MetaForest

MetaForest aims to help people de-stress through nature therapy and promote mental health with the application of virtual reality technology. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 3.8% of the global population is affected by depression, including 5.0% among adults and 5.7% among adults older than 60 years. Approximately 280 million people in the world have depression. Depression can cause the affected person to suffer greatly and function poorly at work, at school and in the family. At its worst, depression can lead to suicide. Over 700 000 people die due to suicide every year. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds. Despite of the fact that depression is a common illness worldwide, more than 75% of people in low- and middle-income countries receive no treatment. Barriers to effective care include a lack of resources, lack of trained healthcare providers and social stigma associated with mental disorders. Depression results from a complex interaction of social, psychological, and biological factors. People who have gone through adverse life events (unemployment, bereavement, traumatic events) are more likely to develop depression. Due to the sudden changes in lifestyles and the economic stagnation brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, people are more likely to feel stressed and anxious, and around one in five people have mental health conditions.

MetaForest aims to help people relieve stress through nature therapy with the application of virtual reality technology. Nature therapy, also called ecotherapy, is the practice of being in nature to boost growth and healing, especially mental health. It also includes the green therapy and blue therapy. 

Simply by putting on the headsets, users can enter MetaForest at anytime they like. In the metaverse, there is a dense forest with lots of trees, flowers, rivers and different animals. Users can enjoy different activities with immersive experience. First, users can practice forest bathing and use their five senses and become mindful when they walk through the MetaForest. Second, users can explore freely in the forest through rock climbing, white water rafting, hiking and building a survival shelter. These activities are forms of adventure therapy and wilderness therapy. Third, users can practice green exercise and they can run and jog in the MetaForest. Fourth, users can undergo animals-assisted therapy through petting and feeding the rabbits and squirrels. Users can talk to the animals when they feel stressed and the animals will respond in a speech bubble. This requires artificial intelligence technology for the animals to generate suitable comforting and encouraging messages. Fifth, users can use the forest as an inspiration for arts and they can use natural materials such as clay and wood for artworks. Painting with creativity in the forest is a form of arts therapy. Lastly, users can grow and plant flowers in the garden and grassland, which is a form of therapeutic horticulture. Users can choose the colour of the flowers according to their moods everyday, for example, a light blue flower represents calmness and a brown flower represents frustration. In this way, users can keep track of their mental states and learn to embrace their negative emotions.

The target population includes teenagers and young adults. Studies found out that age between 14 and 24 has the most mental health issues. Young people might feel stressed and depressed due to heavy schoolwork, relationships with friends and romantic relationships, life changes, family conflicts and lack of sleep. However, many young people refuse to talk to a professional therapist and they do not receive appropriate mental health treatments. Some think that their mental health condition is not serious, some feel embarrassed and intimidated, some do not have spare time, some have financial burdens and privacy concerns. This situation is very worrying and MetaForest can alleviate the issue in various ways. After the users put on the headset and enter the metaverse, they can enjoy different therapeutic activities in the forest. With the aid of nature therapy, arts therapy, horticulture therapy, wilderness and adventure therapy and animals-assisted therapy, users can relieve their stress and boost their mental health. MetaForest is an all-in-one experience with the application of various types of therapies. This is very convenient to young people who do not have spare time to go to a therapist. The effectiveness and efficacy of all the therapies used in MetaForest have been proven by many scientific researches. MetaForest is particularly attractive to the ones who feel embarrassed and intimidated and lack of privacy when they talk to a therapist. With MetaForest, young people can still receive scientifically-proven therapies without going to the therapist. This can help young people de-stress and prevent the chances of them getting any mental health illnesses. 

I am currently a Y10 student at Diocesan Girls' School in Hong Kong. In August 2022, I won the championship of Girls Metaverse Hackathon. Few months ago I also submitted my idea to NFTE World Series of Innovation 2022-23. I have various experiences of using Roblox Studio and Unity to build a metaverse that tackles SDG 3 (good health and well-being). Apart from being a STEM enthusiast, I am very passionate about geography and entrepreneurship. Recently, I have noticed that the global depression rate is increasing and more people suffer from mental health issues. One of my friends is diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder unfortunately and I really want to help her out. Therefore, I hope to build a metaverse that allows people to relieve stress through nature therapy and raises public awareness of mental health. 

