Our vision is that every voice be heard, and our collective wisdom
as a citizenry be tapped, to craft policy on the important issues of
our day.

Our Mission:

We help progressive organizations and the public sector when they must reach consensus. We offer in-person and online tools to address issues for which seeking agreement is an ongoing engagement.

Incorporating the community engagement framework of Games for Democracy into your events will give your organization the rich and nuanced
insights, and actionable results, that our in-person and online
games produce.

Games for Democracy applies serious games to:

• democratic discourse
• participatory governance
• collaborative problem-solving

We can help you with:

• service design and delivery
• public participation
• resource allocation & prioritization

From the local level to the global, G4D brings to bear the powerful effects of play to strengthen democratic and collaborative processes, produce better policy, and better deploy public resources. We also work in the nonprofit realm to help progressive organizations succeed in better serving their clientele. Playing serious games with your clients or coworkers strengthens relationships, and produces rich engagement that fosters creativity and innovation.

Games for Democracy is powered by the technology of The Innovation Games® Company. Innovation Games are serious games that power collaboration and innovation. They leverage research from cognitive psychology and organizational behavior. The games can be played in person or online and in single or multi-game (tournament) formats. By playing the games, we gain understanding of the nation's pulse on issues that matter. Unlike voting or polling, the games are collaborative and the results are a measure of our collective intelligence and wisdom.

What makes Innovation Games unique?

• Playing the games creates a relaxed, less rigid environment and increases creativity.
• The games utilize verbal, written, visual and non-verbal forms of communication, thereby providing greater volumes of information.
• And yes, they are FUN.

The Innovation Games Company has a proven history of efficacy in the corporate setting. You can visit their site or read Luke Hohmann's book.

Beyond that, serious play and serious games are supported by a large body of literature and research already proving their effectiveness, which is why they are the subject of funding in the EU as well as in the corporate sector.

We recognize that we are at a specific place and time in history where our communications and computational infrastructure, now collectively known as the Internet, provides enabling technology for a fundamental shift in democratic dialogue and — ultimately — participation in and execution of the democratic process. What is less well developed are the cultural technologies and conceptual strategies that are just as necessary to usher in this transformation. We see in serious games the tools to help us bootstrap these cultural and conceptual tools.

Therefore, Games for Democracy has been formed to:

• Apply serious games to vitally important global and national debates, using Internet-based technologies, to achieve national and global participation in play-as-dialogue
• Provide services to those organizations that would like to apply serious games to the dialogue, discourse, and debates they seek to support and nourish.

THE FOUNDERS

   Luke Hohmann, Managing Director

Luke is a recognized expert on agile product management of software products and a former senior software product manager at four companies. He is also the author of three books and numerous articles on software product management. He is a frequent speaker at software and other industry events.

Before founding Enthiosys in 2003, Luke was vice president of business development in the US for Aladdin Knowledge Systems; vice president of engineering and product development at Aurigin Systems Inc.; education technical director at ObjectSpace Inc.; and vice president of systems engineering at EDS Fleet Services.

He loves his job, and is happiest when he’s helping his clients build great products and services. He especially enjoys watching clients get excited about creating new products and services as a result of playing Innovation Games® with their customers, integrating these into new product development practices, and creating them through architecturally sustainable Agile methods.

Luke’s counsel is sought far and wide. He is currently a member of the Agile Alliance, having been involved for more than a decade in the Agile community. He is also senior advisor to OpenView Venture Partners. Luke has been a featured presenter at numerous conferences including the Software Development Best Practices 2006 and 2007 conferences, aGile 2007 / 2008 / 2009, The Spring Experience, and The Better Software Conference & Expo. He has also been a guest lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Information. He is a member of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the IEEE.

Luke graduated magna cum laude with a BSE in computer engineering and an MSE in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. In addition to data structures and artificial intelligence, he studied cognitive psychology and organizational behavior. He is a former National Junior Pairs Figure Skating Champion, as well as a certified aerobics instructor. In his spare time, Luke likes his wife’s cooking, and roughhousing with his four kids. He also enjoys long runs in the Santa Cruz mountains to burn off his wife’s cooking.

Greg Meredith, Managing Director, Technology

Greg Meredith has supported his math habit by working in computing. He was the principal architect of Microsoft’s BizTalk’s Process Orchestration offering and took on the burden of contributing to the early WSDL spec to keep it from being more of a train wreck than it is. He also worked on Microsoft’s super secret BigTop project, working on an OS and Programming Language pair, based on process calculi. Prior to that he was one of the core members of the Carnot Team at the first industrial research consortium, the now defunked MCC. There he worked with Christine Tomlinson on Rosette/ESS, a fully reflective actor-based programming language with a high performance execution engine. Greg is a Trained Innovation Games® Facilitator.

   Stani Meredith, MBA

Stani is a Managing Partner of Biosimilarity, LLC, a Premier Bespoke Software Systems, Web Design and Engagement Management consultancy.
Prior to Biosimilarity she worked at Microsoft, The Cobalt Group - a digital marketing firm and several high tech startups.
Stani is the Co-Founder and Engagement Strategist of the non profit organization Games for Democracy whose mission is to promote democratic discourse through the use of serious games, both online and in person.
Stani holds a B.S. in Software Engineering and an MBA from St. Martin's University. She completed a Web Design Certificate Program from the Art Institute of Seattle and is an Innovation Games ® Trained Facilitator.
She is also a mother of three children and a student of Bikram Yoga.

   Joel Palmer, Community Relations Manager

Joel has had a diverse career, most recently as writing coach and editor with specialties in science and technology, novels, and autobiographies. He has worked as a research hydraulic engineer for the US Water Conservation Laboratory, and managed environmental regulation programs for the States of Iowa and Oregon. Joel has held a variety of positions with not-for-profit natural resources, community mediation, and arts organizations. He has been both a mediator and consulting engineer in private practice.

Joel is a Trained Innovation Games® Facilitator. He earned BS and MS degrees in Agricultural Engineering from Iowa State University and has more than 400 hours of training in mediation, facilitation, and conflict management. Joel is a performing and studio musician, and has released several CDs of ambient and atmospheric electronica. He is the author of the novel Fugue State: Saddam Dreams.

Notes:

The “Every Voice Heard” tag line was suggested to Games for Democracy by Lyssa Adkins, a trained facilitator and well known Agilist.

Our logo was designed by 8-yr old Naomi Meredith, student at the Salmon Bay alternative public school in Seattle.