Start time: 5PM on Friday February 16
End time: 2:30 PM on Sunday February 18.
Where: The Lab DMC 4.206
What is BuildFest?
The Social Impact BuildFest is a weekend-long event that challenges the idea that building with immersive technology is difficult and complex. It is NOT!
- BuildFest is designed for beginners ❤️ and for those who want to try to design and explore new technologies in a safe and welcoming environment.
- Subject matter experts (aka social impact mentors) will give teams guidelines and tips on how to make their projects relevant, impactful, and sensitive for their target audience. 🌱
- Participants will work in teams of 5. 👥 You can find your team on the day of the event! No need to create your team beforehand, unless you really want to...
- Everyone will be guided through the design and prototyping process by technical experts who understand the tech tools. ⚙️
- Participants are not expected to arrive with existing development/coding or design experience. You will learn the skills you need with us at the event! 🤓💻
BuildFest is a safe space for everyone to learn together and create remarkable solutions to real world problems 🌎. All you need is curiosity and passion for social change!
The Social Issues
Your team can choose to explore one of the following topics. We will have social impact mentors available to help you!
- Mental Health: Addressing the stigma surrounding mental health, increasing access to affordable mental health services, and promoting well-being are crucial concerns.
- Environmental Justice / Climate Action: Addressing climate change remains a critical issue, with concerns about rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and their disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities. The fight for environmental justice, ensuring marginalized groups have equal access to clean air, water, and a healthy environment, is gaining momentum.
- Economic Inequality and Access to Opportunity: The gap between the wealthy and the rest of the population continues to widen, raising concerns about economic mobility and access to basic necessities like healthcare, education, and housing. This issue is often intertwined with race, gender, and other social factors.
- Breaking Traditional Education: Immersive technologies are disrupting traditional engagement. They offer new opportunities for active participation and deep interaction. Institutions are in need to reimagine how to engage audiences and accommodate learners regardless of ability, background, or economic status.
- LGBTQA+ Impact, Misrepresentation and stereotyping: people are often misrepresented in media and popular culture, which can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and contribute to discrimination.
Your team will pick one of these topics, identify a problem, and create an experience to solve said problem.
The Tech
This year we are focusing in Social XR (Virtual Worlds)!
Stay tuned to find out which tech platform we will be using!
Let's change the world together!
Are you interested in being part of the BuildFest Event Team? Fill out this form!
Details
Start Date: February 16 @ 5:00pm
End Date: February 18 @ 2:30pm
Event Categories: Guest Speaker Social Training
Location: The Lab (DMC 4.206)
Website: Register Now!
Other
Target audience: Alumni , General Public , Students