This "edutainment" initiative draws on the intense and increasing popularity of mobile (cellular) telephones in India to create and deliver interactive learning solutions - games - to teach people about HIV/AIDS. The "play and learn" method is designed to not only make learning exciting and engaging but to foster better enhancement and retention of knowledge. Designed to appeal to different gaming mind-sets as well as the psychology of mobile phone users, the games were crafted in such a way that both the casual player and the game enthusiast might be drawn to play.

A key strategy for this role-play-based game involves capitalising on the popularity of the sport of cricket in India, which organisers describe as enjoying a "huge following" and even being "a religion". To that end, as part of the game "Safety Cricket", the batsman gets "only 60 balls and 300 seconds to collect all the right symbols - condoms, faithful partners, HIV information and AIDS red ribbon - to 'secure' himself against the deadly AIDS."

Other games appeal to different skills and personalities, such as "Ribbon Chase" (an arcade-based game in which the player is the red ribbon and he or she has to deliver messages to different cities in the world with the HIV virus in pursuit) and "Quiz with Babu" (a live game-show-based quiz geared toward users who enjoy questions and reasoning in which the player has three lifelines to "lock" the right answers to an assortment of questions on AIDS).

On World AIDS Day 2006, ZMQ teamed up with the Dutch development organisation Hivos to design and develop new mobile games on HIV/AIDS awareness in Africa. (The 6 countries covered under the STAR programme [2] are Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Namibia). As part of the first phase, 2 mobile games were launched in Kenya - in both English and the local language (Kiswahili), using local characters, familiar heroes, and colloquial phrases. Again, here, the theme of sports is a central strategy for engaging players, especially youth. The first game, "AIDS Penalty Shoot-out", is based on soccer, which organisers describe as a popular sport in Africa. In this game, the participant receives random messages upon saving a penalty on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. On saving a goal the gamer receives message on safety; on scoring a goal he or she receives messages on modes of transmission and myths and misconceptions about HIV/AIDS.

The second Africa-themed game, "Mission Messenger" (launched earlier in a different format, in India), is an adventure game for casual users who enjoy playing exciting but easy-to-manoeuvre games. The gamer flies over the African continent, from village to village, collecting condoms and red ribbons, and distributes them to the villagers based on their specific needs and demands, spreading the messages of HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, transmission, and safety.

HIV/AIDS.

As of June 2007, Freedom HIV/AIDS was reaching over 42 million mobile subscribers in India, with 7 million downloads of the game(s) in the year 2006. The games were made available free to 9 million subscribers of Reliance Infocomm on World AIDS Day (December 1) 2005. ZQM Software Systems hopes to be able to spread the message beyond India and Africa, shaping the content and language of the games to meet the particular needs of users in Africa, South America, Eastern Europe and South-East Asia.

In May 2007, ZMQ received an award from a TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute). This "Corporate Award for Business Response to HIV/AIDS 2007" was granted in recognition of ZMQ's corporate leadership for raising awareness about HIV/AIDS by using all various modes of technology - mobile phones, internet, intranet, and stand-alone systems - with a focus on reaching those who are semi-literate and/or underprivileged, especially through use of local languages. And, in November 2007, Freedom HIV/AIDS won the global Changemakers competition "Why Games Matter: A Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care" [3].