Village the Game: Play it. Love it. Live it.

In an article posted April 16th, about web entrepreneurs addressing social need, Village was noted towards the end of the article.

Darian Hickman, 28, is designing an online strategy game that turns the players into entrepreneurs who help bring prosperity to impoverished villages in underdeveloped countries.

Players can choose from a number of tools -- micro-credit loans, solar panels, irrigation pumps, affordable lighting -- to help villagers build sustainable futures.

Hickman, a devoted Christian who graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in computer science in 2001, spent several years writing "boring code" for defense contractors while trying to figure out how to combine his computer skills and his interest in social enterprise.

Inspired by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel prize-winning micro-finance pioneer, and the Skoll-sponsored documentary "The New Heroes," which tells the stories of 14 entrepreneurs combatting social ills around the globe by pioneering innovative technologies, Hickman hit on the idea for Village the Game.

"I just started experimenting with the things that Jesus taught. Fighting for the poor is important for God and also really rewarding. So I wanted to figure out clever ways of doing that," said Hickman, who lives in Pasadena and has begun collaborating on a nonprofit that will help villages in the real world.