TESTING: Program Page

The Play4Tomorrow Academy Fellowship is broken up into 3 parts: Education, Internship, and Community Service. You are required to complete each part in order to move to the next and eventually graduate. Graduation allows access to all Play4Tomorrow events, future paid and unpaid collaborations on Play4Tomorrow partner projects, and a robust community of like-minded individuals who care deeply about creating beautiful opportunities for youth worldwide.

The program is designed to equip young learners with the skills to compete with the best international technologists and youth development experts. Inspired by some of the world’s leading innovation learning centers (Stanford Center for Design Research, Kozmetsky Global Collaboratory, Stanford d.School, Stanford Technology Venture Program, MIT Media Lab, and Startups in Action), this program takes leading edge academics and applies it to real-world projects. It has been prepared after years of practice and research with thousands of elite high school interns, university students, and adult technology startup founders.

If you embrace the culture and learning within our organization, we whole-heartedly believe you can design massive transformational change in your own life and begin to engineer a much more brilliant future for yourself, your community, and the world.

All the best & as always,

PLAYER READY!

-Brian Bulcke

Partner, Play4Tomorrow

Director, Rocketship Foundation

PLAY4TOMORROW ACADEMY

Play4Tomorrow is an internationally recognized group of technology startup, gaming, and social impact experts who share the common goal of providing educational experiences for younger students to design their lives and engineer the future. With the power of design, technology, and storytelling, we have collectively created content, products, and services for millions of youth worldwide. The Play4Tomorrow Academy is the flagship online training ecosystem of all our combined efforts that has supported the development and education of over 3000 elite high school students, 1000 university students, and over 200 corporate and adult trainees. More information about Play4Tomorrow and its areas of expertise can be found in Appendix A.

Graduates display a real-world mastery of both design and technology through several months of practice and exercise on real-world projects (including their own). We cannot guarantee graduation, though we can guarantee an incredibly rich learning environment that will push personal limits and support learners from a global context. Post graduation, learners gain lifelong access to our professional networking events, new online workshops, and a range of special community service opportunities.

Who should apply?

University or college students (above 18 years old) with a sincere passion for learning are prime candidates. Secondly, we encourage students curious about volunteer work or careers in high-growth technology, youth development, public sector initiatives, and/or charitable causes. There is no previous technology experience required and we accept applications from all departments and fields of study.

How can I apply?

You need to submit a tested prototype to one of our open Academy Challenges (ie. public game or lifehack workshops hosted by Play4Tomorrow). We also accept private referrals from Play4Tomorrow Partners, Academy Alumni, or Graduated University Fellows.

How much does it cost?

There is no cost to university students that have been formally accepted into our program. Everyone who has been notified of a successful application will receive workshops, educational bootcamps, internship, and community service training at zero personal cost. As a point of reference, we charge $5,800USD per participant for our adult accelerator and corporate training programs.

PART I: EDUCATION

Daily Bootcamps: Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, 7AM to 8AM, 8 Weeks (2 Months)
Weekly Deliverables & Discussion: Project-Based, Online Submissions with 1-on-1 Coaching and Feedback
Monthly Workshops: Friday Night Sessions held at the end of the month year-round

Daily Bootcamps

45mins: Individual Project-Based Activity

10mins: Group-Based Reflections

5mins: Play4Tomorrow Key Learnings

Submit completed activity during or post bootcamps via online portal (make sure to include your name, project title, hero image, link to submission, link to updated personal website, and a reflection)

Final deadline to submit weekly deliverables tied to Bootcamps is Sunday at NOON ET each week.

If you submit by Saturday NOON ET each week - you get a personal 1-on-1 review from a Play4Tomorrow Coach or Instructor. You are allowed and encouraged to re-submit based on Saturday’s coaching and feedback (delivered to you by Saturday at 5PM ET).

Weekly Submissions are essential to program completion. You MUST complete a previous week’s activity and submission before attending and submitting the following week’s activity. If you miss two weeks of submissions in a row, you will be asked to leave the program.

Winter 2022 Bootcamp Itinerary and Details:

Jan 17/18/1 (7-8am): Week 1 - ABC’s of the Play4Tomorrow Academy
Jan 21 (6-9pm): First Friday Session - Life Hacking 101 (‘hello world’)
Jan 24/25/26 (7-8am): Week 2 - Advanced Design Thinking
Jan 31/1/2 (7-8am): Week 3 - Educational Gaming
Feb 7/8/9 (7-8am): Week 4 - High-Growth Technology
Feb 14/25/16 (7-8am): Week 5 - Impact Storytelling
Feb 21/22/23 (7-8am): Week 6 - Gifting Economy & Game Wrappers
Feb 25 (6-9pm): Second Friday Session - Intro to P4T Events (‘design royal’)
Feb 28/29/30 (7-8am): Week 7 - Final Review & Collaborative Iteration
March 7/8/9 (7-8am): Week 8 - Internship Assignment & Silicon Valley Etiquette Training

Weekly Deliverables & Topic Discussion

Before the program begins, and as the program continues to grow, please use the Discord channel for discussion between fellows and Play4Tomorrow moderators. Some of the most amazing learning has happened out of training sessions and during intense online debates, co-working sessions, and during the shared frenzy of submitting all your weekly deliverables on time. We will all be learning from each other, including Play4Tomorrow learning from you!

