$430K Ed-sim Challenge

Hololens Reality News

The US Department of Education has put together a competition called the EdSim Challenge with a $680,000 purse to facilitate next-gen education. The event calls upon augmented and virtual reality, as well as video game developers, to bring immersive simulation concepts to prepare the workforce of the future.

In the 58 years since Tennis for Two—the game that inspired Pong—was born, video games have slowly become a big part of modern life, but mostly in the last few years. In the year 2000, video games were a $7.98 billion dollar industry. In 2014, the reported revenue was $83.6 billion—more than double the film industry's $36.4 billion of the same year for theatrical releases. Video games have finally moved past the "awkward teen sitting in his mother's basement" phase and are downright taking over the entertainment sector.

The concept of gamification is a system that rewards users for finishing assigned tasks, often times with larger rewards at particular points to keep the user motivated to get to the next level. Offering point systems and rewards for accomplishing achievements seems a natural progression to motivate the generations that have grown up surrounded by Zelda, Mario, and Pokémon.