Gaming, Beyond Entertainment
Gaming isn’t just about entertainment anymore.

Developers — including high school students — are now creating games designed both to educate and engage people of all ages on pressing social issues.

Global concerns such as poverty, hunger, climate change, and energy consumption have already been addressed in games that help players understand the complexities involved and explore creative solutions.

As a direct extension of our mission to constantly innovate and provide The Ultimate Visual Experience™, AMD is proud to help advance this movement of evolving digital games into powerful tools for improving our world.

Harness the Power, Learn Life Skills
AMD Changing the Game, an initiative of the AMD Foundation, is designed to help youth at the high school level harness the power of digital games with social content, while learning critical education and life skills. Through the process of developing and playing their own issue-themed games, AMD Changing the Game participants can develop essential skills in science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM skills.

At the same time, students will explore critical thinking, problem solving, project leadership, and contemporary themes of social responsibility. Attention to these critical developmental areas will in turn help participants expand their future educational and professional opportunities as citizens of the 21st Century.

Program Partners
In 2009, the AMD Foundation supported the following non-profit program partner organizations that serve our mission:

• World Wide Workshop Foundation (New York City, NY) and Southwest Key (Austin, TX): Funding the integration of the World Wide Workshop Foundation’s Globaloria Program into the daily curriculum of Southwest Key’s East Austin College Prep Academy
• Skillpoint Alliance (Austin, TX) Funding Game On! , a 4 week project-based internship experience in which twenty high school students will design and produce socially conscious video games
• Parsons The New School (New York City, NY) Funding PETLab, a collaboration between Parsons the New School for Design and Games for Change, to build on the success of the AMD-funded curriculum that PETLab designed for Boys & Girls Clubs of America
• Science Buddies (Carmel, CA) Funding Science Buddies’ Video and Computer Games Interest Area, which helps students understand and practice what is required to design digital games
• The Learning Game Network (Boston, MA): Co-sponsoring with Learning Games Network the A-Ha Moment video contest, which challenges students to share their ideas on how education can and will change with digital games
• 6th Annual Games for Change Festival (New York City, NY) Funding the Let the Games Begin: A 101 Workshop on Making Social Issue Games