The AMD Foundation has selected four non-profit organizations to receive pilot year support from AMD Changing the Game:

• Girlstart (Austin, TX): Girlstart is a non-profit organization created to empower
  
  girls in the subjects of math, science, and technology. AMD’s grant will enable 60 high school girls to examine gender equity in gaming, explore the power of video games to effect social change, and (in partnership with Global Kids) will develop a social awareness event on Teen Second Life.
  
  
• Global Kids (Brooklyn, NY): Global Kids  seeks to transform urban youth into successful students and community leaders. Through its grant to Global Kids' Playing for Keeps program, AMD has joined The Microsoft Corporation in enabling 20 young people from underserved communities to work with game developers to develop, create, and distribute a game about the heroic role of residents during Hurricane Katrina. Last year, young people in the Playing for Keeps program worked with game developers to create the award-winning game Ayiti: The Cost of Life, which allows players to assume the role of impoverished people living in rural Haiti with the goal of meeting some key health, education and quality of life challenges.
  
  
• Institute for Urban Game Design (Washington DC): IUGD is a nonprofit organization teaching science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills through the hands-on creation of digital games. Beginning in the summer of 2008, AMD’s grant will enable 40 IUGD participants at McKinley Technology High School to apply their learning in 3-D modeling, animation, and computer programming to the development of a game focused on the issue of energy usage. Students will learn about and explore the social issues associated with different types of energy.
  
  
• Science Buddies (Carmel, CA): Science Buddies is a national, non-profit organization based in California's Silicon Valley offering a variety of web-based tools that help K-12 students explore science through research-based projects often done at Science Fairs and other school and community events. AMD¹s grant will enable Science Buddies to launch a Video and Computer Games Interest Area on its site aimed at helping students understand and practice what is required to design digital games. AMD volunteers will work with Science Buddies staff scientists to develop project ideas to spark student interest in exploring topics such as human behavior in games, ergonomics, game design and programming and the incorporation of social or educational content in games.
  
  
• Games for Change Festival (New York, NY): AMD is a proud sponsor of the 5th Annual Games for Change Festival which is dedicated to creating and using digital games for positive social change. The Festival will take place on June 3-4, 2008, in New York City at Parsons The New School for Design. AMD is sponsoring an all-day pre-festival workshop for non-profits that will cover the fundamentals of social-issues gaming, provide an overview of the field, and examine emerging game titles.

AMD Changing the Game helps kids enhance their professional and educational skill sets, learn about civics and citizenship, develop a global perspective, and enhance their ability to contribute solutions to the social issues most relevant to their lives.

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