IBM Launches CityOne Urban Crisis Simulation Tool

Today, IBM announced the availability of CityOne, an interactive application giving business, government, and academic institutions the ability to simulate and discover solutions to real-world issues affecting cities and industries. Presented to players as a simulation game, CityOne includes over 100 scenarios focusing on issues such as traffic congestion, water conservation, and alternative energy sources. Each scenario tasks players with balancing a simulated city's financial, environmental, and sociological interests. To succeed, players must explore clean and efficient solutions that fit within a limited budget. IBM notes that the application will prove especially useful for students, who will face an estimated doubling of the population in the world's cities by the year 2050. "Creating greater awareness and educating the public about protecting human health and the environment is an EPA priority, and serious games can be useful tools for users to learn about processes and systems reflective of the real world," said Andy Miller, Chief of the Atmospheric Protection Branch at EPA Research and Development. Miller continues: "By cooperating with IBM CityOne developers, EPA is helping users by allowing them to more thoroughly investigate environmental issues and better understand complex energy and water interactions presented in the game. EPA's collaboration in this project will help increase awareness and understanding of how different choices that are made in the various game scenarios affect environmental outcomes." CityOne follows up on IBM's previous efforts in the serious games space, including the programming game RoboCode and the business process management sim INNOV8.