One Week: The Online Policy Simulation Game
The 10th annual GPPN Conference, hosted by the Sciences Po School of Public Affairs, featured students' solution oriented ideas and prototypes to address public policy challenges identified by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To participate, each GPPN member school carefully selected up to five student teams to present their projects and compete for the GPPN prize. The result: 32 teams from around the world met in Paris to showcase their ideas on how to solve some of the most pressing global challenges of today.
One Week was selected as one of the six GPPN finalists at the annual conference.
One Week is an online simulation game that allows policy-makers to experience some of the challenges faced by people with limited resources, over the period of a week. Through different profiles, players are able to experience what it’s like to live in another person’s shoes. When playing One Week, a participant would be exposed to a variety of scenarios faced by people with different profiles. For example, meet Alicia Pang: a divorced mother of a 7 month old, who encounters a variety of challenges in her day-to-day living. Unless you are a single parent yourself, it is undeniably difficult to understand and empathize with the frustrations and concerns faced by one. One Week not only outlines the various scenarios encountered, but also confronts players with the social and emotional consequences of their decisions. When members of the public play the game, it is hoped that they would be more compassionate to the plight of their family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors, thereby strengthening the kampung spirit, on a global scale. Finally, when policy-makers and public policy practitioners themselves play this game, it is hoped that by putting themselves in the shoes of the less privileged, they would be in a better position to design policies to address their needs.
Meet the team
Norshahira Abdul Aziz is in her final year pursuing her Masters in Public Policy (MPP) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She received her Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honors in Psychology) from the National University of Singapore in 2010. Prior to joining the MPP program, Shahira held appointments at the Ministry of Communications and Information as well as Yayasan MENDAKI in Singapore. She is interested in the behavioral sciences, and in viewing political behavior through the lenses of cognitive and social psychology. An optimist, she also hopes for the reconciliation of civilizations.
Interested in learning more about the GPPN programs and degrees? Find out here!
