Guinness World Record Attempt for Winnipeg's Inner City Youth

Helping Inner-City Youth through Video Games

Several years ago at an inner-city mission in Winnipeg there was a car club for youth. The premise was to procure an old beater, teach the kids to fix it up, and then take it to the Red River Co-Op Speedway to compete in their racing league. The kids were responsible for so much of the pit crew but if they kept their marks up, their noses clean, and contributed to the program - when they turned 16, they became eligible to also be one of the racers in that league.

The program was immensely successful in building community with kids through a creative project. It had the added benefit of teaching job skills for when these kids who were destined to the work force. Sadly, a few years ago the leaders of the program moved out of province and it could not continue without their leadership.

Enter Geekdom House and video games.

What if we could replicate a similar program but replace cars with video games? 

Teach kids to make video games? That's crazy. Well, so we thought. That was probably true half a decade ago however with the introduction of numerous materials that allow lay programmers make elaborate games with simple dragging/dropping of resources - the dream isn't that far off anymore. The biggest hindrance is creativity.

This is what we're banking on: the creativity of kids. And through that building deep community and lasting relationships.

Impact of the Program

One of the primary questions a video game company asks potential employees is: what games have you taken to market? It's important because they need to know that you understand the industry from start to finish. The problem is that video game developer schools are a dime a dozen now and churn out such varied skill levels that on a resume it is difficult to gauge their ability.

A program like this takes a game from concept to creation to market and youth in the program have a clear head-start over their peers in breaking into this industry. 

Additionally, should the games they create and take to market start to sell - the plan is to take those funds and put it back into the program as scholarships for the youth to continue their education should they choose.

The Record

The record for longest consecutive playing of a fighting video game currently stands at 48 hours. A record that Daniel Bergman believes he can beat and wants to do that for charity.

He will begin on August 17th, 2016 at 7pm and successfully break the record on Friday August 19th at 7:01pm. The event through its entirty is open to the public (After Dark Lounge - 121 Osborne St.).

* Guinness does make accommodation for earned rest periods for the safety of the record breaker to ensure the record is safely broken.

So what is Geekdom House?

One of the questions we frequently get when explaining Geekdom House is: "So you guys just sit around playing video games all day?" The subtext to that is: why should I financially support your mission if that's what you are doing?

The answer is no, we don't. Our mission is not to play video games all day; it is from our Christian faith to love and serve geek culture. 

In the 2015 NHL Stanley Cup Finals, an estimated 9 million people tuned in to watch the Chicago Blackhawks take home the prize. Four months later, 45 million people tuned in to watch the League of Legends World Championship. Yes, League of Legends is a video game. Those numbers give you a small window of how prominent video game (and subsequently geek) culture has become in North America and the world. 

For Geekdom House, our primary focus is to make creative contributions that inspire faith-filled discussion and safe community. By working on artistic projects together or competing together on an video game team - we are building relationships. The best way to understand that is that by through the arts and sports we build community.

Geekdom House is a charitable project under Equip Canada (www.equipinternational.org) which is a registered charity in Canada. Some of the Geekdom House projects include a magazine, a choir, a podcast, bible studies, and other youth events. All of them focus on some aspect of artistic expression as a way of building community.

Fundraising

Already we have a handful of computer science professors, local major and indie video game developers, and volunteers at the ready - to make it a reality. Funds raised through the Guinness World Record Attempt by Daniel Bergman will go directly towards making the initially funding and get this program off the ground.