Augmented World Expo (AWE) launched the “XR Prize Challenge: Fight Climate Change” in October 2022. The competition has four key categories: Replace, Visualize, Educate, and Optimize, where the winning group or individual can stand to win a cash prize of $100,000.
This January, 150 projects from diverse teams spanning six continents advanced to the competition’s “MVP Phase,” bringing them a step closer to the grand prize. Winners will be announced on June 1, 2023 at the AWE 2023 event in Santa Clara, California.
The Global Metaverse Community Bands Together to Combat Climate Change
AWE’s competition has enabled the XR community, including XR technologists, climate change experts, as well as individual and corporate participants, to come together and take advantage of AR and VR technologies in a bid to come up with innovative, functional, and impactful XR-based solutions to fight climate change.
The varied projects that have advanced to the MVP phase cover topics such as clean energy solutions, biodiversity, visualizing the causes and potential impacts of climate change, climate challenges, and potential solutions, and how today’s industries are being reimagined to make way for a more sustainable future.
Check out the 150 MVP projects here.
According to AWE co-founder Ori Inbar, the goal of the $100,000 cash prize is to inspire creators, XR developers, companies, and academics to direct their talents toward finding solutions to fight humanity’s greatest threat, which is climate change.
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Aside from announcing the 150 projects that have moved to the next phase of the competition, AWE has also announced its lineup of judges, after a comprehensive review. The panel of judges includes global experts from various fields, such as immersive technology, sustainability, and climate science.
The judges are as follows:
- Katerina Cizek – Award-winning documentary director whose body of work includes documenting the Digital Revolution. Cizek is also the co-founder of the Co-Creation Studio.
- Robert Fine – Executive director and founder of the International Virtual Reality and Healthcare Association (IVRHA).
- Marina Psaros – Sustainability expert who has over a decade of experience leading climate action programs. Psaros is also Unity’s global sustainability lead.
- Dr. Erika Woolsey – Dr. Woolsey is a marine biologist, as well as the chief scientist and co-founder of the Hydrous, a non-profit organization that uses science-based experiences and scalable solutions, such as VR, to further our understanding of and education on ocean science.
Harnessing the Power of XR Solutions to Fight Climate Change
AWE’s XR Prize Challenge: Fight Climate Change Competition gives subject matter experts, engineers, entrepreneurs, technologists, and other professionals an avenue where they can use XR technology to visualize information and create potential solutions to fight climate change.
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Through projects that leverage XR technologies, the participants can simulate potential scenarios that will help make the problem that climate change poses more real and personal. Furthermore, through XR, people can have a better idea of how climate change can potentially impact our lives and encourage them to take action to combat one of our greatest challenges.