Jane McGonigal is a game researcher with a PhD in performance studies from Berkeley. Her argument is bold: games —or rather videogames— can help solve many of the world’s problems. How, you may ask? I’ll let her tell you. My comments after the video.

McGonigal’s thesis’ brilliance relies on its simplicity. It’s one of those why didn’t I think of that kind of ideas. She takes the concept of crowdsourcing and exploits in a way no-one had done before, attempting to tap into an almost endless human resource: motivated gamers, who, by their own nature, are excellent problem solvers.

Unlike other online efforts such as Free/Open Source software production or sites like Wikipedia, the underlying motivation for McGonigal’s potential problem solvers is fun. Sure, she talks about how gamers develop all sorts of ties and secondary motivations, but, ultimately, they’d be there for the fun of it. If a site like Wikipedia can attract the critical mass of editors that it has today, most of whom are there for as a result of intrinsic, selfless interests, just imagine the potential of this thing!

Ted talks seldom disappoint, but this one is way up there among the very best.