To develop your game
How it all started
“Pandemia – Scrivi la tua storia” is a web game (usable from desktop, tablet and smartphone) developed by Synesthesia for students aged from 11 years. It is part of a path of awareness and scientific dissemination designed and promoted by Fondazione Umberto Veronesi as a part of its broader commitment to young people to explore the issues of public health, infectious diseases and vaccines.
Through a digital simulation, the youngsters have to take on the role of policy-makers. The mission is to manage a new unknown infection, delving into the dynamics of an epidemic and the fundamental aspects of preserving everyone’s health.
Once the game is over a score is established that measures the effectiveness of the choices taken.
The solution
“Pandemia – Scrivi la tua storia” was fully developed by Synesthesia. The game was designed to meet specific needs: for instance, it can be completed in a limited time and is part of a broader educational journey.colato.
Creation and development process involved a team comprising a creative director, a project manager, a developer, a graphic designer, and a game designer. The game’s architecture is complex: each scenario challenges the player to think in different ways.
Throughout the game, players can make different choices based on the events presented.
Results
“Pandemia – Scrivi la tua storia” is part of an educational program by the Umberto Veronesi Foundation (the “Io Vivo Sano – Public Health and Epidemics” workshop), with digital workshops organized in May 2021 in schools across Italy. Approximately 3,000 students, 100 teachers, and more than 70 schools participated. At the end of the activities, around 500 online feedback questionnaires were collected. The results exceeded expectations in terms of both engagement and visibility.
As a result, a further development of the project was decided to improve certain aspects and add new features. The 2.0 version of the game was launched on October 6, 2021.
To develop your app
How it all started
PlanetWatch is a spin-off company of CERN that, thanks to Blockchain technology, aims to build a global network of people – the “PlanetWatchers” – who can contribute to monitoring air quality with their sensors. Users who install an air quality sensor outside (or inside) their home, send data that is recorded on the blockchain of Algorand blockchain, helping to create the first decentralized global air quality register. All sensors that transmit data to PlanetWatch earn rewards called Planet tokens.
Synesthesia and PlanetWatch have much in common: the focus on sustainable development, open innovation, synergistic collaboration with other startups and the inclusion and digitalization of processes.
The solution
The app plays a strategic role in the PlanetWatch project. It is used to onboard the sensor into the network, certifying the attribution of data sent by the user. Every time the sensor transmits data, PlanetWatch processes it and rewards the user with Planet tokens. Synesthesia re-engineered PlanetWatch’s applications, improving their reliability, performance, and user experience.
All development phases were rigorously tested within the Quality Assurance process.
The approach used for development is Agile with Scrum methodology. The refactoring and stabilization phase of the code also provided an opportunity to integrate Unit Testing into the application architecture.
Technologies Used:
- Android, Kotlin
- iOS Swift
- Modular MVVM architecture
- Algorand Blockchain
Results
Thanks to the app, approximately 19,000 new sensors have been activated worldwide. Within 20 days of the launch, around 15,000 users had downloaded the app. The sensors on the network totaled approximately 22,000 (data as of December 2021). A significant increase in production is expected for the next year, with more than 100,000 sensors to be distributed.
