Reach For Change is a non-profit organization that helps selected entrepeneurs who work with childrens and youths rights. These entrepeneurs are called “Change Leaders” and we are very proud to say that we have a couple of Change Leaders in our midst.
Rosie Linder and former FutureGames student Jesper Engström are the co-owners of eQidz, a company that strives to help young children develop their emotional intelligence through friendly and fun games. Their first game, Peppy Pals, is set be released in April. Rosie and Jesper were quite recently selected to become Change Leaders, which gives eQidz a unique opportunity to really stand out amongst other apps on the market as a high quality product.
Reach for Change isn’t the only organization that reckognizes the potential in eQidz; the company is also supported by business incubators Almi and STING (Stockholm Innovation and growth) as well as SUP46 (Start-up people of Sweden). They also have whole team of video game researchers and psychologists helping them make the game as good as possible.
Congratulations Jesper and Rosie! Tell us a bit about your journey with eQidz?
Jesper: I was studying at FutureGames with some of my friends, with whom I founded Talawa Games towards the end of our education. Rosie came by the school when most of us were stressed out over finding internships and told us about her idea. I thought it sounded really interesting and talked more about it with her afterwards. It wasn’t until at least 6 months agter that before our roads crossed again and that’s when we decided to turn her dream into reality together with Talawa Games.
Rosie: I remember visiting FutureGames and pitching my idea but the general interest was pretty low. Jesper was the only one who came up to me afterwards and told me that he liked my idea and that he also wanted to change the world through games.
Jesper: It has been a pretty rough road since then. We had no money and we were trying to get a deal with Universal but after hundreds of meetings with all kinds of inspiring people we decided to create our own IP instead. We had a pretty strong idea for a game so we felt confident in going our own way and in early 2013 Talawa Games became a co-owner to eQidz. We’ve been working on the game ever since.
We have had our ups and downs and it is hard to push through when it seems like the whole world is against you and you have nothing to eat but rye bread, but we finally got some reckognition of the fact that we are doing something very important and we are not going to give up.
Rosie: I know that a lot of the students want to make traditional games, even though there are lots of them already. My advice to the students is that they see themselves as world changers and that they shouldn’t be afraid of trying something innovative. Remember that gamification is a very big trend right now and that games can be a very powerful tool for changing the world.
We are very happy to see things working out so well for Rosie, Jesper and eQidz. If you want to follow Rosie and Jespers journey, you can read their blog at http://reachforchange.org/eqidz/.
Peppy Pals: https://www.facebook.com/PeppyPals
Talawa Games: https://www.facebook.com/talawagames
eQidz: https://www.facebook.com/eqidz
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Antonio Obeid is a Lebanese student attending Futuregames Warsaw remotely, due to difficult times.
