EcoTopia

The mobile application emphasizes the psychology of climate change and provides features that initiate sustainable and sustainable behaviour change through immersive technology, positive peer pressure, and artificial intelligence.

Though we are all aware of the problem, how well do we understand it? The underlying source of this issue is that we frequently mislead people with an insufficient understanding of science, leading them to believe that it has no significance to daily life. This has the effect of making us care about climate change just superficially and not enough to take significant action. The terms that come to mind when you hear the phrase "climate change" are overused and shouldn't be taken seriously. According to a study by FC Moore, an assistant professor at the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy, we are becoming accustomed to climate change, which suggests that the longer it persists, the less likely we are to take action. We should be less concerned with science because it fails to convey the significance of climate change because it reduces it to a theoretical, academic topic that is distant from the realities of daily life. We should therefore be educated about what is currently happening and how YOU are being affected by climate change. It is about YOU. It is no secret that humans tend to be primarily self-centred creatures because this helped our ancestors survive. Because of this, humans have a part of their brains called the medial prefrontal cortex, or MPFC, involved in controlling self-referential mental activities. According to a 2009 study by behavioural neuroscientists, thoughts about one's present self lead that area to light up under an MRI, whereas thoughts about one's future self cause it to remain mostly inactive.

EcoTopia is a mobile application that offers features that initiate a systemic and sustainable change in behaviour by addressing the issue related to the psychology of climate action. Because knowing the problem is essential to finding a solution, our app's VR game, Ecosystem, explains the issue to users and illustrates how it affects them personally. Immersive technology helps them experience the truth of how climate change affects them as individuals, thereby disregarding the science of it. It leverages social networking to create a supportive peer pressure system by enforcing a community that cares about climate change and its effects on them and others around them by sharing images of community members partaking in eco-friendly activities like using reusable bottles instead of plastic bottles on the group's website and social pages. The app also contains a carbon footprint calculator that helps users measure their progress by comparing their initial carbon footprint to their current and the smaller the carbon footprint, the higher the opportunity to earn coins from the app and convert it to money through the system's exchange rate. The app also includes an AI that can identify carbon-emitting objects among everyday objects and how much carbon in grams each object emits.

It is a prevalent misconception that people who cause climate change are less likely to experience its fatalistic effects. It continues to be inaccurate because climate change only slightly and gradually impacts everyone. According to a PwC study from 2014, the indirect effects of climate change will significantly outweigh the direct ones. While supermarkets do not grow our food, climate change impacts the global food supply chain.
Our strategy would promote a systemic and sustainable behaviour change that would result in successful participation in climate action by increasing the power of individuals in climate action. Our target market comprises people of all sexual orientations, regardless of their income level, and they range in age from under 18 to over 55 (this age group is more sensitive to environmental issues than the unlisted). Climate change denialists, environmental activists, and people involved in society make up the psychological section of our market. As a result, the harmful effects of climate change would diminish, particularly those of the social and environmental factors that influence health.

EcoTopia is a progeny of the Neering Divas, one of many climate change mobile applications.  The two-person team has been tackling the issue of climate change for four years and has participated in the Technovation Girls Challenge since 2017 (this inclusive). The group has studied several aspects of climate change, including deforestation, and as a result, they were awarded the Abuja City Shapers grant to plant 500 trees in villages and towns within the city of Abuja. The team members' sense of climate activism grew throughout the previous years of working on these initiatives. Along with invitations to watch climate action movies and documentaries, the team also gets invitations to talks and actions.

Over the years, the team has performed extensive research and online surveys to address the issue of climate change. Additionally, we have had the chance to interact with friends and family members of students attending federal schools around the nation.

Our software offers a novel solution to the issue of the psychological aspects of climate change, which are the psychological issues that contribute to individual apathy. Utilizing immersive technology, our creative solution enables customers to comprehend how the issue affects them. According to a Forbes article, immersive technology might influence people's behaviour and induce them to make informed decisions, which would gradually but effectively lessen the effects of climate change on both them and the rest of the world. Through effective peer pressure and a payment mechanism that integrates with the carbon footprint calculator, our solution also aids in enforcing communities that care about combating climate change.

Potential users' non-ecofriendly behaviours would be made to alter voluntarily as a result of the effective manipulation of human psychology and ongoing user feedback based on the users' decreasing carbon footprint as determined by trends in our database.

The virtual reality game is called EcoSystem because it demonstrates how your system as a human is affected by the issue of climate change, which appears to just affect the Earth. It is a game designed to steer people away from small daily actions that might harm the environment. The consequences of choices like the type of light bulb you use in your home and how many gallons of water are spent there add up over time, having a negative effect. The consequences include an extension of the growing season for plants in a user's garden that can aid in carbon sequestration. A loss in physical and mental health, injuries from severe weather like acid rain and floods, vector-borne diseases, contaminated water and insufficient supply, as well as an increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, are further repercussions. The total cost of all these is exponential. When the game starts, a system override would entail a 60% deduction from the entire amount of money earned.

Our market size and market opportunity would be deduced from our survey analysis:

The current metro population in Abuja, Nigeria in 2023 is 3,840,000 which when multiplied by the internet penetration in the city amounting to over 38% of the population gives a potential market size of 1,459,200 users.

As young people, we don't have the financial means to hire experts to assist us to expand our app. We are also hampered by time because we could be behind on our schoolwork. The team members intend to take the SAT to help them be accepted into a US university where they can study engineering (Biomedical and Aerospace engineering). Due to little to no assistance in the project management, this comes with a responsibility and would hurt the project.

Currently, EcoTopia collaborates with the Odyssey Educational Foundation to offer opportunities for research, connections, activism, and funding.

Social enterprise 

Due to our partnership with Odyssey Educational Foundation, our start-up wouldn't be as difficult. After the first 2000 downloads, we would be able to attain sponsorships, grants, and partnership offers from climate change organisations; both governmental and non-governmental.