Understanding complexity

Developing capacity for decision making in complex systems, and environments for exploring complexity and different viewpoints.

In complex systems, different parts of the system are connected to each other as well as to other parts of the system. Making changes in one system might create a cascading effect on other systems in ways that can be difficult to grasp and overwhelming to those making decisions or affected by them. Furthermore, in complex systems we have to deal with subsystems with different goals that are not always fully aligned or even competing, such as competing interests of different stakeholders. Games can help stakeholders understand complexities and interdependencies in the systems, because they can engage participants and hold their attention for long enough for them to start understanding the complexity.

In this theme, we create gamified environments that help decision-makers to explore system's trade-offs and different viewpoints in a gamified environment to develop capacity for decision making. We also create environments for social exchange, to help the participants (e.g., the communities) explore system's complexity and start co-creating solutions to the messy and wicked problems.