Playpower: Bringing 8-Bit Learning to the World
| July 27th, 2010
PopTech 2009 Social Innovation Fellow Derek Lomas from PopTech on Vimeo.
When I ditched my PS3 and other gadgets to make my life simpler I still have the urge to game once in a while. This is where I regained interest in the more “simpler” games found on the Nintendo Entertainment System and The Super NES. 8-bit and 16-bit gaming. I’m a big frantic shooter fan and there are lot’s of these games on the SNES so I decided to buy a 3rd hand SNES. In my surfing session on the web to learn about games I do not know I stumbled upon a great article on RacketBoy. It’s about an organization called PlayPower. What do they do?
The Playpower organization has been developing their unique learning games platform to benefit children in developing nations. There’s no big budget or R&D department because everything has already been laid bare by the original Nintendo Entertainment System. There’s no manufacturing costs either – These 8-bit ‘Famiclone’ systems are already being mass-produced by dozens of Chinese manufacturers. These systems come pre-loaded with a lot of software which have low quality and little to no educational value.
The guys behind Playpower remembered the excellent 8-bit learning software they had available during their youth and thought it was a good idea to get this quality software embedded in the famiclone systems and thus providing better learning tools through a wide spread affordable platform. Check out the great presentation in this post.
The project also needs volunteers so you can sign up to be one on the website from PlayPower