Games For Change, a non-profit organization dedicated to using games for social change, will host the 2018 Games For Change Festival in New York City later this month from June 28th through the 30th. The Festival includes tracks focusing on “Civics & Social Issues” and “Neurogaming & Health,” as well as several panels and talks about games for learning:

Beyond Gaming: How Assassin’s Creed Expanded for Learning — Keynote with Maxime Durand, Marc-Andre Ethier, David Lefrancois
Join Maxime Durand as he discusses his work as Franchise Historian of the Assassin’s Creed series at Ubisoft Montreal. Maxime will guide us through the development of Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt, a new educational mode of Assassin’s Creed Origins which allows players to explore and learn about the historic landmarks featured in the game.

From Apps to Nordic Schools: How DragonBox created a full math curriculum with games, toys and storytelling
For the last 2 years, DragonBox worked with Norwegian, Finnish and French teachers to pilot a play-based solution that covers the full math curriculum and involved 1300 school students. This talk will describe the challenges that involved creating a research-based pedagogical design that took into account the needs of students, teachers and administrators (spoiler: it was not easy). DragonBox School is a hybrid solution: games are complemented with multiple printed textbooks and story books: we’ll also analyze why we reached that format rather than going all-digital. We recommend this talk for game creators interested in making real impact in schools.

Beyond Blocks: How Minecraft is Helping Transform STEM Learning
Meenoo Rami, Manager at Microsoft, will moderate a panel of school leaders who will share how Minecraft Education is empowering educators to engage their students in immersive STEM learning.

Tickets for the 2018 Games For Change Festival can be purchased from their official website. And all main stage events will be livestreamed on Facebook.