The best thing about being invited to conferences is not the chance to spread the word about your work (though I do enjoy doing that), but the opportunity you get to learn about the good work others are doing.

Take Games for Change, an outfit I came to know about when Suzanne Seggerman, the organization’s president and co-founder, gave the keynote address at a media conference at the University of Central Florida that I’ve been invited to here in Orlando. Games for Change serves as a gathering place and promoter for socially aware video games. Indeed, every year it hosts a festival for such games that has been dubbed the “Sundance for socially conscious game-makers.” Among the games it has nurtured are “Darfur Is Dying,” and “Peacemaker,” where the player can choose to be either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president and work toward a lasting settlement. Another game in a similar vein is “A Force More Powerful,” where participants can plan strategies of nonviolent change.

Some of us may scoff at video games, but Seggerman revealed that 70 percent of all Americans play them at least occasionally, including 97 percent of teenagers. The White House has recognized their importance and is consulting with Games for Change to develop games to encourage science and math learning.

The progressive video games that Games for Change has fostered have been played millions of times by adults and teenagers around the world. The broader effects of this role-playing can certainly be debated. But wouldn’t you rather have people imagining that they’re intervening in Darfur rather than engaging in a grand theft of an automobile?

Amitabh Pal is the Managing Editor of The Progressive magazine. To subscribe for just $14.97 a year, just click here.