(Vulcan Image)

Artists and organizations using immersive storytelling to create real-world change will gather in Seattle next month for the first-ever Impact Reality Summit, hosted by the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions and Portland-based Kaleidoscope.

The summit, on Jan. 9-10 at Vulcan Inc.’s headquarters, will feature panels, conversations, workshops and an exhibition of the best in “extended reality (XR) for good” storytelling.

In a news release Monday, Vulcan revealed the lineup and big names in XR, tech and social impact planning to take part: Participant Media, Juvee Productions, Conservation International, the Rainforest Alliance, Connect for Climate/World Bank, the Milken Institute, Google, Microsoft, and Oculus.

A diverse lineup of projects will compete for $50,000 in funding awards, broken down into four prizes:

  • Grand Prix ($20,000) ​— Awarded to the project with the greatest potential for positive global impact.
  • Best in Climate Change ($10,000)​ — Awarded to the project that best highlights the causes, consequences, and solutions to climate change.
  • Best in Sustainability ($10,000)​ — Awarded to the project with the greatest potential to support ocean health, environmental protection, fresh water resource management, pollution and waste prevention, or species and habitat protection.
  • Best in Community & Social Justice ($10,000)​ — Awarded to the project with the greatest potential to positively impact community and social justice.

“Vulcan Productions has put together an amazing and diverse lineup of some of the most cutting edge XR projects in the industry,” Matt Milios, creative director, Emerging Media at Vulcan Productions, said in a statement. “We’re couldn’t be more thrilled to be hosting such an eclectic mix of panels, events, and workshops.”

Here is the lineup as announced and described by Vulcan and Kaleidoscope:

THE KEY
USA, Iraq | 2019 | 15 Min | Creator: Celine Tricart

The Key is a room-scale virtual reality experience with a strong narrative structure punctuated by moments of choice. The participant is led through dream-like environments, facing challenges along the way and experiencing loss. Through this journey, a hidden truth is revealed as the participant realizes they’ve experienced the journey of a refugee who was forced to leave their homeland behind and create a new life in a foreign country. The Key was created in partnership with Friends of Refugees, a non-profit that empowers refugees through opportunities and helps them feel at home in a new community.

TRAVELING WHILE BLACK
USA | 2019 | 20 Min | Creator: Roger Ross Williams

The Green Book was a survival guide, first published in 1936, that African American travelers relied on to avoid brutal discrimination; it listed safe places that would fulfill their basic needs. In 1958, Ben and Virginia Ali’s new restaurant, Ben’s Chili Bowl, joined the list. This installation invites viewers into Roger Ross Williams’s emotionally moving VR experience about race and restricted movement in America, and afterward connect in an intimate booth at Ben’s Chili Bowl.

DROP IN THE OCEAN
UK, France, USA | 2019 | 7 Min | Creator: Adam May, Chris Parks, Dr M Sanjayan

“Drop in the Ocean” is an interactive, social virtual-reality experience that immerses you deep in the water — and directly into the plastic pollution crisis plaguing the world’s oceans. The seven-minute-long experience is built from the photo archive of Academy Award-winning micro-photographer Peter Parks and narrated by explorers Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau. It features the music of Gold Panda.

TREE
USA | 2017 | 9 Min | Creator: Milica Zec, Winslow Porter

This critically acclaimed and haptically enhanced virtual reality experience transforms you into a majestic rainforest tree. With your arms as branches and body as a trunk, you’ll experience the tree’s life from a seedling to its fullest form and witness its fate firsthand.

STORYFILE
USA | 2017 – Present | StoryFile

StoryFile’s AI, voice-activated technology allows users to connect to others through an intimate, interactive conversation, offering an unprecedented social experience.

4 FEET: BLIND DATE
Argentina | 2018 | 18 Min | Creator: María Belén Poncio/ Rosario Perazolo Masjoan / Damián Turkieh / Ezequiel Lenardón

Juana is an 18-year-old, blue-haired girl bound to a wheelchair, and she is anxious to explore her sexuality. She is going on a blind date with Felipe, a guy she found on social media. She didn’t tell him about the wheelchair. After overcoming her fears, her doubts, and an inaccessible city, she meets him—and together they will discover how their bodies feel.

BONFIRE
USA | 2019 | 15-20 Min | Creator: Eric Damell

In Bonfire, the latest interactive VR experience from the award-winning Baobab Studios, you play the leading role. After crash-landing at night in a mysterious clearing of an unknown planet three-hundred light-years from Earth, a chance meeting with a local inhabitant helps you learn that unexpected encounters just might result in lasting friendships. In this intimate setting, you have the opportunity to embrace, explore and influence the world around you, and, perhaps, make new friends. With Bonfire, Baobab has further explored instilling empathy in kids and people of all ages.

DAUGHTERS OF CHIBOK
Nigeria | 2019 | 11 Min | Creator: Joel Kachi Benson

In 2014 the sleepy agrarian community of Chibok (Borno State, North East Nigeria) was thrust into the global spotlight when the dreaded, anti-women education, terrorist group Boko Haram stormed the town at night and abducted 276 teenage schoolgirls from their dormitories. The world watched in shock and horror as videos of the girls, surrounded by machine gun- wielding terrorists, surfaced all over the internet and satellite channels across the globe. The VR deals with the aftermath of the kidnappings, and explores topical global issues of gender rights and the right to education.

MY AFRICA: ELEPHANT KEEPER
USA, UK | 2018 | 9 Min | Creator: Conservation International, Passion Planet, Vision3

Narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o and presented in stunning 360° VR, “My Africa” transports viewers to an elephant sanctuary in Kenya, where a community is reknitting the bonds that have long enabled people and wildlife to coexist.

Following on from the 360 film, audiences can welcome and feed the baby elephant named Dudu to the sanctuary, using real world props to create an innovative and photo realistic interactive VR experience.

PANELS AND WORKSHOPS ANIMATING THE FUTURE

A conversation with Baobab Studios CEO Maureen Fan and Chief Creative Officer Eric Darnell

Founded by director Eric Darnell, the empathy-catalyzing and 6-Time Emmy® award-winning Baobab Studios has produced some of the most beloved family-friendly VR experiences on the market. A company focused on entertaining audiences of all ages through emotional connection, we’ll hear from Baobab creators about how they craft their stories, how XR will impact future generations, and what’s next for the acclaimed production house.

THE ART OF XR FUNDRAISING

A seminar with Kaleidoscope

Creating XR projects can be daunting and at times feels like building a plane while flying it. One thing is certain, every impact creator needs the resources necessary to bring their project to fruition. In this workshop, Kaleidoscope’s René J. Pinnell will give an in-depth overview of the current industry trends in funding and how to retain your project’s impact goals while meeting a funder’s ROI expectations.

ETHICS OF TIME TRAVEL

How XR is redefining our past, present and future.

It’s been almost 150 years since the first audio recordings were captured and shared with the world–a moment that forever changed how we access historical moments in time. Today, the conversation has shifted from audio/video to deep fakes and other emerging technologies. In this discussion, we’ll dive into how the rising generation will access historical moments, and the potential dangers that come along with XR’s ability to curate people’s perception of the past.

IMPACT REALITY PITCH

What does it take to earn a grant for an XR project? This is where you’ll find out. Led by Kaleidoscope CEO René J. Pinnell, this pitch session will feature ten creators of in-development projects who are seeking development funds to make their ideas a reality. Held in front of a live audience, each of the ten participants will work against the clock to offer a global overview of their project, including its impact plan around one of the summit’s core focus areas: Climate Change, Sustainability, and Community & Social

Justice. The projects will be offered up to an audience vote, with the winner taking home the Grand Prix of $20k in development funds.

XR FOR GOOD

Developing successful and measurable impact strategies

For every creator, defining an effective impact campaign can feel daunting after contributing hours of blood, sweat and tears into their project. In this workshop, we’ll walk you through how to define XR’s ROI, what measurement tools are available for XR creators and how to present your work to your current and future funders.

VIRTUAL ACCESSIBILITY

A conversation on Social VR & Storytelling for accessibility.

In recent years, the VR industry has exploded with groundbreaking storytelling projects, hardware and platforms that have served or spotlighted physically disabled individuals from around the globe. In this intimate panel conversation, we’ll touch on the state of accessibility in VR, and XR storytelling’s impact on accessibility from both user experiences and fictional narrative.

XR MASTERCLASS: TREE

Lauded as one of the most groundbreaking experiences in the VR cannon at its release, New Reality’s TREE has wielded an unprecedented level of success as one of the longest running XR impact campaign tours to date. During this in-depth masterclass, you’ll hear from project creators Milica Zec and Winslow Porter about their journey creating this multi-sensory experience and implementing a lasting environmental impact campaign with Rainforest Alliance.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.