These Mexico City Hackers Are Using Social Gaming as a Tool for Good Jon Rogers - The Guardian
go to original November 14, 2015

Coders and designers celebrate the end of their 48-hour hackathon at the Centro de Cultura Digital in Mexico City. (CCD)

It took 30 days in the spring of 2014 for Alonso Martin to kickstart the role-playing game Heart Forth Alicia (raising $232,365) that has become a beacon for computer coders across Mexico City.

Heart Forth, Alicia - Official Kickstarter Trailer (Alonso Martin)

Among those who responded to the call to join in the quiet revolution of indie and social gaming that is emerging across the city was Zura Guerra, a young coder.

“I got involved in the general coders’ side because of Dev F, a programming school,” said Guerra, when we met at a Mexico City “hackathon” in June. “The first thing that amazed me was the empathy everyone felt towards teaching what they knew. There, I met some other people and we began to hang out at different meetups.”

In the capital, young people are turning to informal learning spaces such as Dev F, with its philosophy of “rather than develop technology, we develop people”, to join hackathons, meetups and code-clubs as part of their social infrastructure. Here, coding is a way to meet people – and code is their social media.

But how can writing lines of code be a social activity? Well, being creative has always been a social activity. In Mexico City, the shared activity of making food is apparent: people make food together, everywhere. Today, shared making is just as important a social activity.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: Mexico Social Movements Show Strategies for Success (Mexico Voices)

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