SEATTLE — Virtual Reality has the potential to effectively transport users to anywhere in the existing (or nonexistenting) world, simply by putting on the proper gear.
Vrse, a virtual reality company founded by Chris Milk, has a team of people that work to create films that offer a completely immersive VR experience that will evoke empathy for people living in poverty around the world.
UN Senior Adviser Gabo Arora and company founder Chris Milk partnered the company’s innovative technology with the stature of the United Nations to create the film “Clouds over Sidra,” which tells the story of a young girl named Sidra in Za’atari, a refugee camp that contains 84,000 refugees.
Viewers get to hear the 12-year old girl’s story, but the experience goes beyond that. As Sidra talks about how she always does her homework so that she can be sure to know the answer when the teacher asks a question in class, the viewer sees the classroom full of children as if he or she is a part of it.
When Sidra talks about how she has lived in Za’atari for over a year, but she hopes to go home soon, the viewer experiences being in the room with Sidra while she puts her head into her hands and cries.
The film is effective in evoking empathy in viewers. When UNICEF New Zealand set up a demonstration to show passersby the film, twice the normal number of people made donations. This showed the potential power of this technology to drive activism and change.
Photo: VR Scout
Vrse also made a film called “Waves of Grace,” which is about a woman in Liberia named Decontee Davis. A victim of the ongoing Ebola epidemic in Africa, she suffered through the disease, but survived. She uses the immunity she developed to travel through the country helping those afflicted, and to raise awareness about how survivors such as herself don’t pose a threat to the public.
Decontee says that when the epidemic first began to ravage her village, she feared the man she loved, and even for her own child. And now she wants to use the gift of her immunity to carry out heroic acts of humanity.
Milk says that, “empathy isn’t just a ‘factor’ in VR. It’s the goal.”
Sources: NPR, Vrse 1, Vrse 2, Vrse 3, Wired 1, Wired 2, YouTube
Photo:Flickr