
Game of Choice™
is now proven!
Innovation Meets Evidence
Our technology and digital games are research-driven, user-tested, interactive, gamified, immersive solutions with embedded data analytics and precision messaging and now proven to influence behaviors for impact. Read the first-of-its-kind randomized controlled trial (RCT) in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Health.
Reimagining Change: Bridging Behavior, Science, and Policy.
We use digital innovation—AI, game-based learning and simulations—combined with behavioral science to help shift systems and mindsets. How might these tools work for you?
For Public Engagement
What behaviors or perceptions need to change to improve health, equity, or sustainability? Could an app, chatbot, or game nudge people toward better choices?
For Researchers
Where are the gaps in health or environmental research that digital tools can help fill? How might AI-powered platforms or immersive simulations generate new kinds of evidence?
For Policymakers
What decisions could be strengthened with behavioral data and real-time insights? What if you could simulate the lived experience of those affected by your policies—before they’re implemented?
Our Products & Offerings

Simulation for Policy and Planning
We help policymakers and program designers make better decisions by immersing them in the lived experiences of the communities they serve. Our interactive, data-informed simulations reveal the real-world trade-offs individuals face—transforming abstract strategies into grounded, human-centered action.

Digital Games for Youth Empowerment
Through our award-winning Game of Choice, Not Chance™ platform, we reach young people directly with interactive storylines that build agency in navigating health, relationships, and careers. These mobile-first games allow users to practice complex decisions in a safe, engaging environment—shaping real-world behaviors through play.

AI-Enabled Research via Chatbots
HDI is pioneering a novel approach to behavioral research using WhatsApp-based chatbots. Our tools support RCTs, longitudinal tracking, and cross-sectional studies at a fraction of traditional data collection costs. Chatbot interfaces allow us to probe attitudes and decision-making patterns from multiple angles, helping reduce response bias and enhancing authenticity.
Customizable Tools. Proven Approaches. Designed with Communities.

