Five projects bring to life real societal issues through immersive, 3D experiences
Unity (NYSE: U), the world's leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content, today announced the grantees of the 2020 Unity for Humanity Grant. For the first time, Unity has selected five grantees: Ahi Ka Rangers, Dot's Home, Future Aleppo, Our America, and Samudra. Each winning project is awarded funds along with mentorship and technical assistance to advance their Unity experiences. Unity for Humanity is a program within Unity Social Impact that celebrates and empowers creators who are using real-time 3D to inspire change.
Unity for Humanity represents the company's strong belief that the world is a better place with more creators in it and its commitment to empowering creators with the resources and guidance to bring these powerful experiences to life. Each project was evaluated for its inclusivity and diversity of experiences and perspectives, measurability of impact goals and calls to action, creativity of Unity usage and application, and viability of the production and distribution plan.
The 2020 Unity for Humanity Grantees are:
- Ahi Ka Rangers: An ecological mobile game, led by a Maori (Indigenous peoples of New Zealand) team, designed to transform a generation who have lost their connection to the world around them, into cheerleaders and activists for the planet. Players nurture and maintain biomes, aid other players, and participate in live data collection missions, contributing to scientific research.
- Dot's Home: A game that sheds light on the injustices embedded into the U.S. housing system by highlighting the choices that marginalized communities have had to make when navigating within the system. Dot's Home follows a young Black woman in Detroit living in her grandmother's beloved home, as she travels through time to relive key moments in her family's history where race, place, and home collide. Dot's Home is part of the Rise-Home Stories Project, a collaboration between multimedia storytellers and social justice advocates from several grassroots organizations who work at the intersection of housing, land, and racial justice in the US.
- Future Aleppo: An interactive VR experience that allows children to rebuild their homes and cities that have been ravaged by war. The experience is inspired by Mohammed Kteish, who used fallen debris to construct a model of his city that had been destroyed by bombings. These images were later converted, using Unity, into a fully immersive and interactive experience, preserving the city virtually and offering hope to citizens of Eastern Aleppo. The creators are now working with other youth from conflict zones and orphanages, empowering them to architect their own cities and homes, restoring agency and aiding in processing their trauma.
- Our America: A virtual reality experience designed to educate users about being Black in America. The experience navigates overt and subtle racism through the lens of a simple commute for a father and son that escalates into a life-or-death encounter. Modeled after the creators' personal experiences with racism, microaggressions, and police brutality, Our America sheds light on the many patterns of systematic racism and allows users to begin to understand first-hand the experiences that Black Americans face daily.
- Samudra: An environmentally focused, hand-illustrated, 2D puzzle game that follows a child's adventure across a polluted sea. Players encounter underwater creatures to uncover truths about "surface-dweller" actions causing the polluted deep-sea world. Uniquely designed without dialogue, Samudra is accessible across lingual and auditory borders. The creators seek to educate younger audiences around the globe about pollution and inspire them to take action and specifically focus on plastic waste, as part of their collaboration with the Indonesian activist circle to minimize plastic usage in Indonesia to 70% by 2025.
"For the first time, Unity is naming not one, but five grants to Unity creators who are using real-time 3D to connect us more deeply to our global society and help us see the world a bit differently," said Jessica Lindl, VP Social Impact, Unity. "It's my honor to support all of these changemakers in their storytelling journeys, inspiring us to make the world a better place."
Unity For Humanity is a grant program within Unity Social Impact, a division of Unity, aimed at empowering employees and creators of all backgrounds to foster a more inclusive, sustainable world. Unity Social Impact is made up of three pillars, Education and Economic Opportunity, Sustainability, and Digital Health and Well-Being. Inclusive Storytelling is the key theme that transcends all of Unity Social Impact initiatives. The 2021 Unity for Humanity Grant will open on April 22nd. To learn more, please visit: https://unity.com/humanity.
About Unity
Unity (NYSE: U) is the world's leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content. Creators, ranging from game developers to artists, architects, automotive designers, filmmakers, and others, use Unity to make their imaginations come to life. Unity's platform provides a comprehensive set of software solutions to create, run and monetize interactive, real-time 2D and 3D content for mobile phones, tablets, PCs, consoles, and augmented and virtual reality devices. The company's 1,800+ person research and development team keeps Unity at the forefront of development by working alongside partners to ensure optimized support for the latest releases and platforms. Apps developed by Unity creators have been downloaded more than five billion times per month in 2020. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.
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Contacts:
Alivia Rasmussen
Unity Communications
alivia@unity3d.com
+1 (650) 218-1185