Access to weekly or ‘area-specific’ content can be found on the Youtube page. Detailed in Appendix B, we also have a weekly collection of books that you can find online (various free ressources if you search hard enough). This content will be re-shared every week. New content will be added weekly by Play4Tomorrow coaches and instructors. We will be asking you to help us find new and compelling content as you gain confidence on the subject matters via activities, discussions, and independent research.

We will be creating a Fellowship ‘Extra Mile Group’ on top of existing programming. Individuals can join coaches and instructors on Saturday afternoons for fellowship submission reviews, partake in additional discussions on weekly content, open Q&A, and special projects. No additional application required and there is no long-term commitment. In other words, you can show up to no Saturdays, every Saturday, or just a few. The only commitment is that you show up on time and stay for the entire session (running roughly 3 hours). The metaphor we like to use is the act of ‘watching film’ in professional sports, the top athletes watch hours and hours of review on themselves, their opponents, and learn new strategies to apply to their body of work.

Monthly Friday Night Workshops

We will work together as a group and occasionally with other groups to solve large challenge statements, learn new skills, and unlock new levels of community building. Just like the bootcamp, these are mandatory events that take place under timed conditions with individual deliverables and pre-determined learning outcomes. These workshops will continue through both Part II and Part III of the fellowship and are detailed in Appendix C.

Jan 21 [6-9pm ET]: Hacking 101 [ie. Academy Challenge Part 2]

Feb 25 [6-9pm ET]: Design Royale [Private Group Challenge]

Mar 25 [6-9pm ET]: Design Royale [Public Group Challenge]

Apr 29 [6-9pm ET]: Design Royale [Private Group Challenge]

May 27 [6-9pm ET]: Special Event [final date/time subject to change]

June 24 [6-9pm ET]: Impact Day Walkthrough [Trial Run of Final Showcase]

If you graduate, you will be asked to participate in our July 2nd Impact Day, where your final project will be presented to Academy Cadets, Play4Tomorrow Partners, and potential online channels.

PART II: INTERNSHIP

Fellows will be paired or grouped into small teams of 2-3. Teams will be assigned to specific projects with Play4Tomorrow and its partners. Projects may include work with, but are not limited to, Stanford University, Zero Degree Project, Kauffman Foundation, Concussion Legacy Foundation, You Can Play Project, Kansas City Royals, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, Canadian Football League, Business Development Bank of Canada, TVO, Roblox, TeachAids, The First Years, Curv Health, jiiWA, OpenSports, XMovement, Procode Six, Tecnec, Push, Athletigen, Unilingo, Happy Dawg, Mastery Mindset, and a range of internal Play4Tomorrow initiatives. Previous projects can be seen in Appendix D.

With no more mandatory morning bootcamps, fellows are expected to complete 8 continuous weeks of 10 hours per week of autonomous and self-directed learning through their active research, ideation, creation, and limited user-testing of projects. The internship will also feature the monthly workshops continuing from ‘Part I: Education’. Attendance to these workshops will be required as they will further individual work as well as provide greater insights and learning from the other projects.

Team meetings will be held on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on Play4Tomorrow, partner and fellow availability. Every team meeting will include the fellows assigned to the specific project and a representative from Play4Tomorrow to help review previous work and guide next steps. Third party project partners (foundations, technology companies, or social impact nonprofits) will participate in that meeting or through the Play4Tomorrow representative as proxy. The summary and outcomes of these meetings will be shared privately on Discord to help increase communal fellowship learning.

It may be helpful to note that the most successful projects from previous years went beyond the mandatory 10 hours and invested roughly 20 hours of independent work per week.

Estimated Internship Start Date: March 14

Estimated Internship End Date: May 6

Reminder of Monthly Workshops on the Friday evening (6-9pm ET) of March 25 and April 29.

PART III: COMMUNITY SERVICE

You will have 6 weeks to summarize all your technical learning from the previous internship. This summary will be presented to Play4Tomorrow in the form of a new game (medium/format of your choosing). The main goal of the game is to inspire and educate English-speaking middle school and high school students from across North and South America. We recommend that you apply your learning from both Part I and Part II to complete this task.

