Susanna Pollack, President of Games for Change and a cross-sector leader with over 25 years of experience in traditional and interactive media, joins host Suzanne Ehlers for a conversation that bridges virtual worlds and lived realities. From Clouds Over Sidra — the UN's landmark VR film set inside a Syrian refugee camp — to the immersive theater of The Jungle, the award-winning text-based game Bury Me, My Love, and Minecraft Education's use in displaced communities, Susanna illustrates how games and immersive media can build empathy, teach skills, and restore agency in ways few other mediums can match. She also reflects on Games for Change's growing partnership with the UN through the Games and SDG Summit, and on her experience with USA for UNHCR's innovation hub, The Hive, before closing with one of the episode's most resonant ideas: that a stranger is simply someone whose story you haven't heard yet, and that the shift from assumption to curiosity is where belonging begins.
Topics:
Home as community, belonging, and shared purpose beyond a physical address
Games as education and skills-building tools within refugee camps and integration classrooms
Minecraft Education's use in displaced communities for digital literacy and future-building
Games for Change: 20+ years at the intersection of the gaming industry and social impact
USA for UNHCR's Hive innovation hub: where creativity meets humanitarian context
Gaming's global scale: 3+ billion players; the industry is larger than film, TV, and radio combined
Cross-sector partnerships as the engine of meaningful social change
The stranger as potential: moving from assumption to curiosity
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