9-year-old Mackenzie Wilson has proven once again that Kickstarter is a social funding source to be reckoned with. The young girl, along with help from her mom Susan, had hoped to raise $829 from Kickstarter so she could pay her way into RPG STEM Camp, a program that teaches kids the skills needed to build their own games. Instead the youngest child of the Wilson family has raised five-figures with 27 days to go in her funding round.
In her video Mackenzie explains that she wants to create an RPG that is age appropriate and free of bad language and violence. The 9-year-old also explains that her game design “allows team members to face danger together and get hurt but doesn’t kill teammates off and eliminates them from battle.”
Mackenzie writes:
“My parents are into technology as users but my Mom has to hire programmers and developers sometimes for her work. She’s really glad I like computers and programming because she says as a business person she feels like she’s held hostage by developers.
She’s the one that got me interested in creating my own stuff on my computer instead of just playing with stuff other people create.”
The young programmer also wants to raise the money because her teenage brothers told her she would never get the cash. Mackenzie has already proved her brothers wrong as her Kickstarter campaign surpassed $19,000 on Friday with the help of 1015 backers and counting. Mackenzie can now attend camp all summer long and buy herself a high-tech laptop for programming purposes.
Kickstarter’s own rules say money can’t be raised to buy tuition which has led to some hateful troll comments. Other commenters have noted that the little girls mom is a Harvard grad who shouldn’t need to raise money to send her daughter to camp.
Despite criticism the campaign has been a success and now Mackenzie Wilson is going to RPG STEM Camp.
Here is the creative video Mackenzie posted on her Kickstarter page:
[iframe width=”640″ height=”480″ src=”https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/9-year-old-building-an-rpg-to-prove-her-brothers-w/widget/video.html” frameborder=”0″]
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