Building skills and confidence through video games
The UNICEF Game Changers Coalition equips young people with future-ready skills to shape their futures through video game development and game-based learning.
Why gaming?
Video games are more than entertainment. For 3.6 billion people worldwide, many of them children and young people, it’s where they collaborate, experiment, create, fail, adapt and try again. In gaming, they practice persistence, creativity, systems thinking and decision-making - capabilities that matter in school, work and life.
Game development and game-based learning make learning visible and purposeful. It connects coding and engineering with storytelling, art, design, leadership and teamwork. For many young people, it is an engaging first step from using technology to creating with it.
From playing, to learning, to earning
Building on UNICEF’s existing Skills4Girls portfolio, GCC is a global forum of like-minded partners committed to equipping young people with the future-ready skills they want and need to become the coders, designers, and leaders of a more inclusive, diverse, and safer digital future.
Through hands-on game development, game-based learning, mentorship and game jams, young people learn and grow across four key areas:
Digital & Technical
Game design and development, coding, digital literacy and introduction to AI
Creative & human
Storytelling, art, communication, collaboration and problem-solving
Life & work
Leadership, resilience, project management and financial literacy
Career pathways
Mentorship, game jams and portfolio building, entrepreneurship and careers
Built for every young person. Designed to scale.
GCC turns the joy of gaming into structured learning opportunities for adolescents and young people in emerging economies, especially girls.
Every year, adolescent girls and young women in low and middle-income countries miss out on US$15 billion in economic opportunities due to the digital gender gap.
Within the gaming industry, women make up less than a quarter of the workforce, yet girls represent about 50 per cent of the world's video gamers.
GCC keeps a deliberate gender-responsive approach at the heart of its mission, while working to make these opportunities accessible to young people from all backgrounds and circumstances.
Working with governments, schools, civil society, and the gaming and technology industries, we embed learning in systems that reach all young people where they are. The goal is an inclusive generation of creators, designers and leaders - and a stronger, more representative talent pipeline for the industries shaping our digital future.
“Having industry specialists as our mentors have been life changing. They teach us to think smart, to be creative and innovative, and to keep pursuing our dreams in the STEAM fields.”
Akmaral Nurlibekkyzy, 18, Kazakhstan
Impact to Date
Since launching in 2023, GCC has brought its video-game-based, future-ready curriculum to more than 642,000 young people, parents and teachers across eight countries, with girls making up 52 per cent of participants. Nearly three-quarters of that growth came in 2025 alone, and in 2026, GCC is expanding into three new countries: Bolivia, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
No single organization can unlock the potential of gaming alone. GCC’s impact is made possible by partners who share our ambition, including the Global Video Game Coalition and its members Electronic Arts, Roblox, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Ubisoft, Video Games Europe and the Entertainment Software Association, as well as the crypto company Bitget.
Together with our partners, the Coalition is set to reach 1.1 million in 12 countries by 2027.
Explore the GCC online curriculum
From game development to introduction to AI and financial literacy, discover the learning journeys, modules and resources available through the GCC curriculum online.
Global UNICEF Game Jam
The first UNICEF Game Jam (August – September 2025) was a virtual celebration of creativity and digital skills through video game development.
Organized by the UNICEF Game Changers Coalition and partners, it brought together young people under 21 years old from eight participating countries: Armenia, Brazil, Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Morocco, and South Africa.
Stay tuned for the next one!
Join the Game Changers Coalition
We welcome partners to help take GCC further and reach more young people in more places, supporting them as they turn interest and curiosity into skills, ideas into games, and play into pathways for the future.
For partnership inquiries, contact: [email protected]
