Mojang and the UN have announced a partnership which will allow children redesign their neighbourhoods in the game and then see their virtual work made real. The project, Block by Block, will be part of UN-Habitat’s Sustainable Urban Development Network and will be used to regenerate over 300 sites by 2016.
Details below.
The Block by Block initiative has come out of a previous project, Mina Kvater(My Blocks). It was a collaboration between Mojang and Svensk Byggtjänst (Swedish Building Services), in which Minecraft was used by people within the Million Programme community to redesign and modernise their now out of date housing.
This Block by Block initiative blows the idea up into a larger, global plan. The pilot test for this UN collaboration isKibera, a settlement inNairobi. In the header image you can see the current space recreated virtually.
On top of all this niceness, the project has been largely funded by Mojang. Those kind old souls.