vr for good – Page 3 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

Virtual reality (VR) is an inspiring medium of connecting your vision and idea with a mass audience, and there has never been something so engaging before. So, is it really a surprise to see that it encourages social change? Absolutely not, and it is widely recognised in both scientific studies and by developers using intuition to guess it out.

There are countless film festivals that introduce incredible ideas as messages to crowds, and it is no secret that VR has been slipping into that scene with no struggle whatsoever. Recently there was one film festival in Canada, the Reelworld Film Festival, and its main aim is to make an impact in terms of social change, and VR made a huge print this year.

reelworld film festival

At the Reelworld Film Festival, it was said that there were a dozen VR films and games, including stepping into the shoes of a BBC reporter accompanying Iraqi forces battling ISIS in Fight For Fallujah, or even experience the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in the game Inside the Haiti Earthquake. It was said by the organisers that “Reelworld’s virtual reality films and games will allow festival goers to immerse themselves in some of the most dangerous, beautiful, heart-wrenching, and inspiring locales/stories from across the globe.”

This may sound cliche, but to prove the point all you need to do is simply Google “virtual reality social change”, and you will be lost for hours looking through endless articles about how various organisations are adopting VR to encourage social change.

This year Oculus launched a whole initiative to encourage this type of development, called VR for Good. The goal of this is to challenge creators to get on board VR film programs and bring out a spark in the next generation. There is a whole ecosystem being built around the simple use of VR as a tool to enlighten the masses of what they may be ignorant to – and that is really cool.

VR for Good logo

Of course this is an encouraging and interesting development, but something that we should also be wary of is how much power we are giving to VR, and how it really does change your perception. Charities have taken on VR to use it as a way to put people into the unfortunate shoes of those they are trying to help, and this brings on strong emotions in those who view, and unsurprisingly it results in heightened donations.

But, what if someone were to abuse this medium? It is easy to see how people can exploit VR for their own personal gain, and so ethics plays a massive part in the evolution of VR as a way to encourage social change. It is a scary concept and something that we should keep in mind with the incredible increase in VR creations.

Dyslexia and Obesity Are Getting Virtual Reality Solutions

Socially conscious virtual reality projects took center stage last week at an event held at the Upload Collective in San Francisco. VR fans, enthusiasts and investors gathered at the SOMA location to hear from several entrepreneurs that are working hard to create immersive experiences that accomplish a charitable good.

First to speak was Jacqueline Stein, a college student with a passion for the often under-discussed epidemic of dyslexia. Her VR experience, titled “Peers” is a concept designed to help teachers understand and increase their empathy for dyslexic students. It is not a therapy tool for the child, but a way for educators to step inside their shoes and hopefully retain a changed perspective once they step back up to the blackboard.

Stein herself is dyslexic and struggled with feelings of inadequacy during her schooling.

“I cried a lot as a child,” Stein said. “But in fourth grade I had a teacher that really made an effort to understand me. She made me realize that this was something I could overcome…I want Peers to help create other superhero teachers like that and help dyslexic students rise above their affliction.”

Stein and her fourth grade teacher

According to Stein, “15 percent of our country is dyslexic, but 52 percent of our teachers have had no training in how to help dyslexic students.”

To help correct this imbalance, Peers will put you in a circle of peers and present you with a jumbled passage to read from. As you inevitably struggle the group of onlookers begins to laugh and tease you. Stein wants to create a powerful impression of the shame and powerlessness that dyslexic children feel when they don’t have empathetic teachers.

Concept art for ‘Peers’ in action

Stein’s next step is to raise $10,000 to create the experience itself. She says she’s already received inbound interest from educators and the International Dyslexia Association.

The second group at last week’s event are targeting the rampant problem of obesity in America by creating active VR experiences. “Fit VR” (working title) is the brainchild of Chad Lonberger, Rushil Reddy and a duo of other developers in the Bay Area.

Fit VR, at this point, is a collection of various VR fitness experiences designed to get a heart rate up. These include boxing, cycling, mini-games, and more. Lonberger and Reddy’s goal is to eventually narrow this down to the top experiences and release the platform as an experience that can grow and adapt with new experiences over time.

In addition to these experiences, the Fit VR team has also developed some, “pretty cool machine learning programs” that allow them to measure heart rate and other metrics for a user without the use of an additional accessory.

“All we need is gender, height and weight and we can get the metrics really close,” Lonberger said.

Finally, the team will also release an API to developers that will allow them to plug a “VR FitBit” of sorts into any of their creations so that users can keep appraised of their progress across multiple different experiences.

“Right now the space leans heavily towards games,” Lonberger said. “But we believe a new demographic will be there soon…For us Fit VR is less about one experience and more about capturing that new audience.”

Category: vr for good

VR is a Tool for Social Change as Well as Emotional Exploitation