We will group fellows into squads of 4-7, these squads will self-organize, collaborate, and ultimately work together to help level up and upgrade each other's learning games. Squads can form their own communication channels and operating procedures though individual and squad-based reflections will be required at the beginning and end of this part of the program. We will try our best to organize fellows into squads that have similar subject matter in order to solidify the groups mastery of the concepts covered in the internship.

Upon Play4Tomorrow approval, your new technical learning games, your internship projects, and the initial application you submitted will all be featured in a massive showcase event with all our new Play4Tomorrow Academy Cadets (elite middle-school and high-school students from across North and South America), Partners, and Special Guests. Cadets will be playing any or all of your games and providing feedback in line with our culture. Therefore, cadets will be redesigning your inventions during the event and select projects will be taken forward throughout their own summer campaign.

Please note, you will have directly contributed to the education and success of hundreds of youth upon fellowship graduation. These youth will in turn share their creations and inventions with thousands of others. In previous years - and with the help of our partners - we have had games reach over 1.5 million youth in a single calendar year. For previous years’ events and educational impact, please refer to Appendix E.

Start Date: May 9

End Date: June 18

Final Event: July 2

Reminder of Monthly Workshops on the Friday evening (6-9pm ET) of May 27 and June 24.

Closing Remarks & Next Steps

The founders of SpaceX, Tesla, Paypal, Facebook, Instagram, Salesforce, Microsoft, and hundreds more all built video games and story-based technology projects as their first venture into computer science, entrepreneurship, or technology. With the current proliferation of no-code programming tools and other high-growth technologies, we believe that a mastery of the core concepts of game design and the ability to hack your way to a fully-functional prototype can enable you to walk in the steps of giants.

The youtube channel is filled with inspiring videos, walkthroughs, tutorials, and a seemingly endless amount of expert videos. We recommend you subscribe, explore, and start collecting your own video-based additions to our libraries! In a few weeks, everyone will receive links to all the completed application submissions from this year’s and last year’s Ryerson Fellowship. We highly recommend that you explore as many other games as possible.

Thank you for all your efforts and contributions this upcoming year. We look forward to seeing what you imagine, build, and play!

PLAYER READY!

-Academy Cadets, Play4Tomorrow, & all our Partners

APPENDIX A: About Play4Tomorrow

‘The Little Risks you Can Take to Increase Your Luck’

-Stanford Professor Dr. Tina Seelig

(TEDTalk highlighting Play4Tomorrow's work and early backgorund)

‍So what is design thinking?

Taught in institutions like Stanford University, design thinking is both an active and cognitive process encouraging solution-focused forms of learning, decision-making, creative problem solving, prototyping, and user-testing to guide entrepreneurs in creating game-changing designs, products, services, and social movements.

‍So what is gamification & high-growth tech?

Companies like Google, Facebook, and Uber have blossomed into some of the most powerful organizations in the world in a fraction of their predecessors’ time. There exists a very concrete set of patterns that distinguish them from their competition. Utilizing these game-like patterns and an arsenal of ‘no-coding needed’ technology tools, anyone can unlock the same growth potential within any project - big or small.

So what is the new frontier of social justice?

Real, measurable, and tangible proof of social system change. Previously dominated by the world of politics and law, human society has been increasingly dependent on technology and social media as a form of establishing societal norms and human connection. The creation of new forms of technology, media-based storytelling, and social games thus provides the greatest leverage point for changing human narratives and our civilization.

About Play4Tomorrow

We're a team of passionate tech experts, startups founders, and social changemakers who care about coaching technology through the power of play. One of our core partner programs is The New Hero Academy, where high school students unlock full-ride scholarships to their dream colleges while learning design thinking, high-growth tech, and social justice.

Experience our passion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYePzjiYYg

APPENDIX B: Core Program Content & Video Supplements

For over 100 highly-curated and up-to-date educational videos organized according to our program material, please visit: THE NEW HERO ACADEMY YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

Week 1 (Area A, B, & C: Self-Development) Suggested Reading:

7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Step-by-step guide on forming superhuman habits)

The 8th Habit (The most important step to superhuman habits)

Week 2 (Area D: Design Thinking) Suggesting Reading:

Design Thinking Bootleg (A quick overview and guide to Stanford Design Thinking)

Week 3 (Area E: Game Design) Suggested Reading:

Game Thinking: Playbook (Practical guide to building educational games from world experts)

Theory of Fun for Game Design (One of the greatest game creators explains games and fun)

Week 4 (Area F: High-Growth Technology) Suggested Reading:

Startups in Action (First months of some of the most successful tech companies in the world)

Measure What Matters (Guiding principles on how to focus on impact and real growth)

Week 5 (Area G: Impact Storytelling) Suggested Reading:

Kids These Days (Hard-hitting account of the reality of youth development and our society)

Winners Take All (The reality of charity, philanthropy, and nonprofits)

Narrative Economics (How the world is shaped by the stories we tell)

Week 6 (Area H: Community Building) Suggested Reading:

Tribal Leadership (Five stages of language to help ID & promote stronger groups)

Give And Take (Understanding how high-performing teams can be radically healthy)

*If you have books that could inspire greater dialogue, please let us know by sharing the title, amazon link, and a short explanation to its relevance to a fellow’s independent study or research.

