XR Futures Foresight-4Sea

XR Futures Foresight-4Sea is committed to solving the problem that people lack futures foresight and immersive experience to understand how to: (1) make and keep sustainable local, regional, and global agreements to address ocean plastic pollution long-term, (2) identify and address gaps in existing agreements related to plastic waste, and (3) connect local solutions to solve this global problem.  We propose creating highly realistic virtual futures foresight immersive experiences using XR (virtual,augmented, and mixed reality) technology, to give policy makers and the public the foresight and first-hand experience to address this problem.  XR futures foresight will improve the lives of people in Latin America and the Caribbean by giving them greater ability through futures foresight and immersive experience to:(1)make and keep long-term sustainable agreements,(2)address ocean plastic pollution long-term,(3)identify gaps in current agreements and policies, and (4)connect local solutions to tackle the global problem of ocean plastic pollution.

Our solution targets major urban areas in Latin America and the Caribbean where 81.1% of people in these regions live and where there is high concentrations of plastic use.  "The population of Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to grow by 6,163,000 in 2020 and reach 669,029,000 in 2021".  If plastic pollution reduction does not keep pace with population expansion it's foreseeable that current environmental, health, and income problems related to ocean plastic pollution will compound current problems in the region and have spillover effects in areas such as the Southern Ocean and global exports of products and waste which involve global plastic contamination. We aim to make future foresight scenarios available first through member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS).   We also hope to run scenarios through NGOs and networks such as: those

affiliated with the IDB, sports leagues, the UN global compact
business networks (in Latin America and the Caribbean), members of
parliament,  scientists, members of international law organizations (including legislators, lawyers, and judges), schools (including university and alumni networks), entrepreneurship centers and incubators, and local governments and ministries, to solve the problem of short-term transaction-based
thinking and lack of consistent agreements and policies toward solving
the problem of plastic pollution.

Recognizing that the solution requires engagement of people from across socioeconomic, geographic, and diverse demographics, we will conduct a series of round-table discussions with a working group composed of members of the public in the region.  We will engage UN global compact business local networks, international law organization members, scientists, university and alumni networks, entrepreneurship centers and incubators, sports (e.g. football/soccer) organizations, and local governments and ministries, to identify biases and current problems regarding single use plastic pollution.  This will help us to develop the XR futures scenarios.  Then, we will work with partner organizations to run local sessions where people from these networks and the public will do the XR futures scenarios and discuss what agreements they may be inspired to make as a result of it.  We also are exploring creating a traveling art installation where products including sports clothes and equipment, fashion, and other products are made from recycled ocean plastic and enabling people coming to the art installation to do the XR futures foresight scenarios to better understand the source and importance of finding creative solutions to the problem. 

We're using XR technology to give people and organizations an immersive experience and futures foresight to help people and organizations from a diversity of socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic areas in Latin America and the Caribbean create agreements at the local, regional, and global level that help solve a common global problem of ocean plastic pollution starting with single use plastic pollution.  We follow the four step process of the Oxford Theatre of Transformation methodology for enacting global transformation in our scenarios which involves: Step 1: Witness what is, Step 2: Awaken what can be, Step 3: Envision change, Step 4: Enact Transformation.  We also leverage the four step process of the futures foresight methodology used by the European Parliament to help global parliamentarians make more effective agreements to address uncertain futures.  Finally, we will use the XR technology medium to deliver the futures foresight scenarios in order to help give people a very realistic immersive experience and gain the foresight to address the problem of ocean plastic pollution at the local, regional, and global level.   The XR futures foresight ocean plastics experience can be viewed for free on cell phones using headsets (including low cost Google cardboard headsets and cell phones), offline headsets (like the OculusGo), or online through 360 video.  The XR futures foresight experiences will engage people's senses including seeing, hearing, touching, and possibly smelling different things while in the experience to make it highly realistic and engaging.   XR futures foresight will help transport people to places such as parts of the reefs and shores and habitats where ocean plastic pollution reaches but they might not be otherwise able to experience.  

XR futures foresight and immersive experience offer an innovative way for people to see the whole picture and take action for change as an alternative to the current disconnected and often short-term vs. long-term approach which exists for making agreements at the local, regional, and global level with regard to ocean plastic usage and pollution.    For instance,

"Big companies are putting out all these products that they know have no chance of being recycled. And they are selling them in places with not a lot of access to landfills”(Urry,2019).  When people from companies, regional governments, the public, and ministries experience the disconnect between products being sold and the reality of current waste facilities through XR futures foresight and immersive experience they can begin to better understand that they must make agreements with companies who export and sell to the region to change their packaging and pinpoint areas where  landfill runoff is causing downstream pollution in rivers that feed into the ocean and try to make more comprehensive agreements between upstream and downstream communities, companies, and local, national, and regional governments to jointly solve the problem. 

