Ben Stokes
Biography
Ben Stokes is a program officer at the MacArthur foundation in the digital learning and media area. Ben is a co-founder of Games For Change, a spin-off from the Serious Games Initiative that concentrates on advancing the use of digital games for positive societal change. Prior to this, he was the e-learning architect for Student Activist Community and a program manager overseeing digital learning projects at NetAid under the umbrella of Education for Global Citizenship. This work included the 2004 launch of the Peter Packet Game and Challenge in collaboration with Cisco Systems. He was the originator of NetAid’s interactive VolunteerGuru guidance counselor and previously managed the developing world’s preeminent online volunteering service in coordination with the United Nations Volunteers.
Before NetAid, Ben produced and edited virtual fieldtrips and online research products at Bigchalk/ProQuest, which serves more than 40,000 K–12 schools. He has taught in a number of contexts, including applied logic and wilderness survival for middle school students. Ben studied abroad in Senegal and graduated from Haverford College with a BA in physics and a minor in French literature. After graduating, Stokes worked with the CREA House to develop a living wage standard for the U.S.-Mexico border region.