We want to bring more women in IT, blockchain, and startups and make tech companies more diverse and we do so by gamifying education about entrepreneurship, creating a live community of engaged peers and experts that prioritizes community-building efforts, and an environment where data generated by users belongs to the users and UGC brings income to creators.
Fe/male Switch places participants in a virtual startup village where they role play starting up a business, in an innovative and proprietary approach that we call ‘gamepreneurship’. It is a role-playing game where participants are assigned the role of startup founders, team members, investors or mentors, based on their experience and preferences. A game master guides the groups through a closed ecosystem mirroring business reality, where players are faced with real-life challenges and have the opportunity of observing the outcomes of their actions. The platform, which is currently in pilot mode, is divided into two sections: Skill Lab (apprentice school), the Game (startup simulator), the Marketplace (the economic center of the platform). In the game, participants are assigned tokens that can be spent / invested in the company (e.g., acquiring a better piece of equipment) or in services (e.g., buying the time of a lawyer to help with contracts). As the startup grows, participants move up in the ‘FMS Tower’ and the final module takes them to the best office on the ‘top floor’. The game is entirely free of charge during the pilot mode with the plan of implementing a fee for future access to the community. Participants receive a certificate detailing their achievements during the program and have a chance to win some prizes if they become the top 5 players of the month.
The main reason why this initiative was established was to enable more women to become entrepreneurs, in order to counteract the low participation of females in entrepreneurship (15% of entrepreneurs in Europe) and in VC funding (7% of total invested in Europe goes to startups with female co-founders). The ‘gamepreneurship’ approach has the following objectives: (1) To help participants develop their entrepreneurial thinking and business mind-set; (2) To improve their IT-knowledge, digital skills, teamwork, soft-skills, and internal capacity; (3) To steer them towards preparing their own startup that fits SDGs and utilizes advanced deep tech; and (4) To help users understand the key stakeholders involved (mentors, investors, government) through role-play.