Over the past 2 years we've used interviews, pilots, and cross-divisional research presented at the 79th Academy of Management in August 2019 to evaluate the impact of this approach across a global public audience. XR futures foresight is built on two methodologies that have been shown by the University of Oxford and the European Parliament Futures Foresight Division to be the gold standard for enacting global transformation.   First, it leverages the Theatre of Transformation (TofT) immersive experience methodology where people experience a problem through theater or virtual technology to see problems from many angles. This has been validated in numerous Oxford studies in a diversity of global settings to enact global transformation and conflict resolution and tie to the making and keeping of agreements(Mani 2016; University of Oxford and Theatre of Transformation Academy 2017).  It also combines futures foresight scenarios of the EU STOA Futures Foresight methodology which has been used  to enable EU parliamentarians to make better agreements by allowing them to test the reflexivity of proposed policies, laws, and agreements to long-term environmental and scientifically validated data and trends (Swierstra 2015, Van Woensel 2015, 2018).  

University of Oxford, and Theatre of Transformation Academy. 2017. “Enacting Global Transformation:The Origins,Development, and Sources of TheatreofTransformation Methodology.” University of Oxford DPIRCentre for International Studies.

Van Woensel, Lieve. 2018. “TowardsUnbiasedForesightProcesses for Policy Thinking- A FrameworkforResponsible Scientific Advice,”10. Van Woensel,Lieve,Darja Vrščaj, European Parliament, Directorate-GeneralforParliamentary Research Services, and Scientific Foresight (STOA) Unit. 2015. Towards Scientific Foresight in the European Parliament: In-Depth Analysis. Brussels: EuropeanParliament.

1. Currently we are developing scenarios for XR futures foresight for reducing ocean plastic pollution which will be piloted through a National Geographic Society Grant in Asia in 2020-2021.   Our team members have participated in other related Virtual Reality projects designed by partner organizations on innovation grants to reach 1M people.  One such project on ocean coral reef immersive experience made free to the public by an ocean conservation NGO in its first week received 2,500 downloads of the organization's VR film.  

2.  In one year's time: At a similar rate of 2,500 downloads/week  anticipated in direct downloads with each of these 130,000 people sharing the experience on their social networks with 10 others we anticipate we will reach 1.3M people worldwide through downloads.  With policy makers and business leaders participating in the experiences in countries we anticipate that this will lead to changes in agreements that will serve the entire

population of Latin America and the Caribbean which is expected to grow by 6,163,000 in 2020 and reach 669,029,000 in 2021 (populationof.net,2020). 

3.  In 5 years time:  We see the XR futures foresight scenarios impacting the population of Latin America and the Caribbean which is expected to grow by 6,163,000 in 2020 and reach 669,029,000 in 2021(ibid) by even greater margins if the current rate of population continues to grow and the XR futures foresight scenarios are used more widely among the member nations for example of the Organization of American States.

Reference:populationof.net,Latin America and the Caribbean population 663308811(live)2020.https://www.populationof.net/l...

Our team member's preliminary research involving roundtables, questionnaires, and testing virtual immersive experiences at the University of Oxford (which was presented at the 79th Academy of Management International Conference in August 2019) indicates that virtual immersive experience using virtual reality and augmented reality technology can create greater empathy, awareness, proximity, and agreements for current environmental, social, and economic problems related to the problems of the ocean.  In this second phase of our exploration with this medium for immersive experience and its expansion to futures foresight we are incorporating a methodology that has had measurable impact in the last 5 years in the EU in helping policy makers make and keep longer term sustainable agreements in areas that impact the environment, social welfare, and economics of the EU that have cross-national, regional, and global impacts such as sustainable farming, robotics, and more.  Further, cross-divisional researchers at Oxford have shown that immersive experience through use of the TofT methodology which we apply, has had measurable impact in enacting global transformation.

We have three goals within the next 5 years.

1. To work with and listen to people in local, regional, and global forums to understand the problems and disconnects that exist in current pockets of information and gaps in the making and implementation of current agreements for the reduction of ocean plastic pollution and design a series of XR futures foresight immersive experiences that help connect local agreements to global problem sets surrounding the reduction of ocean plastic pollution.

2. To measure and study the impacts and ripple effects that XR futures foresight immersive experiences have on the making and keeping of sustainable agreements for the reduction of ocean plastic pollution (through narrative feedback, questionnaires, and documenting and tracking agreements made and enhanced as a result of them)  

3.  To engage as many people as we can in identifying new solutions by offering  the XR futures foresight immersive experiences for Free download in exchange for them providing us with information about their impact on agreements and their use worldwide.  

The barriers that exist are three fold:

1.   The XR Futures Foresight scenarios need to be locally tailored and globally applicable.  This means that we need to be aware of the language, and cultural resonance that these scenarios have.   This means that we have to create scenarios for XR futures foresight that are at one level generalized to a global problem set but at another level are identifiable and resonate at a local level.   This takes time, care, and foresight on our behalf. 

