PrepBiz was developed by the New Orleans-based PrepWorld, which specializes in emergency preparedness and disaster management consultancy, in May of 2014 in response to the increase in the frequency of disasters that disproportionately affects youth and teens and the lack of educational material for that vulnerable population.
The new gamification app educates children, youth, adults and visually impaired individuals on best practice recommendation responses to disasters, hazards and active shooter incidents.
The platform is seeking support for its recently launched crowdfunding campaign, “Keeping Safe is Disasters,” now up on gofundme.com. To date, PrepBiz has raised $2,001 out of the $75,000 goal by 27 people in 29 days.
PrepBiz, which is a collaborative effort between PrepWorld, Marvel Comics and Gamedesk, recognizes how gamification can engage young learners by speaking their language. The ultimate mission is to develop the next generation model of education: “engagement knowledge.”
The creators believe that there is no doubt that gamification is an important and powerful weapon in the arsenal for learning, behavioral change and engagement knowledge.
Founder Kenneth Bibbins said PrepBiz makes the learning experience dynamic by collaborating the objective of education with the fun and engagement of gamification using technology that ends up in the hands of the learner as players learn key concepts in disaster risk reduction and mitigation which increases the chances of success later when a similar task has to be performed or unsafe situation avoided in real life dangers.
The platform is an audio-only action/adventure game for mobile phones, tablets and computers where ears replace eyes through a technology that enables binaural sound. Players are guided only by 3D sound and live the adventure by controlling their characters with multi-point tactile gestures.
“I am very excited about the visually impaired application,” said Bibbins. “It’s intriguing because games themselves are not new, they’ve been played in the earliest civilization–however we’ve reached a confluence of technology and design where games have become ubiquitous and seem to have a unique ability to engage when we most need it.”
To find out more about the crowdfunding campaign, visit gofundme.com/prepbiz.