CDS DS wins at SGS&C 2025

CDS Defence & Security is proud to announce that Serve to Lead (Ethical Edge) has been awarded the Best Government Audience Game at the 2025 Serious Games Showcase & Challenge (SGS&C), held at I/ITSEC in Orlando. This accolade recognises Ethical Edge as a leading-edge solution in immersive, values-driven decision-making training on the global stage.

Why this win matters

As a finalist among a competitive field of serious games from across the world, Ethical Edge’s win highlights the increasing demand for training solutions that go beyond traditional eLearning. It validates our belief that immersive, emotionally intelligent simulations can deliver real, measurable impact in building critical thinking, leadership, empathy, and ethical confidence.

For organisations facing complex ethical and interpersonal challenges, from defence and public safety to corporate governance and human-centred industries, Ethical Edge now carries global endorsement as a proven, award-winning solution.

What is Ethical Edge

Ethical Edge is our next-generation digital learning experience that immerses participants in decision-making scenarios shaped by real-world pressures, cultural context and organisational policies. Designed for high-stakes environments, it offers a safe-to-fail space where learners can explore choices, see consequences, and reflect without real-world risk.

Through immersive, branching-narrative simulations, lifelike characters, voiced scenarios and hyper-realistic environments, learners build emotional intelligence, moral courage, and decision-making confidence. Each simulation is tailored to the unique values, policies and context of the organisation, ensuring relevance, authenticity and lasting impact.

Key features include:

• Organisation-specific simulations rooted in policy, culture, and day-to-day challenges.

• Immersive, voiced scenarios enabling emotionally intelligent character interactions.

• Psychological safety to allow exploration and learning from mistakes.

• Time-aware design to simulate pressure and test judgement under constraints.

• Human-centred storytelling that develops empathy, interpersonal awareness, and confidence.

• Guided reflection and debrief to convert experience into behavioural growth.

• Measurable impact through feedback, analytics and actionable insights.

Ethical Edge in Action: Serve to Lead at RMAS

One of the flagship deployments of Ethical Edge is Serve to Lead, a bespoke simulation developed for the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). Serve to Lead immerses Officer Cadets in the role of a Platoon Commander, navigating real-world dilemmas around welfare, discipline, harassment, human rights, and leadership in both barracks and deployed environments.

Over a 45-minute online scenario followed by facilitated, face-to-face debrief, cadets experience the pressures, ambiguity, and complexity of leadership decision-making. Serve to Lead is aligned with the relevant leadership doctrine and competency framework, helping cadets practice values-based leadership, moral courage, inclusivity, self-awareness, team building, and decision-making under ethical and organisational constraints.

Feedback from the pilot has been overwhelmingly positive, cadets reported increased confidence in handling sensitive issues, while instructors gained clear insight into decision-making patterns and opportunities for targeted development. Crucially, this work supports the creation of “combat-ready leaders” not just tactically capable, but ethically grounded and emotionally intelligent.

A Global Endorsement

Winning at SGS&C 2025 brings international recognition to Ethical Edge and CDS Defence & Security. It validates our approach and demonstrates that immersive serious games have a meaningful role to play in transforming how organisations prepare their people for complex real-world challenges.

We look forward to building on this achievement and working with organisations worldwide to embed immersive ethical decision-making training into their development and leadership programmes.