student Challenge, a worldwide sport design program inviting learners ages 10–25 years outdated to deal with urgent world points that deal with the United Nations Sustainable Improvement Targets, by creativity, play, and purposeful design.
Now in its eleventh yr, the Pupil Problem has reached greater than 70,000 college students and nearly 2,000 educators and school throughout 600cities in 91 international locations, inspiring the creation of over 6,600 unique student-designed video games that join studying to motion. From November to April 2026, members will design and submit video games for consideration in regional and world competitions, with Sport Jams happening worldwide all through the season.
“The G4C Pupil Problem continues to indicate that when younger folks design video games about real-world points, they see themselves not simply as gamers, however as drawback solvers and changemakers,” mentioned Arana Shapiro, Chief Operations and Packages Officer at Video games for Change. “By means of sport design, college students study to suppose critically, collaborate, and construct options with function. In a world formed by AI and fixed change, sturdy expertise like drawback fixing, essential pondering, and sport design will permit all learners to thrive of their communities and worldwide.”
This yr, college students will discover three new themes developed with world-class companions to encourage civic creativeness and problem-solving:
Two grand-prize winners will obtain a complete of $20,000 in scholarships, generously offered by Take-Two Interactive and Infinite. Winners and finalists will probably be celebrated on the Pupil Problem Awards on Might 28, 2026, in recognition of remarkable creativity, social affect, and innovation in pupil sport design.
“With 3.4 billion gamers worldwide, the video video games business has an unprecedented means to achieve and encourage audiences throughout cultures and our subsequent technology of leaders,” mentioned Lisa Pak, Head of Operations at Taking part in for the Planet. “We’re enthusiastic about our collaboration with Video games for Change, empowering college students to make use of their creativity to highlight the threats to reefs, rainforests, and our local weather. Collectively, we’re reworking play into a strong software for consciousness, training, and motion.”
“Greater than 319 million folks face extreme starvation around the globe right now,” mentioned Jessamyn Sarmiento, Chief Advertising Officer at World Meals Program USA. “By means of the ‘Outgrow Starvation’ theme, we’re giving the subsequent technology a strategy to discover the basis causes of meals insecurity and picture options by analysis, sport design, and play. This collaboration helps college students join their creativity to one of the pressing challenges of our time—ending starvation for good.”
Moreover, G4C is increasing its educator assist with the launch of the G4C Learn web site, the world’s largest on-line useful resource library that includes lesson plans, tutorials, and toolkits to information college students, academics, and school on subjects like sport design, game-based studying, esports, profession pathways, and extra. In partnership with Global Game Jam, educators worldwide can obtain funding, coaching, and assist to host Pupil Problem Sport Jams of their lecture rooms and communities.
“Video games flip studying into challenges college students truly need to tackle,” mentioned Luna Ramirez, CTE trainer at Thomas A. Edison CTE Excessive College based mostly in New York Metropolis. “When college students design video games to deal with urgent world issues affecting their communities, they turn into curious concerning the world round them, experimenting, and bringing concepts to life. The perfect studying occurs when college students take dangers, fail ahead, and collaborate, and that’s precisely what the Video games for Change Pupil Problem empowers.”
Educators, mother and father, and learners ages 10–25 can now registerfor the 2026 Video games for Change Pupil Problem and entry free instruments and sources at learn.gamesforchange.org.
This yr’s Pupil Problem is made doable by the beneficiant assist of key companions, together with Endless, General Motors, Verizon, Motorola Solutions Foundation, Take-Two Interactive, World Food Program USA, Playing for the Planet, Unity, and Global Game Jam.
About Video games for Change
Since 2004, Video games for Change (G4C) has empowered sport creators and innovators to drive real-world change by video games and immersive media, serving to folks study, enhance their communities, and make the world a greater place. G4C companions with know-how and gaming corporations, nonprofits, foundations, and authorities companies to run world-class occasions, public arcades, design challenges, and youth packages. G4C helps a worldwide group of builders utilizing video games to deal with real-world challenges, from humanitarian conflicts to local weather change and training. For extra info, go to: https://www.gamesforchange.org/.
Media contact(s):
Alyssa Miller
Video games for Change
alyssa@ammediaworks.com
973-615-1292
Susanna Pollack
partnerships@gamesforchange.org
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