APPENDIX C: Workshop Content & Learning Objectives

Workshop 1: Imagination Training & Brainstorming Techniques

An introduction to one of three major components of Design Thinking through the lens of Stanford Engineering and real-world practices. Learners should expect to practice at least 2 advanced brainstorming techniques and generate 20-50 new ideas in relation to a predetermined project or challenge.

(Average run time: 60 minutes)

Workshop 2: Creativity Training & Rapid Prototyping Techniques

An introduction to one of three major components of Design Thinking through the lens of Stanford Engineering and real-world practices. Learners should expect to practice at least 1 advanced rapid prototyping techniques and generate 1 highly-visual physical or digital artefact for a predetermined project or challenge.

(Average run time: 60 minutes)

Workshop 3: Empathy Training & Playtesting Techniques

An introduction to one of three major components of Design Thinking through the lens of Stanford Engineering and real-world practices. Learners should expect to practice at least 2 advanced playtesting techniques and generate at least 3 concrete insights and potential new steps to a predetermined project or challenge.

(Average run time: 60 minutes)

Workshop 4: High-Growth Hacking & Intro to Entrepreneurship

Derived from the research of over 150 highly successful technology and social impact startup founders, this is an introduction to the best practices of the ‘Giants’. Learners should expect to participate in several activities that help reset or eliminate personal limiting beliefs and biases towards their practice of high-growth startups and entrepreneurship.

(Average run time: 90 minutes)

Workshop 5: Personal Growth & Community Building

Derived from thousands of hours of active practice by program alumni, this is a a return to age-old community-based ritual and activities to create longer lasting success and reciprocity across groups of individuals and teams. Learners should expect to connect with new communities or learn best practices on how to bring the most out of existing networks..

(Average run time: 90 minutes)

*we recommend combining Workshops 1, 2, and 3 into a single run, day, weekend, or series of training sessions

*we recommend creating ample time between workshop sprints to be able to integrate learning and practice on a real-world project during unsupervised time away

APPENDIX D: Partner Project Examples

Automatically updating every fellowship cohort, previous fellowship work and the recent fellow work can be found here: https://www.p4t.io/rocket-arcade/home?375094c9_page=1

Past partners include, but are not limited to:

Stanford University (https://www.stanford.edu/)

Zero Degree Project (https://www.zerodegree.org/)

Kauffman Foundation (https://www.kauffman.org/)

Concussion Legacy Foundation (https://concussionfoundation.org/)

San Francisco Giants Foundation (https://www.mlb.com/giants/community/fund)

You Can Play Project (https://www.youcanplayproject.org/)

Kansas City Royals Urban Youth Academy (http://www.royalsurbanyouthacademy.com/)

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (https://www.mlse.com/)

Canadian Football League (https://www.cfl.ca/)

Business Development Bank of Canada (https://www.bdc.ca/en)

TVO Learn (https://tvolearn.com/)

Roblox (https://www.roblox.com/)

TeachAids (https://teachaids.org/)

The First Years (https://www.amazon.com/Startups-Action-Critical-Choices-HotelTonight/)

Curv Health (https://www.curvhealth.com/)

jiiWA (https://www.jiiwa.com/)

OpenSports (https://opensports.net/)

XMovement (https://www.xmovement.com/)

Procode Six (https://procodesix.com/)

Tecnec (https://tecnec.io/)

Push (https://www.trainwithpush.com/)

Athletigen (https://athletigen.com/)

Unilingo (https://www.unilingo.tv/)

Happy Dawg (https://sites.google.com/view/happydogmvp/home)

Mastery Mindset (https://www.stmichaelscollegeschool.com/)

and a range of internal Play4Tomorrow initiatives (www.play4tomorrow.com)

APPENDIX E: Play4Tomorrow Community

Previous ‘Impact Day‘ large-scale and in-person community event with academy students, fellowship students, accelerator participants, and community partners:

YOUTUBE VIDEO LINK (40,000 sq ft of design, play, and learning)

Previous ‘Design Royale’‘ large-scale and online community event with academy students, fellowship students, accelerator participants, and community partners:

YOUTUBE VIDEO LINK (storyline for 100+ student design hack-a-thon)

Gallery of ‘Why We Love What We Do’:

APPENDIX F: Contracts & Agreement

Please reach out to your regional supervisor or partner university for the engagement contract and intellectual property agreement that corresponds to your program and country. For general inquiries and more information, please contact us at info@play4tomorrow.com.