LIVE | EMPATHIZE | ACT
LIVE | EMPATHIZE | ACT
RealLives is a gamified simulation that brings home the challenge of life in its many splendors and complexities.
In the simulation, you will test your mettle against the many unpredictable life conditions that occur in the course of a lifetime – from birth to death.
And in RealLives, you can play billions of such lives, in different cultures and nations on earth - without ever repeating any lifetime!
RL Academic may be used by teachers and students alike. By tailoring the use of the simulation, it is applicable to school children as well Research scholars
Self-motivated Parents & Homeschoolers
Students, Teachers, Professors & Researchers
Schools, Colleges & Universities
RL Academic provides a range of Lesson Plans that can serve as templates for various academic exercises
Playing RL before discussing Distributive justice helps to problematize the meritocratic norm by showing how a person’s circumstances can restrict their opportunities. This facilitates a more open discussion…
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY
Playing RL before discussing Distributive justice helps to problematize the meritocratic norm by showing how a person’s circumstances can restrict their opportunities. This facilitates a more open discussion…
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY
RL is simply a Gamified simulation. It presents the conditions of a country or Socio-economic context or culture in a neutral manner.
This allows teachers to focus on any subject that can be observed from such a peek into lives across the world. One may use the simulation to teach about social disparity, about empathy, or simple geography and how differently people live across the world, or deeper political concepts like distributive justice.
Thus RL Academic is the perfect teacher’s assistant that can act as an implicit showcase of the concept being taught
RL Academic provides a range of Lesson Plans that can serve as templates for various academic exercises that use RL as its experiential basis. Many academicians across the world have used RealLives in innovative ways, for their educational intent. You may access the various related research papers and case studies
RL is a gamified simulation that replicates the data-driven conditions of almost 200 countries
In the simulation, you can lead a birth-to-death life in the simulation, to acquire a data-supported idea of the conditions across the world
Guided by a teacher, RL can offer the students a unique, empathy-evoking peek at the unknown world from within
RL was originally invented by a Schoolteacher in 2004 It was developed to be a place of experience – which would serve as the basis for teaching
Playing RL before discussing Distributive justice helps to problematize the meritocratic norm by showing how a person’s circumstances can restrict their opportunities. This facilitates a more open discussion…
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY
Teaching empathy is a difficult task because empathy is a feeling; it is experiential.
Role-playing is one of the age-old methods to evoke feelings within oneself. We often advise people to walk a mile in someone’s shoes before judging them – ie, we indicate that after walking a mile in someone’s shoes, our empathy will take precedence over any desire to judge people.
RealLives provides not merely a simulation where one can lead lives of other humans, but it is also a simulation that is built on authentic real-world data.
Thus, when one lives the life of a child subjected to poverty in a particular country, one knows and understands that this experience is authentic – derived from the statistical data about poverty and deprivation in that country.
This authenticity of data translates into authenticity of experience – thus enhancing one’s affective experience; just as we are more affected by movies that we know to be based on real happenings.
In addition, Social and emotional learning also is part of living in the simulation. The simulation allows you to implicitly understand that if you take up a bad habit or refuse to engage in constructive activities, your health or career will suffer. This leads to more emotionally literate behaviors, like internalizing the benefits of delayed gratification, even without theoretical teaching.
Click here to look at research and studies that speak about SEL and Empathy creation in students through RealLives.
In RealLives, you are born in a nation which is most likely to be a nation which is different from your actual nation.
As you lead your life in the simulation, you will gain an awareness of various social disparities – whether internal to that nation or between that nation and your actual nation.
One good way to look at social disparity is to consider it as one of the effects of unsustainable practices throughout the world. Thus, it makes sense to consider disparity through through the framework of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) developed by the UN, in an effort to tackle various global issues, like global warming, or poverty and hunger, etc.
Various countries can be ranked in this SDG framework, to assess their relative positions for learning how good they are doing at reducing specific kinds of disparities or unsustainable practices. This is an important assessment tool, and RealLives uses the SDG framework to point the Users towards the necessity of acting on global issues.
This is in line with the founding vision of RealLives, that with correctly directed empathy, humans can begin to see the direct relevance of personal behavioral change in creating a cascade of global changes.
