City Resilience – The Go Game
Natural disasters, floods and aging infrastructure are some of the biggest city resilience issues Bangkok has, and The World Bank is assisting it in facing them. In November 2017, we were invited to catalyze an event that brought together World Bank leaders from Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Ghana, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Panama, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. And what better “glue” to bring everything together, than The Go Game experience? 🙂
What is city resilience, you might wonder?
Cities face a growing range of adversities and challenges in the 21st century. From the effects of climate change to growing migrant populations to inadequate infrastructure to pandemics to cyber-attacks. Resilience is transforming the cities in the face of these challenges, helping them to prepare for both the expected and the unexpected.
City resilience does not sound very appealing, right? However, how can we make it fun?
Through play, of course!
We were very excited when our client, the World Bank, asked us to deliver The Go Game experience in Bangkok, covering many of the interest points in the city’s resilience plan. The purpose of this activity was to create awareness on how a city like Bangkok can have a sustainable growth. Moreover, we were happy to find out that the administration invests a lot of money in creating big projects that, on a long term, will save the city.
What we did?
What we know best: designing and delivering fun and exciting immersive learning experiences through our Go Game platform. For this special occasion, we have created a play map for participants to discover Bangkok, have fun and explore the idea of making this city a better one for its citizens. We focused on the development of the One Bangkok project and the Benchasiri Park, two of the administration projects that plan to create benefits for the Bangkok population.
Let us take the Benchasiri Park, for example. It has multiple health and wellbeing opportunities for its citizens (fitness equipment, art sculptures that are proven to impact people’s state of mind). This experience not only raised awareness on how Bangkok is evolving, but it also helped our participants learn more about each country’s projects.
The results?
An educative and fun experience for all of us!
Also, our participants “met” Bangkok through a different perspective. They involved in resolving creative missions and they felt the issues the city is facing and some of the potential solutions.
We were also delighted to see that even Dr. Supachai Tantikom, the chief resilience officer in Bangkok played the game and invested his time into exploring the city with the other participants.
For us, the Go Game in Bangkok represented an amazing experience! It helped us understand how the administration should get involved in developing a city infrastructure. It also gave us an idea on how private and public sector can work together for a greater good.
Having participants from all over the world gave each of us the chance to discover new ways to build a resilient city and we discover how other countries are fighting natural disasters.
In the end, we would like to thank The World Bank for giving us the vote of confidence. It might have only been a drop in an ocean, but it sure was a pleasure to be a little part of this ocean!