Go Nisha Go™
Mobile Game
Go Nisha Go™ (GNG) delivers a RCT proven, research-validated, simulated decision-making experience to improve the lives of disadvantaged Indian girls. This free digital game on Google Play for low-end Android phones is designed for Indian girls aged 15-19 to experience the outcomes of their decisions. AI-driven messaging encourages them to 'try again' for better results, while embedded resources connect them to products and services. Empowered girls can negotiate with parents/partners, complete their education, pursue careers, and realize their full potential.
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Digital Game for
Youth Empowerment
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Super Nisha
Impact Arcade Game
Super Nisha is embedded in Go Nisha Go multiple times throughout the game with short true and false questions to serve as a knowledge check of previous episodes. It helps the players track their performance and serves as an in-game post-test evaluation tool, this allows for assessing learning impact.
Digital Game for
Youth Empowerment
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KikiKuka
Web portal platform
Introducing an all-in-one interactive web portal dedicated to comprehensive adolescent reproductive health education. Designed with the needs of young individuals in mind, this exciting platform offers a one-stop-shop bursting with engaging content and exciting discoveries on essential reproductive health knowledge. Additionally, it provides linkage to a range of health products and services tailored to meet the unique needs of young individuals, all conveniently available in one place.
Platform for Youth Empowerment
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Ask Paro
AI Chatbot
Ask Paro is an AI-powered chatbot embedded in the digital role-play game Go Nisha Go, where no question about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is off-limits. Ask Paro offers a safe, private, and nonjudgmental space for girls (and boys) aged 15–19 to ask questions about reproductive health. Available in both English and Hindi, it covers topics such as menstrual management, consent, and contraceptive methods, and features voice and video responses in a friendly, easy-to-understand tone.
AI-Enabled Research
via Chatbots
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Go Bro
Mobile Game
Decision-making role-playing game for boys fosters allyship with girls, offering them a safe environment to practice important conversations about relationships and sex, providing opportunities to explore various scenarios and cope with challenges such as rejection and embarrassment, some of the factors that lead to harmful gender norms
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Digital Game for
Youth Empowerment
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Contra Crush
Impact Arcade Game
Contra Crush is embedded in Go Bro, a game for adolescent boys, and is being adapted in other games. Modeling a common game framework, Contra Crush tests players' ability to recognize and match various fertility awarness products in a match-three puzzle game.
Digital Game for
Youth Empowerment
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“Fever game” for malaria treatment and care
Designed for global program planners in 24 priority countries, participants play as Adama, a Sub-Saharan African woman with a child under 5 with a fever. Players observe her receiving advice from neighbors at the village water collection point. This advice ranges from "doing nothing" to seeking care from a traditional healer to seeking facility-based provider care. This game enables players to walk in the shoes of Adama and understanding who and what factors influence her decision making to seek care for Malaria treatment during the critical recommended 48 hours. It enables US Government program planners to prioritize social and behavioural factors in program design.
Simulation for
Policy and Planning​
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Vikram Sharma
AI Chatbot
In the digital role-play game Go Bro, one of the sources of support is Vikram Sharma, who appears live through his Instagram account. Vikram serves as a mentor and counselor, helping the players navigate challenges, avoid toxic patterns, and build healthy relationships. Through conversations and guidance from Vikram, players learn to make informed decisions, embrace independence, and cultivate better connections—all at their fingertips.
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AI-Enabled Research
via Chatbots
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Girls Hostel
Mobile Game
Decision-making role-playing game for girls in Nepal to help them confidently navigate life’s toughest decisions while chasing their biggest dream. Girls Hostel empowers young individuals to discover, explore, learn, and play their way toward becoming empowered decisions-makers. Players face real-life challenges like balancing budding romance, battling societal norms, and negotiating parental pressures—such as delaying early marriage. They gain direct access to vital SRH information about their health and well-being as they make decisions in the game.
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Digital Game for
Youth Empowerment
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Ekta
Virtual Influencer Campaign
With a mission to empower young individuals, Ekta debuts as an inspiring virtual influencer in Nepal who addresses the real-world needs of adolescents. Leveraging the power of social media, she aims to foster awareness and positive change by offering adolescents a constant and unbiased virtual mentor to guide them through the intricacies of growing up with confidence and reliable support. Join her on her musical journey as she navigates societal norms, shares stories, and encourages others to pursue their dreams.
Platform for
Youth Empowerment
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Loop Trail Quest
Tablet Simulation
Loop Trail Quest is a simulation of the interaction between humans, wildlife, and ecosystems and the behaviors by humans that can trigger vector and water-borne diseases. This One Health game shows the self-inflicted harm of seemingly ‘benign’ behaviors that can put in motion diseases in humans. We leveraged simulation to visualize the "unseen" such as mosquitoes breeding in standing water from discarded trash to demonstrate this causal loop to influence conservation attitudes and behaviors.
Simulation for
Policy ​and Planning​
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Poster Hunt
Knowledge Game
In the digital role-play game Go Bro, players engage in a knowledge-based adventure where they explore the town in a poster hunt. Each poster features stereotype-based statements drawn from our research, presented as thought-provoking prompts. Players must find all the posters and answer questions related to the content. This creative gameplay also serves as a unique way to capture pre-test data—such as behaviors, social norms, and attitudes—while simultaneously encouraging reflection and promoting shifts in those very norms and behaviors.​
AI-Enabled Research
via Chatbots
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Solutions, not constrained

High tech
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Mobile digital games
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Digital role-play simulations
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Virtual influencer campaigns
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AI-enabled bots
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Machine learning predictive analytics and precision messaging

Low-tech
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Web-based ‘portals’ with access to helplines and other existing resources
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Tablet-based ‘animatic’ simulations
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‘Point and click’ desktop training games
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IVR Services
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No-tech
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Board games
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Card games
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Dice games
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Interactive comic books (choose different ending)