Three interactive games that empower people to improve their physical and mental health have won a unique, online competition. Co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Ashoka's Changemakers, the “Why Games Matter: A Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care” competition discovered innovative computer, video and mobile games that help people manage their health and improve how their health care is provided. The three winners are:

• RePlay: Finding Zoe (Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children, Canada) uses the medium of online video games to promote healthy relationships between girls and boys and inspire youth to challenge the acceptance of violence and unhealthy relationships in their own lives.
• Reach Out! Central (Inspire Foundation, Australia) combines evidence-based mental health content with online gaming technology to create an interactive environment that enables young people to identify and work through issues such as depression, anger and anxiety, thus increasing their ability to cope with challenges.
• Freedom HIV/AIDS, (ZMQ Software Systems, India) uses mobile phone games to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS. The games reach 42 million users across the globe to help control the epidemic and to support people living with HIV/AIDS in prolonging their lives and ensuring better health.

Launched by RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio, which supports innovative ideas that may lead to important breakthroughs in health and health care, the “Why Games Matter” competition drew more than 70 entries from 13 countries. It used an open source competition model developed by Changemakers, an initiative of Ashoka that promotes enterprising solutions to social problems.

The three winners will each receive a $5,000 cash award and have the opportunity to participate in the “Why Games Matter” Change Summit at the 2008 Games for Health conference, the premier event for game developers, researchers, funders and other leaders in this growing field.

The winners were selected through a collaborative review process that paired expert judging with voting by the Changemakers community, a global network of social entrepreneurs. Changemakers staff, together with the judges, narrowed the entries to 14 top finalists. The Changemakers online community then had two weeks to vote for their favorite game innovations, with the top three vote getters.

The judges included: Janice Nall, director, Division of E-Health Marketing at the National Center for Health Marketing, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Chinwe Onyekere, RWJF program officer; David Rejeski, director, Serious Games Initiative, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and; Dr. Albert “Skip”Rizzo, research scientist and research professor, Institute for Creative Technologies and School of Gerontology, University of Southern California.

“The entries were impressive for their breadth and their focus on issues such as mental health and gender relations that games haven't traditionally addressed,” said competition judge David Rejeski of the Serious Games Initiative. “Open competitions like this are extremely valuable in shining a light on very exciting ideas, especially from people outside the US, that might not otherwise come to the attention of the games and health communities.”

To select the finalists, the panel of judges evaluated entries according to the following three criteria:

• Innovation: How the game could transform health and health care by focusing on greater simplicity, lowering cost or enhancing convenience of services to help consumers be better informed and empowered to advocate for their health.
• Social Impact: Does the game have a large-scale impact that goes beyond one village or community? Can it be replicated in other places or settings? What impact is it having already in a given area or field?
• Sustainability: Is there a plan for long-term financial and other support to continue the game innovation?

“The competition brought forth many exciting and effective games that demonstrate the power of this medium to communicate vital health information and motivate people to take charge of their health,” said Onyekere. “The Foundation is proud to have sponsored Why Games Matter, and we're excited that the competition has expanded the discussion of how games can continue to benefit health and health care.”

The “Why Games Matter” competition was the last in a series of three competitions that the Pioneer Portfolio has undertaken with Changemakers. The first competition focused on ending intimate partner violence and the second on disruptive innovations in health and health care.

“Partnering with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on this series of competitions has brought to the surface many creative and innovative ideas,” said Charlie Brown, executive director of Changemakers. “We are gratified that the Changemakers open source competition model has helped to unearth promising innovations, as well as engage social entrepreneurs around the world in the search for solutions to some of today's most pressing health and health care challenges.”

For the past two years, RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio has supported the Games for Health Project, an initiative working to build the community of experts focused on ways that computer and video game design and development can improve health and health care. RWJF also recently announced an $8.25 million grant to launch Health Games Research, a national program to enhance the quality and impact of interactive games used to improve health, and to continue the efforts of the Games for Health Project.

Note to Editors: Descriptions of the 14 finalists are attached and can also be found at
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/competition/healthgames.

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. The Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative ideas and projects that may trigger important breakthroughs in health and health care. Projects in the Pioneer Portfolio are future-oriented and look beyond conventional thinking to explore solutions at the cutting edge of health and health care.

For more than 35 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime.

About Changemakers
Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Changemakers focuses on the rapidly growing world of social innovation. It provides solutions and resources needed to help everyone become a changemaker and presents compelling stories that explore the fundamental principles of successful social innovation around the world. Changemakers is building the world's first global online "open source" community that competes to surface the best social solutions, and then collaborates to refine, enrich, and implement those solutions. Changemakers begins by providing an overarching intellectual framework for collaborative competitions that bring together individual social change initiatives into a more powerful whole. For details, visit www.changemakers.net.