The event, Games Olympiad of Disaster And Climate Management (GODAC), was organised by the Global Challenge Award (GCA) and city-based Neeti Solutions at Capgemni campus in Talawade. “As special awardees, Parag and Pratik will be a part of one-year online project based on global warming. They will have to develop a workable solution for global warming as part of this project after discussions with their online counterparts from various countries,” said Parag Manakeekar, founder-director of Neeti Solutions.

Parag is elated. “It was fun and a learning experience. Though I had read about global warming as a subject in environmental science, I got to know of the problem and some practical solutions through this game,” he said.

Parag said he has now started using his bicycle. He also disallows his father, who works with a construction agency, from using a motorbike on Sundays.

Meanwhile, the two winners of GODAC ,Trupti Joshi, a Class IX student of Mar Ivanios Convent High School, Pimple Gurav and Roopak Karulkar, Class X student of Abhinav English Medium School, Pune, are all set to attend an international conference on climate change “COP15” in Copenhagen in December. “The winners will go as climate change ambassadors of Global Challenge Award and Neeti Solutions at the conference and make a presentation,” Manakeekar said.

The winners had three rounds of computer games, a focused group discussion and a personal interview all on climate change. “Students had to play five games in round one, create a game idea in round two, make and deliver a presentation on the game idea in round three and attend the group discussion and personal interview in fourth and final round,” Manakeekar said.

All the four, Parag, Pratik, Roopak and Trupti, said they did not prepare much for the competition. “We just read about climate change as much as possible,” they said. Roopak’s and Trupti’s idea of a climate-change based computer game won applauds. “It was racing game with points after clearing each level,” said Roopak.

He said the competition tested not just his gaming skills and knowledge about global warming, but also his skills in giving a speech. Trupti’s idea of a game was rescuing Earth from the monster of global warming after giving correct answers to questions related to global warming.