I have conducted a survey on mental health and nature therapy and twenty five people in Hong Kong were interviewed. Since MetaForest targets to serve teenages and young adults, 56% of the candidates are aged 0-16 while 32% of the candidates are aged 17-30. Some of the survey results are as follows. 

88% of the candidates have not talked to a professional therapist before while 12% of them have such experience. Among the ones who have not talked to a therapist before, 68.2% of them think that their mental health issue is not serious and 54.5% of them do not have spare time. The results suggest that many people do not talk to a therapist even though they feel depressed and anxious, because they do not feel that their mental health condition is severe and they do not have the need to receive therapies. 

76% of the candidates seldom/never go to the countryside. Among these candidates, 80% of them said that they do not have spare time while 60% of them said that they hate the insects there. However, being in the nature is very beneficial to our physical and emotional well-being. People are encouraged to visit the countryside more often. 

64% of the candidates have heard of nature therapy before while 36% of them have not heard of nature therapy before. This suggests that nature therapy is fairly common to most people, but it might sound novel to some people and they might be more eager to explore the uses of MetaForest out of curiosity.

My solution is innovative in a sense that it incorporates different types of therapies that can be done in real life and includes things that are impossible to be done in real life (e.g. the animals are able to respond to the user's chats). This perfectly shows the concepts of metaverse that the metaverse builds a connection between reality and virtual space. With MetaForest, people can receive various types of therapies without going to the therapist. This is very convenient to people who do not have spare time and young people who are lazy to go outdoors at weekends. My solution will change the market such that the demand for professional therapist will decrease while the demand for virtual therapies will increase. More virtual therapies such as mindfulness therapies might appear in the market and gradually increases the market size. In order to defeat other competitors in the market, the scenes and natural features need to be as realistic as possible to attract customers and increase its market opportunity. 

We hope to collaborate with different primary schools and secondary schools in Hong Kong. We will promote MetaForest through conducting some talks for parents and students at schools, creating some animation clips for kids and offering some free trial sessions. Hopefully, by 2024, 90% or above of all the primary schools students and secondary schools students will use MetaForest. Besides, we will also publish advertisements on different social platforms such as Instagram and YouTube. We hope this can also attract university students and young adults. Hopefully, more than half of the total population in Hong Kong will use MetaForest by 2024 and the mental illness rates in Hong Kong will decrease from 61% to 30%. We will focus more on the marketing and promotional works in Hong Kong, but after we receive some positive feedbacks from our users, we will promote MetaForest to the whole world through being interviewed on famous TV shows or news magazines. I hope that more people can be benefitted from MetaForest and they can relieve stress and improve their emotional well-being. 

Virtual reality (VR) technology is mainly used in MetaForest. We can either use Unity or Roblox Studio to build and programme the metaverse. In the metaverse, there are different natural elements such as the forest, trees, flowers, rivers, birds and other animals. We hope to make the environment appear as realistic as possible by adjusting the light setting and adding some sound effects etc. In this way, users can stay more focused in the metaverse and enjoy an immersive experience. 

I plan to serve at least 90% of the primary school students and secondary school students in Hong Kong, which is around 67.5 thousands people. By 2024, I aim to serve more than half of the total population in Hong Kong, which is around 3.7 million people. Other than the population in Hong Kong, I aspire to serve people all over the world and I hope to expand the target population year by year. 

There might be an increasing demand for virtual therapies and many more virtual therapy services will possibly appear in the market. Since the contents and objectives of all the virtual therapy services are very similar, it might be slightly difficult for MetaForest to stand out among all the competitors in the market and this requires a higher level of technology and a larger amount of time. 

I will collect the money through selling products and gaining financial support from different organizations and companies. I hope to gain technical and financial support from Oculus and Unity, and promotional and financial from NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Health) and MHAHK (Mental Health Association of Hong Kong). The expenditure includes marketing fees, salaries of the metaverse developers and the costs of VR headsets. The revenues mainly come from the sales of virtual therapy service and the license fees of the metaverse. In the long term, the revenue streams could cover the expected expenses.