When you are actually affected by the nature of poverty and hunger through role-playing in the Simulation, your attention and efforts can be effectively channeled towards the relevant SDG, thus enhancing actionability.
Kindly refer to the following links to learn more about SDGs and how they are being pursued across the world.
Some sample lesson plans are available in our Lesson Database. You may use the freely to learn or educate.
We would love to hear your story of how the lesson plan worked for you!
Playing RL before discussing Distributive justice helps to problematize the meritocratic norm by showing how a person’s circumstances can restrict their opportunities. This facilitates a more open discussion…
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY
Comparing Lives
Comparing Lives Handout
Cause & Effect Relationships in Life
Cause & Effect Relationships in Life
RealLives Student Personal Journal Chronicling A Simulated Life
Behind this simulation is a robust data engine that uses statistics from over 100
RealLives is an educational simulation that has been around for years...
Overall, “RealLives 2010” is a fun diversion if you’re into simulation games at all. It may seem boring to those who can only get their kicks...
don't really have a conclusion. I feel like I did poorly, I didn't amass riches, conquer a profession
I just played my first character to the end, and the experience is incredible. I was in tears at the end
“Every middle and high school should have this fascinating program. It’s a life simulation that enables students to live one of billions of lives in any country in the world. With each passing year of their “life”, students gain real‐world practice in reasoning, problem‐solving, critical thinking, and personal responsibility. The simulation begins with the birth of an individual in a particular country. Through text boxes, students learn background information about their country and about the family they have been born into. As they grow up, they must make more and more decisions that will affect the course of events. Decisions involve school, studying, getting a job, leisure activities, romantic relationships, health, and many other serious issues”
Released March, 2004
Released June, 2007
Released July, 2009
Released July, 2018
This cloud-based version of RealLives v4.03, with updated database, was released in Oct 2017. It is designed to work on all latest browsers on all PCs and laptops regardless of OS.
Approximately 150+ people from about 20 countries have contributed in various ways to create this version. We also thank all the gamers and users for their heartfelt encouragement and feedback.
With the launch of this cloud version, we hope to be able to make changes and improvements in the game in a faster and real-time manner.
So please keep writing in, and help make this world a better place…
Bob grew up in the area that was to become the “Silicon Valley” of California. As a young adult, he traveled to Mexico and Europe and played soccer with international teams, all of which kindled his passion for understanding different cultures. Bob taught at the high school level and after a few years, he joined the Peace Corp and taught math and computer science at the Polytechnic School in the Seychelles Islands. He also worked on advancing his own computer programming skills. After returning to the United States, Bob met Kathy and continued teaching until 1989 when he changed careers to become a computer programmer. In 1996, Bob felt inspired to write software that fostered empathy by simulating life anywhere in the world based on real-world statistics. Bob went into business for himself founding Educational Simulations Inc. to develop and sell “RealLives” and launched the first version in 2001.
Out of faith in this calling and a desire to support Bob’s ability to focus more on developing RealLives, Bob and Kathy simplified their lifestyle, which included Kathy and their three sons giving up homeschooling. In 2003, Kathy began to work for the Woolman Semester, a school that focused on peace, social justice and sustainability. This work was well-aligned with the mission of RealLives and also provided a steady income for the Runyan family.
Bob met Dr. Parag Mankeeker through the Ashoka Foundation and invited Parag to serve on the board of Educational Simulations as Kathy and Bob they were deeply impressed with his vision and passion for RealLives.
Is a social technology entrepreneur who started his journey as a medical and public health professional, as well as a trained anthropologist.
He has tackled health and other social challenges such as disaster management during his involvement in developing multi-disciplinary hospitals and social enterprises. He has also worked in understanding terrorism both in India and Afghanistan. He is a Ashoka Fellow and a Salzburg Seminar Fellow – indications of his global efforts to be a positive force for change in the world.
Parag is now leading the global scaling of RealLives – a widely acclaimed life simulator which enhances empathy and other socio-emotional skills for achieving the dream of an empathetic world.
