For decades, video games have been a way for many to relax, and escape the day-to-day reality. A place you can immerse yourself in a fantasy world, where the impossible is possible. Thanks to technology and accessibility, gaming has garnered a much larger “casual” audience over the last few years. Now, with smart phones, users can download games onto their iPhone or Android, and take them anywhere.

Take the game Angry Birds, for instance. Since its release for the iPhone in 2009, it has been purchased over 12 million times in Apple’s App Store. It has been downloaded over 500 million times across all the different platforms it is available for.

This year, at South By Southwest Interactive, the panel of “Can Gaming Make the World Better” will focus on social gaming and how it can motivate people to change their lives.

One of the panelists, George Weiner, of DoSomething.org, believes the best way for games to improve the world is to change the dynamic.

“I think the greatest potential of games is to get them out of the world of people with ‘gaming’ backgrounds. DoSomething.org employs many different methods of engagement for getting teens to take action. I have been with [DoSomething] for 5-plus years while we’ve ‘played’ with different methods around our national campaigns.”

The other panelists include: Adam Bosworth, CTO and Co-Founder of Keas, an online “Employee Wellness Program”; Nadya Direkova, Senior UX Designer and Game Mechanic at Google; Samantha Skey, Chief Revenue Officer at Recyclebank; and Gabe Zichermann, a 14-year veteran of the gaming industry, who runs Gamification.co, a one-stop-shop for all news pertaining to gamification.

For those of you who may not know what “gamificiation” is, here’s an excerpt from the website:

“Gamification is a dynamic and exciting industry that brings together game mechanics and marketing to create engagement and solve problems.”

Zichermann is also the chair for the Gamification Summit, which is a three-day summit that features presentations and workshops on all things Gamification.

The panelists have varying backgrounds when it comes to “gaming,” so when asked how he thought the panel would go, Zichermann replied:

“I expect it to be a rollicking, fun and informative discussion about how games can be used for betterment of the world. [I] expect it to be low on B.S. and high on data.”

The panel is on Sunday, March 11 from 9:30-11:30AM, in Room 6AB of the Austin Convention Center. You can find George Weiner on Twitter at @georgecaweiner and Gabe Zichermann at @gzicherm.