Strengthening U.S.-Ukraine Business Relations while Addressing Social Issues through “Serious Game Jam” | PAS UKRAINE 2020 012

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAS UKRAINE 2020 012

The grant opportunity "Strengthening U.S.-Ukraine Business Relations while Addressing Social Issues through Serious Game Jam" is a U.S. Department of State (U.S. Mission to Ukraine) competitive funding announcement seeking one organization to run a collaborative program centered on serious gaming. The core idea is to use a structured workshop and game jam to connect U.S. video game companies with Ukrainian developers, improve the business climate through exposure to transparent and ethical practices, and produce game concepts that engage real social challenges in Ukraine. The award is planned as a cooperative agreement, meaning the U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Section (PAS) is expected to be actively involved in shaping and supporting implementation rather than simply providing funds and stepping back.

At the strategic level, the program is designed around three linked goals. First, it aims to strengthen U.S.-Ukraine business relations by creating a clear, transparent platform where American and Ukrainian professionals can meet, collaborate, and potentially build longer-term partnerships. Second, it seeks to cultivate a better business environment in Ukraine by encouraging good corporate governance and professional norms relevant to international collaboration, with potential emphasis on areas like corporate social responsibility and intellectual property rights. Third, it addresses Ukrainian social issues by having participants design "serious games," meaning games created not just for entertainment but also to educate, shift attitudes, or prompt discussion and action around public-interest themes. Alongside this, the program also supports broader public diplomacy aims, including promoting STEAM education, encouraging women in STEAM, and increasing interest in U.S. study opportunities, while also presenting Ukrainians with attractive alternatives to competing technology ecosystems.

The proposed structure is a multi-day, event-linked sequence planned for early September 2020 in Kyiv, timed to coincide with Comic Con Ukraine. The applicant would work with PAS and, if relevant, a Ukrainian sub-awardee to recruit about 50 Ukrainian participants, focusing on established and aspiring game developers, including amateurs and recent graduates ages 18 to 30. The activity sequence includes a two-day workshop focused on social issues and game concept development, followed by a two-day game jam in which small teams rapidly build out playable prototypes or well-developed concepts. The workshop portion is intended to guide teams in framing social problems, choosing appropriate mechanics and narratives, and thinking through user engagement and impact, while the jam portion pushes teams to transform ideas into demonstrable results under mentorship and time constraints.

Mentorship is a central requirement rather than an add-on. Proposals are expected to include plans to bring in roughly 8 to 10 mentors from both Ukraine and the United States, explicitly including representatives of U.S. video game companies. These mentors serve two functions: technical and product guidance for the teams as they design their serious games, and career-path mentoring that helps Ukrainian participants understand industry expectations, professional pathways, and what collaboration with U.S. partners can look like in practice. PAS will assist in selecting or refining the thematic focus areas for the social-issue game concepts, ensuring alignment with embassy priorities and local relevance.

A key business-development component is the requirement to incorporate collaboration with the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service. The program is expected to do more than host a creative event; it should actively introduce U.S. game development companies to the Ukrainian market and facilitate relationships with Ukrainian counterparts. These interactions can be framed around good corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and intellectual property rights, reflecting common friction points in cross-border creative industries. The announcement also highlights an explicit priority to safeguard against outsourcing and, ideally, support job creation for American workers, signaling that the embassy is looking for partnership models that encourage sustainable, mutually beneficial cooperation rather than simply shifting labor offshore.

The Comic Con Ukraine tie-in is meant to provide visibility and a quasi-market test for participants. The game jam is scheduled for September 5-6, immediately before or alongside Comic Con programming, which anticipates a large audience (around 35,000 attendees). Applicants should plan, with PAS support, to coordinate with Comic Con organizers to host a pitch contest on September 5. During this pitch contest, teams present their game ideas to potential investors, participating U.S. companies, and the broader gaming community. Winning team(s) receive seed money to continue development after the event, creating a pathway from short-term prototyping to longer-term production. The opportunity also notes that participating U.S. companies may receive co-production rights to winning games if their representatives mentored those teams and if they choose to pursue that option, which is intended to incentivize real industry engagement rather than purely symbolic participation.

Beyond the game jam itself, the program is expected to include additional public-facing or educational elements connected to Comic Con. The applicant would assist PAS in scheduling and featuring U.S. mentors in side events that promote STEAM education, women in STEAM, and U.S. study. In practice, this could mean panels, talks, workshops, or networking sessions that broaden the program's impact beyond the 50 direct participants and help embed the serious-gaming approach within a larger narrative about innovation, education, and ethical entrepreneurship.

Because the timeline was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, proposals must include a realistic contingency plan to move activities online if in-person events become impossible. This is not described as optional; applicants are expected to show they can preserve core outcomes (team collaboration, mentorship, pitching, and evaluation) even in a virtual format. A credible online approach would likely address remote collaboration tools, digital pitching logistics, virtual showcase formats, and participant engagement strategies, while still meeting the program's diplomatic, business, and educational objectives.

Monitoring and evaluation is treated as a required program component with dedicated budget coverage. Applicants must demonstrate the capacity to track activities and measure both performance (what happened) and impact (what changed). The evaluation design is expected to specify what data will be collected, how it will be collected (for example, pre- and post-surveys, focus groups, interviews, and media monitoring), whether the data is quantitative, qualitative, or both, and how the results will be organized and reported. The announcement specifically asks that the evaluation plan be presented as a logic model, tying inputs and activities to outputs and outcomes in a structured, reportable way.

The grant provides sample indicators that clarify what the embassy views as success. These include concrete post-program continuation, such as at least one team still working on its project within six months; sustained mentorship ties, such as at least one quarter of participants maintaining relationships with U.S. mentors; and a longer-term business outcome, such as at least one new U.S. video game company establishing or planning a presence in Ukraine or initiating collaboration within one year. Additional indicators include measurable gains in participant technical skills and entrepreneurship aptitude based on pre- and post-program surveys, increased interest and understanding among event attendees around STEAM, women in STEAM, and U.S. study, and improved participant understanding of the selected social issues.

Administratively, the opportunity is issued by the Department of State, U.S. Mission to Ukraine, under Funding Opportunity Number PAS UKRAINE 2020 012. It is a discretionary opportunity using a cooperative agreement instrument, with an award ceiling of $100,000 and an expectation of a single award. Eligible applicants include U.S. public and state-controlled institutions of higher education and nonprofits with 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions where specified). The original posting date is May 8, 2020, with an original application deadline of June 15, 2020. Overall, the program is positioned as a hybrid of industry engagement, youth-focused workforce development, and social-impact innovation, using the serious game format as the bridge between business collaboration and public-interest outcomes.

• The Department of State, U.S. Mission to Ukraine in the arts (see cultural affairs in cfda), business and commerce, humanities (see cultural affairs in cfda), science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Strengthening U.S.-Ukraine Business Relations while Addressing Social Issues through “Serious Game Jam”" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 19.900.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 08, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 15, 2020. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $100,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education.

Apply for PAS UKRAINE 2020 012

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: