Facebook’s Oculus, the United Nations, the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and XR Impact combined forces this week to present a new VR experience, titled Be Earth #13 that aims to teach users more about climate change.
The experience is making its premiere at the World Economic Forum Annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. However it will be also made available for free. Be Earth #13 “transports the viewer to the Amazon rainforest where climate change is having a clear and present impact” and “invites participants to embody earth and learn more about climate change, to take action and personal responsibility to help end global warming.” Be Earth will take users on an immersive experience set in the Amazon rainforest in the aftermath of wildfires, pictured below.
The project was developed by XR Impact, funded by Sida and Facebook, and made in collaboration with the United Nations and climate experts, researchers, artists, storytellers and more. The full title, Be Earth #13, refers to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, the thirteenth of which deals with climate action. Be Earth #13 is the first in a planned VR platform, with other experiences that deal with some of the other 16 goals.
For those who might live in Davos, Switzerland or are passing through, you will be able to experience the project at the Equality Lounge in the Davos Panorama Hotel from today, the 21st of January, until the 24th of January. As mentioned previously, the experience will also be released to the public for free at some point, although there is currently no word on timing, release platforms or supported headsets.
Content creation studio VRAI are working with the United Nation (UN) to create 360-degree virtual reality (VR) experience that simulate the challenges faced by troops in the Mogadishu region every day.
Viewers find themselves in the middle of a convoy of military vehicles as they make their way slowly down a dirt road in Mogadishu. As the convoy moves forward there may be disturbances in the roads surface which might be some dirt or debris but could be something far worse. By pointing out this locations, they can be checked to see if it is all clear, allowing the convoy to continue. Of course in virtual space there is no real danger but this is a real threat that many have to deal with each day.
The project, created by Dublin-based content studio VRAI, is intended to simulate the challenges faced by troops on the ground in the Mogadishu region every day. It was showcased at an event in Somalia on International Mine Awareness Day, a UN initiative. Within the VR experience there is a total of five improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which are buried along the road that the convoy follows. Should any of this be missed then an explosion will happen and the viewer will be lying on their back as chaos unfolds around them.
“No one ever gets them all,” said VRAI Creative Director Niall Champion, talking about the experience that has been capture in 360-degree to ensure complete realism. “If it’s fully CG it starts to look fake,” Campion said. The Defense Forces where the ones who brought the company to the UN’s attention and decided it could work for the situation in Somalia.
The project was a complex task that was completed in a short turn around only a matter of weeks before the event. Shooting took two-weeks and was done so with the Insta360 Pro, which is able to capture is stunning 8K, along with a Samsung Gear 360 as the vehicle-mounted camera of choice. “If it falls off, or gets shot off, it’s not too expensive to replace,” Capion said. Due to the nature of the location the crew were required to wear full protective gear and needed an escort at all times.
The goal of the project is to help raise awareness of IEDs within the area and worldwide, offering an immersive experience that is otherwise not something viewers would get to witness. With the pressure of locating the IEDs creating a high level of stress, viewers connected to the lives of the soldiers on the ground in a unique way.
For more stories like this in the future, keep reading VRFocus.
Preserving sites with the most shameful or contested histories is critical for building democracy
The Pentagon this week announced it will tear down Camp X-Ray, the first temporary facility at Guantánamo where “enemy combatants” were imprisoned in 2002. Despite a US federal court’s preservation order, the Pentagon argued it did not need to preserve the physical site because the FBI has created a 3D digital reconstruction.
Such a virtual tour is in no way a substitute for preserving the original site. Destroying the physical structure of Camp X-Ray would destroy both vital legal evidence and the foundation of our future conscience.
Guantánamo has been forgotten before, with disastrous policy consequences
HTC has today announced the first grant recipients in its ‘VR for Impact’ program. Announced back in January, VR for Impact is the HTC Vive’s $10 million USD commitment to drive virtual reality (VR) content and technologies that will increase awareness and create positive impact in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Commemorating Earth Day, HTC Vive has unveiled new projects from three creators with visions for how VR can address the UN’s set of defined goals for the planet, such as “Climate Action” and “Zero Hunger.” These projects include SpaceVR, the first VR satellite launching into space later this year, Tree, a creatively immersive perspective on deforestation, and The Extraordinary Honey Bee, a joint project with Häagen-Dazs, Reach Agency and SPECTACLE to raise awareness about dwindling bee populations.
“We believe virtual reality and the immersive experiences it delivers have the potential to positively impact the biggest challenges that mankind faces,” said Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport, HTC Vive. “We welcome the first VR for Impact grant recipients who will introduce VR as a powerful tool in raising awareness for the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, and what better way to mark Earth Day than to unveil projects with three unique visions for helping the planet.”
SpaceVR is a VR platform which will allow users to experience space through the immersion of VR. Founded in 2015, the team has built the first VR satellite, the Overview 1, which will launch later this year on Space X. Once in orbit, SpaceVR will stream video that users can experience in full virtual reality or as 360-degree video.
“We’re thrilled to be chosen as one of the first participants in HTC Vive’s VR for Impact program,” said Ryan Holmes, CEO of SpaceVR. “We share a vision with Vive that VR and its power to immerse and affect viewers like no other medium can be used to make the world a better place. By launching the first virtual reality satellite, we want to create the most vivid and visceral reminder yet that despite our individual trials and travails, we all live on this same fragile pale blue dot hurtling through space.”
Tree is a critically acclaimed VR experience enhanced by haptic feedback to immerse viewers in the tragic fate that befalls a rainforest tree. The experience brings to light the harrowing realities of deforestation, one of the largest contributors to global warming. Tree is an official selection of Sundance Film Festival New Frontier and Tribeca Film Festival Immersive 2017.
“We are incredibly honored to announce our collaboration with the Vive VR for Impact program, [sic]” said Milica Zec, co-direcotor on Tree and co-founder of New Reality Company. “New Reality shares with VR for Impact a core tenet: that VR storytelling is key to raising awareness for the many challenges facing our earth.”
Added Winslow Porter, co-director on Tree and co-founder of New Reality Company: “The Tree VR experience has incited emotional, empowering reactions among a wide array of viewers. During the final moments of Tree, a number of individuals have cried or shouted while in the headset and vowed afterward to take action. Together with VR for Impact, we want to reach people from all over the world to help make widespread global impact.”
The Extraordinary Honey Bee is a project looking at the alarming rate at which bee populations are falling. Users will shrink down to the size of a bee for a guided VR experience where they learn of the risks bee colonies face and solutions currently being implemented to offset their decline.
“We believe in the transformative and educational power of VR and are excited to use this technology to bring the plight of the honey bee to life,” said Orchid Bertelsen, Nestlé USA Digital Innovation Lead. “We are thrilled to partner with Vive, not only because of their innovative technology and valuable audience, but because of their ideals and shared belief of harnessing the power of VR to drive true impact.”
HTC Vive launched VR for Impact as a multi-year program, and SpaceVR, Tree and The Extraordinary Honey Bee represent the first grants awarded. Additional grant recipients for 2017 will continue to be revealed throughout the year all projects that receive funding by VR for Impact will be available on Viveport, HTC’s app store for VR. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details on the VR for Impact programme.
At a policy conference in the German city of Bonn, videogame and augmented reality (AR) tech was in use to enhance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in world’s first ‘playable’ UN conference.
Gmers and activists teamed up to address some of the most complex problems facing the world today. Instead of just speeches, debates and presentations, attendees at the conference could also try out a ‘hands-free gardening’ app developed by software company Huxley.
Ryan Hooks, manager of Huxley, told UN News; “It’s an AI (Artificial Intelligence) and augmented reality for plants. Greenhouses that use hydroponics to circulate the water are very complex systems and it’s hard to scale water efficient food solutions. I’ve found that augmented reality and AI can be really useful for reducing labour cost.” Hooks then demonstrated the app by pointing it at a plant on the table, which the app identified as ‘apple mint’. “It’s augmented reality, it knows what kind of plant it is,” he explained, “what percentage its health is, when to pick it, pack it, ship it and the environment (around it), so people can have hands-free augmented gardening.” [sic]
Conference attendees could also participate in the 2030 Hive Mind game, where players had the chance to manage a hypothetical country, plan it’s policies and try and convince other players to support your ideas. The conference organisers say the game is designed to reflect the trade-offs and tough choices that policy makers may be faced with in real life if sustainable development is to be achieved.
Cristina Gallach, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, said; “We have to make the world aware of this […] agenda that is definitely going to transform the planet and that is going to ensure that no one is left behind. The more we communicate about the SDGs and make people aware of the agenda, the more the governments we will be accountable and will ensure that it is implemented.”
To further illustrate the purpose of the conference and the SDGs, 17 icons have been created to represent each goal, each with it’s own colour, short name or phrase and a distinctive image. These icons and their attached phrases have been translated into over 50 languages.
VRFocus will continue to bring you news on AR development and use in conferences and events.
Gabo Arora founded the United Nations VR, and has directed some of the more well-known VR empathy experiences starting with Clouds Over Sidra in December 2014 in collaboration with Chris Milk’s VR production house Within. Milk first showed Clouds Over Sidra during Sundance 2015, and featured it prominently in his VR as the Ultimate Empathy Machine TED talk in March 2015, which popularized VR’s unique abilities for cultivating empathy.
I had a chance to catch up with Arora at Oculus’ VR for Good premiere party at Sundance where we talked about producing Clouds Over Sidra, his new Lightshed production company, and the importance of storytelling in creating VR empathy experiences.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
Arora’s work has been at cross section of storytelling and technology, and diplomacy and humanitarian efforts. He studied film in college, but was unable to launch a successful film career in Hollywood, and instead turned towards humanitarian work with NGOs after 9/11 and eventually with the United Nations in 2009. He used his creative sensibilities to move beyond written text reports, and look to the power of new media to tell humanitarian stories. He had some success with collaborating with social media sensation Humans of New York photographer Brandon Stanton by coordinating a 50-day global trip with in 2014 in order to raise awareness of millennium development goals. He proved the power of using emerging technology to promote humanitarian goals.
After he was introduced to Within’s Chris Milk in 2014, he gathered enough support to create a virtual reality lab at UN staring with creating an experience about the Syrian refugee crisis. Clouds Over Sidra was shot in two days in December 2014 at the Za’atari Refugee Camp, which had over 80,000 Syrian refugees. Arora wanted to focus on a day in the life of a 12-year old refugee, and collaborated with his UN contacts to find the young female protagonist named Sidra. Arora said that a big key to cultivating empathy in virtual reality is to focus on the common ordinary aspects of day-to-day living whether that’s eating a meal or preparing for school. While some of these scenes would seem like non-sequiturs in a 2D film, the sense of presence that’s cultivated in VR gives the feeling of being transported into their world and a feeling of being more connected to the place and story.
Arora acknowledges that merely showing suffering of others can have the opposite effect of cultivating empathy. He cites Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others as a book that helped provide some guidelines for how to represent the pain of others. He’s aware that we can have a lustful relationship towards violence, and that there are risks of normalizing suffering can create an overwhelming sensory overload. He’s addresses some of Paul Bloom’s arguments in Against Empathy in that there’s a bias towards empathizing with people who look or act like you. If there’s too much of a difference, then it can be difficult to connect through on any common ground. This is a big reason why Arora has typically focused on finding ways of representing the moments of common humanity within the larger context of fleeing from war or coping with a spreading disease like Ebola.
Arora was able to show that Clouds Over Sidra was able to help the United Nations beat their projected fundraising goal of $2.3 billion dollars by raising over $3.8 billion, but he’s much more confident in showing the UNICEF’s numbers of being able to double face-to-face donations from 1 in 12 without VR to 1 in 6 with VR with an increase of 10% per donation. With these types of numbers, there’s been a bit of a gold rush for NGOs to start making VR experiences for a wide range of causes, but Arora cautions that not all have been successful because not all of them have had an emphasis on good storytelling or the technical expertise that he’s enjoyed with his collaborations with Within.
Hamlet on the Holodeck author Janet H. Murray recently echoed the importance of good storytelling in VR experiences by saying that “empathy in great literature or journalism comes from well-chosen and highly specific stories, insightful interpretation, and strong compositional skills within a mature medium of communication. A VR headset is not a mature medium — it is only a platform, and an unstable and uncomfortable one at that.” The storytelling conventions of VR are still emerging, and the early VR empathy pieces have been largely relying upon conventions of traditional filmmaking.
Arora admits that there’s a certain formulaic structure that most of these early VR empathy pieces have taken that rely upon voice over narration, but he says that he started to dial back the voice overs in his most recent piece The Ground Beneath Her. He says that his recent collaboration with Milk on the U2 Song for Someone music video showed him that there’s a lot that can be communicated without resorting to voice overs.
Murray argues that “VR is not a film to be watched but a virtual space to be visited and navigated through,” and she actually recommends “no voice-overs, no text overlays, no background music.” I’ve independently come to the same conclusion, and generally agree with this sentiment because most voice over narrations or translations feel scripted and stilted. They are also often recorded within a studio that doesn’t match the direct and reflected sounds of the physical locations that are shown, which creates a fidelity mismatch that can break presence and prevent me from feeling completely immersed within the soundscapes of another place.
I’ve found that the cinéma vérité approach of having authentic dialog spoken directly within a scene works really well, or that it works best if the audio is directing me to pay attention to specific aspects to the physical locations that are being shown. After watching all ten of the Oculus for Good pieces at Sundance, one of the most common things that I saw is not having the physical location match whatever is being talked about. Sometimes they’re interesting locations to look at, but it ends up putting the majority of storytelling responsibility within the audio. If the audio were to be taken away, then the visual storytelling isn’t strong enough to stand on it’s own.
6×9’s Francesca Panetta used audio tour guides as an inspiration for how to use audio in order to cultivate a deeper sense of presence within the physical location being shown. One live-action VR piece that does this really well was a cinéma vérité piece by Condition One called Fierce Compassion, which features an animal rights activist speaking on camera taking you on a guided tour through an open rescue as it’s happening. The live delivery of narration feels much more dynamic when it’s spoken within the moment, and feels much more satisfying than a scripted narration that’s written and recorded after the fact.
A challenging limitation to many NGO empathy pieces is that they often feature non-English speakers who need to be translated later by a translator who doesn’t always match the emotional authenticity and dynamic speaking style of the original speaker. Emotional authenticity and capturing a live performance are some key elements of what I’ve found makes a live-action VR experience so captivating, but it’s been rare to find that in VR productions so far. There are often big constraints of limited time and budgets, which means that most of them end up featuring voice over narratives after the fact since this is the easiest way of telling a more sophisticated story. This formula has proven to be successful for Arora’s empathy pieces so far, but it still feels like a hybrid between traditional filmmaking techniques and what virtual reality experiences will eventually move towards, which I think Murray quite presciently lays out in her piece about emerging immersive storyforms.
Arora’s work with the UN in collaboration with Within has inspired everyone from the New York Times VR to Oculus’s VR for Good program and HTC’s VR for Impact. It also inspired Chris Milk’s TED talk about VR as the “ultimate empathy machine”, which is a meme that has been cited on the Voices of VR podcast dozens of times.
But the film medium is also a powerful empathy machine as Arora cites Moonlight as a particularly powerful empathy piece that was released in 2016. Roger Ebert actually cited movies as the “most powerful empathy machine” during his Walk of Fame speech in 2005. He said:
We are born into a box of space and time. We are who and when and what we are and we’re going to be that person until we die. But if we remain only that person, we will never grow and we will never change and things will never get better.
Movies are the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts. When I go to a great movie I can live somebody else’s life for a while. I can walk in somebody else’s shoes. I can see what it feels like to be a member of a different gender, a different race, a different economic class, to live in a different time, to have a different belief.
This is a liberalizing influence on me. It gives me a broader mind. It helps me to join my family of men and women on this planet. It helps me to identify with them, so I’m not just stuck being myself, day after day.
The great movies enlarge us, they civilize us, they make us more decent people.
Ebert’s words about film as a powerful empathy machine as just as true today as when he said it in 2005. I do believe that virtual reality has the power to create an even deeper sense of embodied presence that can trigger mirror neurons, and may eventually prove to become the “ultimate empathy machine.” VR may also eventually allow us to virtually walk in someone else’s shoes to the point where our brains may not be able to tell the difference between what’s reality and what’s a simulation. But as Murray warns, “empathy is not something that automatically happens when a user puts on a headset.” It’s something that is accomplished through evolving narrative techniques to take full advantage of the unique affordances of VR, and at the end of the day will come down to good storytelling just like any other medium.
HTC has done quite a bit over the last year in support of virtual reality (VR), creating various programmes such as Vive X. Today sees the launch of another, ‘VR For Impact‘, a $10 million USD initiative created to support positive impact and change in collaboration with the United Nations (UN), helping the organisation achieve it Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Through VR for Impact, HTC Vive will fund and support content and technologies that create powerful experiences to transform our world. “The potential for Virtual Reality to help us learn, understand, and transform the world is limitless. VR for Impact is a challenge to the VR community and content developers across the globe to help drive awareness and to solve the biggest challenges of mankind,” said Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO, HTC. “HTC Vive will fund the best ideas using Virtual Reality that truly drive awareness and positive change in our world. We encourage all players in the VR eco-system to join as only together can we drive real impact.
The Sustainable Development Goals have been implemented by the UN as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. VR has the unique ability to immerse people into an experience that can evoke all manner of emotions, bring global issues the human race is facing home. So through VR for Impact, the $10 million HTC Vive is investing will go to industry partners and content developers to create experiences that improve awareness, education, and lead to action.
“HTC is a pioneer in recognising the work the UN has done to promote social change through virtual reality,” said Gabo Arora, Creator of the UN’s VR Initiative and Creative Advisor to the World Food Programme. “The Vive’s room-scale VR capability can be a powerful tool for immersive storytelling, education and training; their support will empower more people to effect global change, give voices to the most vulnerable and provide access to new possibilities for the most marginalised.”
“There are millions of untold stories in every crisis, especially on the front lines where much of our work takes place,” said Corinne Woods, Director of Communications for the United Nations World Food Programme, who are utilising the latest innovations in VR. “HTC’s support of new ways to tell important stories, and help in shaping innovation for the UN’s sustainable development agenda, will build on the impact of our work and take it in new and exciting directions.”
VR for Impact is now calling for ideas at its website with the first winning projects announced on “Earth Day” 22nd April, 2017.
For all the latest HTC Vive news, keep reading VRFocus.
Tonight at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland HTC Vive announced that it will devote $10 million “to drive VR content and technologies that will create positive impact and change,” according to a company spokesperson.
Vive is pledging these funds through a new program called VR for Impact. The money will also be used in conjunction with the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals by 2030” platform. According to an official Vive statement:
“Virtual Reality provides a tremendous opportunity to develop and share ideas in impactful ways that lead to change, and through VR for Impact, HTC Vive will fund and support content and technologies that create the most powerful experiences to transform our world.
….Virtual Reality’s ability to immerse people into an experience is unmatched, and VR can drive the world to act on global issues the human race is facing. Through VR for Impact, HTC Vive is committing $10 million dollars to industry partners and content developers to create experiences that improve awareness, education, and lead to action.”
The HTC Vive VR headset
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is a coalition effort that aims to call corporations, nonprofits and other organizations to action in support of the world’s most impoverished and marginalized peoples. The platform includes 17 stated goals that include “No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Quality Education and Gender Equality” among others.
“HTC Vive will fund the best ideas using Virtual Reality that truly drive awareness and positive change in our world,” said Chairwoman and CEO of HTC, Cher Wang, in a prepared statement. “We encourage all players in the VR eco-system to join as only together can we drive real impact.”
One of Vive’s potential partners in the VR for Impact campaign, the World Food Program, believes that the company’s immersive prospects could significantly drive forward charitable causes by engaging society through empathy.
“There are millions of untold stories in every crisis, especially on the front lines where much of our work takes place,”said Corinne Woods, Director of Communications for the World Food Program. “HTC’s support of new ways to tell important stories, and help in shaping innovation for the UN’s sustainable development agenda, will build on the impact of our work and take it in new and exciting directions.”
As of today, Vive is calling for ideas that could become a part of its VR for Impact initiative and will announce the first winners on “Earth Day” April 22, 2017.
Vive’s chief competitor, Oculus, also has a similar program called VR for Good.
The United Nations (UN) has been one organisation that’s fully embraced virtual reality (VR), having created numerous experiences highlighting the plight of people all over the world. Specialist VR production studio Here Be Dragons has collaborated with the UN on several projects, and today its now revealed the sixth, Ground Beneath Her.
