Norges Bank is Norway’s central bank. Their main goal is to build confidence in the value of money. Therefore, a large part of their social mission is to raise the public’s understanding of economics and finance.

Then enter Norwegian youth: A target audience too young to have experienced financial instability. While the housing-market is at an all time high the education level of Norwegian teenagers is at an all time low: according to a survey held by one of Norway’s largest papers half of Norwegians aged between 18 and 20 can’t explain what interest is.

How do you explain to them how global economics and finance work?

By collaborating with the Directorate for Cultural Heritage we implemented three projection screens, 9 individual touchscreens, a surround-sound system, special effects lighting, a server dedicated to running a complex simulation and thirty Samsung Galaxy S6-smart phones with a custom made operating system inside a building protected by cultural heritage laws.

The education centre is a permanent exhibition space inside Norges Bank located in the heart of Oslo’s financial district. It’s a 400-square meter, two and a half hour-long game with the same goal as the central bank itself: Build confidence in the value of money.

We mapped the education level of our target audience through interviews. Based on the interviews we developed the content in collaboration with dr.oecon Gunhild Ecklund, 12 experts from the central bank and six straight A-students handpicked from the target audience. This process started as early as 2014, but the material was continuously rewritten after being tested on the target audience.

The Education Centre opened autumn 2016 and has been fully booked ever since. Among the 150 randomly surveyed participants it has yet to receive a score under 5 out of 6 possible.

On initiative from the central bank the Education Centre’s success is measured in three parameters:

- Overall experience: How immersive, engaging and fun the experience was.

- Increased interest in economy: In what degree did the experience make you curious about economic topics?

- Increased learning: How much did you learn during the experience?

Here’s the average rating by the 150 randomly surveyed visitors.

Overall experience: 5.3/6

Increased interest in economy: 5.6/6

Increased learning: 5.2/6