A category five hurricane is headed for your country. You, as a world leader, are responsible for 2.5 million lives. Are your palms sweating? Can you keep composed thoughts? Even if you're sitting in front of a computer, how do you respond?

"It's a test of your will, your control, your strength," Patrick Herron, Duke University's Research Analyst and Technologist for the Jenkins Chair, said.

That chaotic scenario is recreated in "Virtual Peace." It's a game the University created to put students in real-life scenarios to see how they will respond.

"In the 21st century, I think the U.S. is being challenged by other nations such as China and it's losing its leadership in innovation," Herron said. "Right now, it's very clear we need new ideas in order to maintain a world leadership."

"Technology properly used can help feed and cloth people. Clearly, we have an economic crisis that begs for us to be innovators."

The Jenkins Chair is a University professorship charged with leading studies on innovation at Duke. Herron and his team wanted to build a game where people could immerse themselves in a world and learn how to collaborate with one another.

"We don't want them to go out to a crisis and all of a sudden have to feel out everything for the first time," he said. "This creates an environment where they can interact with people and actually negotiate as if it were happening instead of just working with a piece of paper."

The group received a MacArthur Grant for $250,000. They headed to Virtual Heroes, a company in Research Triangle Park known worldwide for its simulated games that put people into a virtual reality.

"They're playing, they're having fun and the knowledge and the learning is kind of seeping in," Bradley Willson, a game designer for Virtual Heroes, said. "They can see how the changes they've done by interacting with the other characters make them better people and open their eyes up to other things they might not be exposed to."

Willson hopes that holds true for Pamoja Mtaani, a game released in Kenya on World AIDS Day that's meant to teach teens about the dangers of HIV. Players can be any of five "culturally relevant" characters like a famous soccer player, musician or a medical student.

"They learn how their character develops," Willson said. "They all start at the beginning with certain behaviors that they do that makes them more susceptible to catching HIV."

It took a year to develop. And that's after Willson went to Kenya three times to study the culture, the surroundings and the behaviors.

The company will research data comparing attitudes of the children before and after playing that game. Those stats should be out in a couple of months.

"Only time will tell how effective it is," Willson said. "This is the first time any game studio has developed a product specifically for Kenya."

Virtual Heroes is working on other games. NASA and companies in the private sector could eventually use a space game to get kids interested in space, science and math.

"This is set in the year 2032," Steven Cattrell, associate producer for Virtual Heroes, said. "NASA's goal is: Our next flight to the moon in 2020."

"A lot of our clients are doing, bring interest to their field."