We thank the many valuable professionals from the Neeti team who have earlier contributed significantly towards bringing this project to life
We thank the many valuable professionals who lent their expertise towards creating the 2010 version of RealLives
Over 200 Interns from various walks of life have contributed towards creating this work of passion over the last 3 years.
We thank the following organizations for kindly supporting us by providing good interns to work on RealLives
We thank Ashoka for their committment towards creating a culture of empathy and change-making, as well as for supporting Neeti Solutions by recognizing its founder, Dr. Parag Mankeekar, as an Ashoka Fellow
We thank Ashoka for their committment towards creating a culture of empathy and change-making, as well as for supporting Neeti Solutions by recognizing its founder, Dr. Parag Mankeekar, as an Ashoka Fellow
We thank BMGI Global, which provides management consulting services to companies based out of India and the Asia Pacific area.
Nobel Laureate (2001), Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Director | Learning Futures | Curtin Learning and Teaching, Australia. UNESCO Chair of Data Science in Higher Education
Practiced corporate law on Wall Street. She is a system-level social entrepreneur and innovative educator & CEO of a “B Certified Company”.
Ashoka Globalizer’s Co -Director. A program she co -founded in 2009 to help social entrepreneurs scale their impact.
Seasoned marketing & digital executive, experience of building brands MBA, Harvard Business School
Speaks six languages – English, French, Spanish, Russian, Bulgarian and conversant in Serbian
Advisor for start-ups, technology companies, social organizations, Entrepreneur & Ex-MD/CEO of Thermax
Advisory Board Member & Chief Entrepreneur for People, Ashoka, USA
MD and Founder, BMGI India Business Coach Innovation and Organic Growth with Consulting Experience in Diverse Industries
28+ years of IT experience with diverse executive experience from corporate to the public sector.
Visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, He is currently Director of Advanced Analytics at COSTCO Wholesale, Seattle, USA
Advisor, Trackball Consultancy Services Private Limited
Director, Primove Infrastructure Development Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and Vice President, LEAD India
When you enter the simulation, you can choose your character attributes (such as country of birth, gender, etc) by clicking on the 'Design a New Life', or you can allow the simulation to randomly allocate the attributes (by directly clicking on 'Live a Life').
Explore the interface to learn the various attributes of your new life. You will see Personal characteristics (like Happiness, Intelligence, Strength, wisdom, etc), as well as information about your family, and the resources possessed by your family.
When you click on the circular ‘Age a Year’ button, you will advance in age and be updated with the latest life events that happen to you or your family. You will also need to take decisions in some life problems. (These events and life problems are calculated on the basis of statistically accurate data of the country that you are born in).
All such events are automatically added to your Life Journal, which is a summary of your life experience.
You are encouraged to write your responses to these various events, and this will be added to your Life-Journal.
As you advance in age, you will be able to handle the 6 aspects of your life; Education, Career, Finance, Relationships, Residence, and Leisure - to create a satisfactory life experience for yourself.
Thus, the scenarios of your life are directly elicited from the data of the country that your are born in, and you are able to make life-decisions based on how you wish to live your life, based on your interpretation of the data-based life-events. You can also use various tools to learn about the culture, socio-economic conditions and other metrics of the country of your birth in the game. Our database now also allows the comparison of such metrics of your birth country in RealLives with those of your actual country, like ranking the achievements in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework, etc.
This provides a realistic narrative of various cultures, political and economic systems, disparities, and so on.
At the end of your life in the game, you can take stock of your entire life. At this point RealLives provides several tools for reflecting on your experience.
The game play also attempts to provide a glimpse into how our lives are influenced by factors that are so often out of our hands, even if we have freedom to make choices.
Finally, it is the recognition of our common humanness and of our universal constraints which creates empathy with other humans across the world.
The RealLives may thus be used for various purposes – to learn socio-economic conditions of the world, to have fun, to learn about disparity and to experience a sense of empathy with fellow humans across the world.
RealLives is supported by volunteers across the world, who help us make the game more global by contributing various types of digital skills. If you think that you could help RealLives become better, or to create a better understanding among human beings, then we would love to hear from you! Schools, Universities and Communities around you.
LIVE | EMPATHIZE | ACT