A Big Project will launch a free technology-based game called Bring It or Sing It on December 20, 2012, (the day of A Big Project’s Global Arts and Music Renaissance). A Big Project seeks to use mobile apps and Internet-based technologies to connect people around the world to engage in collaborative strategies to make the world a better place while having fun!
Here’s how the game works. People get together with their friends in teams and determine a commitment they are each going to make for 21 days to support positive change in their daily life. (Twenty-one days is the amount of time scientific research shows it takes to form new neural patterns in the brain; i.e., for new and daily affirmed habits to start taking root.)
Each team then will be connected to another team somewhere around the world, against which they will compete with for points. Teams earn points based on how many times team members support one another in implementing commitment–how many times each team member implements the commitment and the level of difficulty of the commitment. The team that has the lowest number of points at the end of the game must try to sing a song of the winning team’s choosing in their language or from their country.
Bring It or Sing It Sample Scenario
Mike, Steven, Sara, and Trish are friends in Brooklyn, New York, and they download the Bring it or Sing It mobile app. They decide their group commitment will be for each of them to talk to one person every day that does not think or look like them.
Taara, Anand, Rita, and Samit are friends at the University in Bangalore, India. They download the app, making the commitment to start a recycling program in their dorm room.
The two teams are connected through the mobile app, and every day they check in to see how many of the team members implement their commitment that day, and how many times they support one another in implementing the commitment. They exchange words of humor and encouragement during the 21 days to their own teammates AND to the other team (through a menu of pre-translated messages).
At the end of this game, it turns out that the Brooklyn team was not as persistent in implementing their commitment as the Bangalore team. The Brooklyn team therefore must try to sing a song in the Bangalore team’s language of Hindi, record it, and send it to the other team. The Bangalore team asks them to try the song “Aashiyan.” The Brooklyn team has a hard time trying to get the words right in a language they don’t know, but they have a great time trying. And the other team enjoys the effort and sends notes of encouragement and gratitude.
Both teams had such a good experience that they decide they want to do this again, and so each person reaches out to another group of friends, and each of those teams then gets connected to another set of teams from different countries around the world. The number of people making commitments grows exponentially. While most people are focusing on how much fun they are having, there is one very big additional outcome: Collectively, and one person at a time, we are connecting people to one another and making the world a better place.
The Bring It or Sing It mobile app will be released on December 20, 2012–the same day that A Big Project is launching a global renaissance of art and music seeking to inspire individuals around the planet to make one change to make the world a better place. Students and teachers are encouraged both to participate in the Global Arts and Music Renaissance (by making their own creative vision for a better world) by going to A Big Project’s website AND to download the app to start playing Bring It or Sing It!
A Big Project
A Big Project is a non-political one-year project seeking to build on the wind of change for the greater good. The project is seeking to gain clarity on where people agree the world could be better–and to share that message in ways that can open people’s minds and hearts through art and music. We are activists, executives, students, receptionists, artists, religious leaders, scientists, lawyers, drivers, teachers, small business owners, and people who are unemployed. Regardless of our wide range of political, religious, and philosophical perspectives, we are coming together around a common belief that our world can be better than it currently is, and that we have the power to support positive change simply by starting the conversation. A Big Project started in January with a group of individuals from 18 countries. Since then, supporters from more than 97 countires have joined the effort.
- For related information, access recordings by this and other featured organizations from the 2012 Global Education Conference strand on Tech-driven Innovation.
