Edtech startup Jalan Journey teaches students about social issues through digital games
It has reached more than 5,000 students in around 45 schools
STUDENTS can step into a virtual world to experience the daily navigational challenges of a wheelchair user in one of edtech startup Jalan Journey’s games released on Monday (Mar 3).
In the role-playing game, users navigate through settings that are common in real life such as crowded corridors, malls and public transportation, but experience them as a wheelchair user instead. They encounter accessibility challenges and unnoticed obstacles, including rocky terrains and crowded elevators, and also interact with other characters in the game.
The game aims to educate students about wheelchair accessibility, the value of inclusive spaces and how to create a more supportive environment for wheelchair users.
It is part of a disability inclusion games series, which also includes games about intellectual disabilities and autism awareness.
Each game was developed with a partner charity, including the Muscular Dystrophy Association (Singapore), Minds and Extraordinary People, which helped with the content as subject-matter experts. The series was funded by SG Enable.
Jalan Journey develops digital games with actionable outcomes to educate students about social and environmental causes, build empathy and encourage volunteerism. So far, its games have reached more than 5,000 students in around 45 schools. The startup has also expanded outreach to Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.
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Sricharan Balasubramanian, co-founder and chief executive, said: “To have a strong impact on students, we (were there) on the ground and in person to engage with our stakeholders.”
For the wheelchair accessibility game, the startup discussed with wheelchair users about the challenges they faced in order to “deliver a more authentic experience” to students, he added.
Besides disability inclusion, other themes covered in Jalan Journey’s games are financial literacy, homelessness, environment and sustainability, as well as mental health.
When it comes to choosing what themes to focus on, the startup’s other co-founder and CEO Harrison Chong said that the team first talks to schools and students, since they are the ones playing the games.
Sricharan added: “We work very closely with our partners in schools to understand what their needs are, what the current reality (is) in the programmes they offer, and what the gaps are – so we can fill them.”
Jalan Journey also consults advisers, who come mostly from the social service and education sectors, when developing its games.
Leveraging a virtual world
Chong and Sricharan established Jalan Journey in 2022, after they realised how certain people were disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, they volunteered with charity organisation Comm.UnitySG and worked alongside New Hope Community Services to support the homeless.
In end-2021, Chong and Sricharan ran a webinar at Singapore Polytechnic to teach participants about homelessness. They used a game that was set in a world similar to the Jalan Kukoh housing estate, where participants learnt about social inequality through the eyes of someone from a lower-income background.
They decided to “expand this into something more substantial”, after realising they made an impact on 10 to 20 people with one session.
Sricharan said: “We started Jalan Journey with the intention of creating these games and virtual worlds to educate people on various social issues and encourage them to volunteer.”
In late 2022, the startup participated in the National Youth Council’s Youth Action Challenge Season 4 and won the top prize of S$51,000 – which it used as seed funding.
The co-founders started reaching out to schools to run Jalan Journey’s programmes, thereby increasing outreach, as teachers recommended the games to others in their networks.
A structured programme
Jalan Journey operates on a per-hour, per-person basis. It charges a fee for its programmes – schools can use its games and materials with their own facilitators, who are trained by the startup. Alternatively, for a higher fee, schools can use Jalan Journey’s facilitators to run the programmes.
The programme is structured. Facilitators follow a lesson plan and introduce the topic; students play the interactive games and have a reflection and discussion session; and last, Jalan Journey facilitates a meetup between the students and partnered charities for them to volunteer.
Chong explained: “For example, students participate in a learning journey at the charity, interact with beneficiaries at a homeless shelter to learn about what they are going through, and then do a shelter-cleaning.”
He added that users do not need to download any apps to play the games. “We make them more accessible via a link. It’s a plug-and-play solution, you just need a personal learning device.”
Jalan Journey also does not use a subscription service, because going through the game once is sufficient to teach students about the concept. However, if schools want to incorporate the games into their own programmes, they can subscribe to use just the games.
Looking ahead
Since August 2024, the startup has collaborated with charities such as Care Corner to provide free or subsidised access to its games for beneficiaries.
At end-February, it launched a financial literacy game called Budget Blitz to teach students about saving, budgeting and opportunity cost by mimicking real-life scenarios using daily necessities and everyday situations.
Jalan Journey will be representing Singapore at the UN World Summit Awards (WSA) 2025 in Hyderabad, India, in early April. This comes after it won the UN WSA Young Innovators Award in 2024 for social enterprises addressing key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
It also aims to launch a scam literacy game this year and reach a larger audience beyond schools, and contribute to the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s Digital for Life movement.
The startup hopes to eventually become a registered social enterprise and continue encouraging more students to volunteer.
Chong said: “Our goal in the long term is for every child in Singapore to go through our games, learn more about empathy and, of course, volunteer after.”
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