July 17, 2008

This week, Governor Perry addressed the Entertainment Software Associations convention.  ESA is dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies that publish computer and video games for video game consoles, personal computers, and the Internet.  

In his keynote address, the Governor gave a neat nod to my “Williams Innovators” summer camps.

“Will that game save lives by preparing soldiers for the unexpected challenges of a peacekeeping role? Will you devise a game that could help an abusive parent learn more constructive approaches to discipline? Will you build online community that better connects the elderly with multiple generations? Will you reach back to your own past and harness that youthful idealism and use it to help the next generation?

Consider a good friend of mine, a man named Michael Williams, who happens to be Railroad Commissioner back in Texas. For reasons that would take too long to explain in this setting, the Texas Railroad Commission oversees our oil and gas industry. Hey, we’re Texas, we do things our own way.

So, Commissioner Williams has nothing to do with railroads, but Michael is still a guy who puts children on journeys. This summer, Michael has sponsored two camps in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, presenting a program that leverages a child’s interest in video games as a way to teach them math and science.

Williams has challenged his campers, drawn largely from urban communities, to design video games that solve simple challenges, and, in the process, show them the value of technical learning. Working with the program’s founder, a group called “Be The Game,” along with the Institute of Urban Game Design and the Today Foundation, Williams is advancing a model that I hope will spread nationwide. This is just another example of the power of video games, a medium whose potential is only beginning to be tapped.”

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