2.  Augmented reality has long been tooted as Apple's "next big thing" (Gurman, 2017) in the technology world, but many people today have still not experienced XR(i.e.virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality media) technology.   Our solution contemplates how to leverage XR technologies in many developing nations such as cell phones and cardboard viewers to make the experience the most widely distributed.  But that can come at a sacrifice of quality of the experience that we have to potentially also overcome.  We are also thinking through creative ways to make XR immersive experiences available to people who lack access to the internet through standalone headsets in community centers and/or through local NGOs and schools concerned about the problem of plastic pollution.

3.  We need to make the experience accessible to people from a range of age, demographic, cultural, and educational backgrounds.   The immersive experience has to be short and simple but include many pieces of data which is a challenge.

1. We hope to overcome the first barrier by creating scenarios that show the global picture but can be flexibly adapted to incorporate local problem sets.  We are using the STOA futures foresight methodology (Van Woensel 2015, 2017) to work with local stakeholders to understand local problem sets to incorporate into local, and regional scenarios and to adapt the scenarios to multiple languages.

2. We are working to overcome the second barrier by testing the scenarios on low cost google cardboard headsets that use cell phones and higher end stand alone OculusGo headsets. We are also thinking through ways to make the scenarios available to local communities through NGO partners who see these scenarios as important to their own missions in the region. 3. We hope to overcome the third barrier by prototyping, testing, and piloting the XR futures foresight scenarios with people from a range of backgrounds, demographics, ages, and cultures through test groups in country and at international universities and international social impact labs which bring together people globally which our team members are alumnae (e.g. Unleash social impact labs, etc.).

We hope to introduce this solution to Latin America and the Caribbean through the member countries of the OAS in the region in late 2020-2021.

The population of Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to grow by 6,163,000 in 2020 and reach 669,029,000 in 2021".  If plastic pollution reduction does not keep pace with population expansion it's foreseeable that current environmental, health, and income problems related to ocean plastic pollution will compound current problems in the region and have spillover effects in areas such as the Southern Ocean and global exports of products and waste which involve global plastic contamination.  We aim to begin with the member countries in the region who are members of the OAS http://www.oas.org/en/member_s...

m360i, Inc. is a non-stock corporation.   It works in collaboration with for profit media corporations, contracting partners, and NGOs.

The solution team consists of:

1 project lead m360i, Inc.

2 members of GP41,Inc. (an m360i coordinating partner)

2 members of coordinating media partner Shaking Earth Digital, LLC

1-2  regional experts will serve as regional facilitators and round-table leads with deep knowledge of working with member countries from Latin America and the Caribbean.

3-5 fellows from MIT, Harvard,&Oxford with deep knowledge of environmental ecology, ocean plastic pollution, and regional policy will and  contract with us for research& development and scenario development.

*We've reached out to collaborate with local Ministries of the Environment and Depts.of Fisheries in the region as well.

We have the deep experience in XR technology, futures foresight scenario development, immersive experience, science, public policy, conflict resolution, and business administration.  We are committed to listening and understanding problems at the local level and their ties to global problems.   We have deep roots in cutting edge technology development as well as working with and facilitating high profile round table experiences.   We are also deeply rooted in academic research and science working to apply robust methodologies to emerging problem sets.

We are leading a National Geographic Society Award to examine Virtual Reality Futures Foresight and the Reduction of Ocean Plastics Pollution.   We are also building upon and extending the futures foresight methodology of the European Parliament and the Theatre of Transformation methodology from the University of Oxford in our solution. We have reached out to Ministries of Environment and Departments of Fisheries in the region to develop XR futures foresight scenarios too.  We also are coordinating with individuals with deep experience working in Latin America and the Caribbean with member countries of the Organization of American States on helping us to facilitate meetings in the region in order to build local and regional XR futures foresight scenarios in support of this project.

 XR futures foresight scenarios are funded through grant awards and partnerships and are designed to be downloaded for free worldwide. 

 XR futures foresight scenarios are funded through grant awards and
partnerships and are designed to be downloaded for free worldwide. 

We would like to extend XR Futures Foresight solutions to Latin America and Caribbean nations to help them to make sustainable agreements regarding the reduction of ocean plastic pollution for the long-term.   We believe that the IDB Group shares our passion for helping to connect people across Latin America and the Caribbean to help them to develop more robust agreements and solutions for addressing the problem of ocean plastic pollution in the region.   We believe that the funding for our solution can help local, regional, and global stakeholders overcome the barrier that we see as our joint problem as members of society which is how to inspire and enact transformation among many demographics and to help people work jointly toward addressing a common problem that impacts us all. 

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We would like to partner with the IDB, members of the Organization of American States in the region, local government ministries and fisheries, NGOs, scientists, and academics that are committed to the reduction of plastic pollution in the region, and also business and entrepreneur networks including the UN Global Compact company local networks, in Latin America and the Caribbean.