In the night air

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Tonight I wish I could share with you the loveliness of the early evening from my front porch. Before me are hills, a farmer's fields, a small NE-style housing development under construction, and thunder clouds wrapped in sunset hues. Behind me, hundreds of acres of woods and the evening song of birds—like wood winds on the night air.

In my mind however is Africa, the US, gender, the nature of violence, and the power of youth to create change. The Emergent Media Center has received a grant from the UNFPA to create a game targeted towards ending violence against women. Our initial audience will be young African males. 

Ray and I have been interviewing students for the project for the past three weeks and we are near decision on it. We will have three teams: two as game production and one as research. There are many questions needing to be answered to make this project successful. Our research team will work towards those answers. The two production teams will create using the co-opetitious model that we have embraced under John Abele's tutelage.

What I am struck with tonight, no in awe of, are the young people who have applied for the positions! From a range of life experiences, with majors stretching from software engineering to marketing to game art, design, programming and to education, they come with passion for positive change. Intuitively they "know" about collaborative creation, the wisdom of the audience, the power of emergent media and games. In them it is evident that future Americans may no longer be US centric, instead I find them true global citizens.

It will be interesting to see how the African night air will impact all of us. 

PS The image tonight is courtesy John Cohn's blog of June 29 after GIV with Ken and Geeda's baby, Rose. Rose has a blog—how cool is that? Also I'd like to point everyone to Lauren's blog. Lauren will be one of the lead designers on the UN project. Reading her blog thoroughly you will understand why. Goodnight all.