Unity Technologies has selected the winners of its acclaimed Unity for Humanity Grant and Unity for Humanity Imagine Grant, it was announced on Monday.
The world’s top real-time 3D (RT3D) content creation platform picked Songs of Culture as its Imagine Grant Winner, with Augment Therapy, My Lovely Planet, Darkening, and TOGUNA receiving Unity for Humanity Grants.
Winners will receive funding for their projects along with guidance, mentorship, as well as access to technical support and marketing resources for their Unity-based immersive experiences.
Have you heard the news? 🎺 We just announced the winners of our #UnityForHumanity 2022 Grant and the Imagine Grant (a collab with @common)! 🏆 Find out what makes each project special in this announcement blog. https://t.co/nDvGSWOcmp
— Unity (@unity) March 28, 2022
Award-winning artist, activist, actor, and author Common created the grant’s theme of “Imagine a Better World,” which showcases Unity for Humanity’s central idea of using RT3D content to build positive change and human experiences with extended reality (XR) technologies.
Judges selected the projects based on their vision, inclusivity, and social impact as well as the viability and feasibility of producing and distributing the experience, Unity explained, adding its Charity Fund also provides the awards as a fund of the Tides Foundation.
Jessica Lindl, Vice-President of Social Impact for Unity, said her company was “immensely proud” to award the five grants to content creators pushing the boundaries RT3D content, which offer “different perspectives on some of the important societal issues we currently face.”
She continued, stating,
“We hope that by enhancing the existing Unity For Humanity Grant through new and creative extensions such as the Imagine Grant, we encourage a new generation of changemakers to step forth and tell their stories to the world”
Unity for Humanity Grantees
Songs of Cultures, a gamified AR experience developed by parents and teachers on music that discusses integrating children and migrant families, and received Unity’s Imagine Grant
Augment Therapy, which provides cancer-affected children with knowledge on radiation therapy prior to treatment, using AR activities aimed at reducing anxiety and relaxing patients.
Darkening, an interactive experience based on viewing the world as a person suffering from depression, which aims to educate on, treat, and tackle mental illness with immersive content.
My Lovely Planet, a mobile gaming app aiming to build a community of roughly 100 million people to protect the planet with fun, transformative activities such as planting trees and cleaning plastic waste from the ocean, leading to real donations from content creators and positive real-world social impacts.
TOGUNA – The Accelerator of the Imagination, a digital-mixed media art installation merging storytelling and future-based thinking and discussing pan-African themes for the continent. Stories aim to tackle some of the most pressing current challenges in Africa.
The news comes after Common held a fireside chat with Dr David Washington, Unity Social Impact Advisory Board Member, at the online Summit last year to discuss how content creators can reach audiences to build social change in their communities and use Unity’s platform to realise their potential.
The previous Summit, which took place in October last year, awarded up to $500,000 USD in funding to winners along with an Imagine Grant and outlined steps creators can use to file strong applications.
Unity also joined the XR Association, a major Washington, DC-based association aimed at promoting the immersive industry’s development, education, and funding, along with top firms such as Accenture and Qualcomm in February.
Members of Unity also attended the Ithra Center’s Creative Solutions event in Central London last week, where top talent from Saudi Arabia received similar funding and mentorship programmes from some of Britain’s leading experts in the XR industry.
