Oxford builds a LIFE-changing game

More than 100 donors were inspired to give in excess of £60,000 to a project aimed at protecting the health of children in Africa, following the launch of a crowdfunding campaign last year.

Through the development of an innovative scenario-based mobile gaming platform, the LIFE project (Life-saving Instruction for Emergencies) aims to give healthcare workers the knowledge they need to provide life-saving treatment to newborns, children, mothers and others.

The money raised is now enabling the team to construct a prototype of the game, which is now being user tested in Kenya and the UK. It teaches healthcare workers the latest World Health Organisation guidelines, and contains built-in reminders to stay up-to-date and refresh what has been learned. There are also plans to link it with a professional accreditation strategy.

Professor Mike English, Consultant Paediatrician and Senior Research Fellow at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust in Nairobi says: ‘Face-to-face training is very expensive to provide, and is hard to deliver at high coverage across large countries with dispersed health facilities. If you set up the correct infrastructure, you can reach a much greater number of people, far more efficiently through a platform like LIFE.’