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The American Navy has turned to crowd sourcing to help solve one of the longest running scourges of the world's high seas - piracy.

More than 9,000 people have already registered to play MMOWGLI, which stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet and is pronounced like the character from Jungle Book, and the three week game kicks off in June.

The Office of Naval Research, which conceived the game with the Naval Postgraduate School and the Institute for the Future, is hoping that MMOWGLI will uncover potential solutions to problems like pirates that have yet to occur to the experts.

The game begins: 'Three pirate ships are holding the world hostage. Chinese-US relations are strained to the limit and both countries have naval ships in the areas. Humanitarian aid for rig workers is blocked. The world is blaming the US for plundering African resources.'

Participants then have two options - innovate or defend. Those that choose to innovate will be asked: 'What new resources could turn the tide in the Somali pirate situation?' Defenders will be asked: 'What new risks could arise that would transform the Somali pirate situation.' All responses are limited to 140 characters.

Good ideas will be awarded points, and a leaderboard will be revealed after each phase of the game. Moderators also have the ability to tag some responses as worthy, while feedback from the audience will also be taken into consideration.

Larry Schuette, director of innovation at the Office of Naval Research, said: 'Good ideas should get more play,' adding: 'The Navy works well with traditional partners. This is an effort to get out and find people we've never worked with before. I don't care where the ideas come from. We're looking for people who've been looking for a place to share ideas.'

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