During April 2015, Nepal was rocked by a massive earthquake, killing almost 9,000 people. More than 3 million people were displaced by the earthquake, having to live in makeshift homes or camp-like shelters. Ground Beneath Her is a 360-degree film showcasing the struggle of 14-year-old Sabita. More than a year after the earthquake, Sabita must balance the pain of picking up the pieces after the devastation and fulfilling the everyday duties of a fractured home.
A collaboration between the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the SDG Action Campaign, the film was created by award-winning director Gabo Arora. “The physical and emotional pain of a natural disaster can shake lives long after the world forgets the immediate damage and hardships,” said Arora. “In Ground Beneath Her, viewers gain a better understanding of scars that remain after events like the Nepal earthquake.”
“Ground Beneath Her is our sixth experience for the United Nations VR initiative that tells a delicate yet urgent story about the human spirit and the world we all live in,” said Samantha Storr, vice president and executive producer at Here Be Dragons. “While VR technology has advanced and our understanding of storytelling within this new medium has evolved, it is still the bravery and resiliency of the human spirit that makes these films come alive with a timeless feel. Beginning with our time in Jordan for Clouds of Sidra – and now, with Ground Beneath Her – we at Here Be Dragons have been honored to witness such beauty, grace and bravery against odds and situations many of us could not imagine.”
Chiefly using sound and music rather than dialogue, with a score by Emmy-nominated composer McKenzie Stubbert, Ground Beneath Her has been released exclusively on the UNVR app today for Gear VR, iOS and Android platforms. And for further coverage of Here Be Dragons, keep reading VRFocus.
Virtual reality (VR) enthusiasts around the world have been taking immersive trips to far flung locations for awhile, and now the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been trying out the technology.
The Secretary General joined the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. H.E. Abduallah al-Mouallimi and the Mayor of Riyadh and President of the Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA), H.E. Ibrahim al Sultan, in touring the ‘A Day in Riyadh’ interactive exhibit at the UN headquarters in New York.
As part of the exhibit Ki-moon was given a demonstration of a VR tour of Saudi Arabia’s capital and met with Saudi students volunteering at the event, which took place last week.
Sponsored by the Arriyadh Development Authority, ‘A Day in Riyadh’ consisted of a series of workshops showcasing the urban, environmental, transportation, social and economic development of Riyadh.
“Riyadh has a moving story with its rich heritage that integrates architectural innovation with Saudi Arabia’s past,” said Dr. Mshari Al-Naim, Director of the Center of Urban Heritage at the Tourism General Assembly. “We are proud to have put Riyadh on the international map of architecture. The King Abdallah Historical Center in particular has become a very important architectural design renowned in the Arab world,”
One of the workshops focused on the participation of women in the development of the city. “Saudi women are making incredible progress” said Dr. Khawla Al Kuraya, the Director of the King Fahad National Center for Children’s Cancer and Research, and a Member of the Shura Council. “Riyadh’sdevelopment means more opportunities for Saudi women as the Kingdom’s economy moves away from oil. We are part of Vision 2030 which seeks to increase the percentage of women in the workforce. We will shatter existing stereotypes within the contours of our culture.”
Keep reading VRFocus as we continue reporting on the latest VR innovations and implementations.
Commemorating Earth Day, HTC Vive has unveiled new projects from three creators with visions for how VR can address the UN’s set of defined goals for the planet, such as “Climate Action” and “Zero Hunger.” These projects include 
“We’re thrilled to be chosen as one of the first participants in HTC Vive’s VR for Impact program,” said Ryan Holmes, CEO of SpaceVR. “We share a vision with Vive that VR and its power to immerse and affect viewers like no other medium can be used to make the world a better place. By launching the first virtual reality satellite, we want to create the most vivid and visceral reminder yet that despite our individual trials and travails, we all live on this same fragile pale blue dot hurtling through space.”
“We believe in the transformative and educational power of VR and are excited to use this technology to bring the plight of the honey bee to life,” said Orchid Bertelsen, Nestlé USA Digital Innovation Lead. “We are thrilled to partner with Vive, not only because of their innovative technology and valuable audience, but because of their ideals and shared belief of harnessing the power of VR to drive true impact.”
