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A LOOK INSIDE
January 2023
Happy New Year!
We are so grateful to you, our community. We were able to accomplish so much in 2022 and it could only have happened with your support. There is much to celebrate as we ring in 2023. Here's to what the new year brings, with best wishes to you and your families for peace, health, and happiness.
N E W S
We made the GSV Cup Elite 200!
We are humbled to announce that OurWorlds has been selected to The Elite 200, a distinguished list of semifinalists set to compete in the 2023 GSV Cup. Widely recognized as the world’s largest EdTech pitch competition for early-stage digital learning and workforce skills startups, the ASU+GSV Summit will take place in April in San Diego, where we will pitch at the GSV Cup to compete for an opportunity to win $1MM in cash & prizes.
OurWorlds was selected from a global applicant pool of 900+ startups across 69 countries, representing the largest and most competitive applicant pool for the GSV Cup. More than 200 judges from leading venture capital firms and strategic partners in digital learning and workforce skills, including Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, ECMC Group, NEA, Pear, Owl Ventures, Reach Capital, and more, leveraged a rigorous framework to evaluate each startup and determine the 200 most promising companies.
Join Our Pilot
OurWorlds is introducing a new way to learn history in K-12 education using XR and AR experiences. Students can learn about WWI through the lens of our immersive, interactive experiences about the Choctaw Code Talkers on the battlefields of France during the last days of WWI.
These lesson plans and XR materials are designed for history students in grades 9-12 and are now available to teachers in New Mexico through the Archway Depository. We presented them in a Community of Practice webinar to educators through the New Mexico Public Education Department last month. In case you missed it, the slides are available for download and teachers can sign up their classrooms for the pilot here.
Tools Competition
We are also pleased to announce that we were accepted into the second phase of the Tools Competition with our submission: Tools for educators that enhance student engagement by creating interactive layers for videos and immersive media in the Accelerating Learning For All track.
The Learning Engineering Tools Competition is sponsored by Schmidt Futures, Citadel Securities, the Walton Family Foundation, the BIll and Melinda Gates Foundation, and AlleyCorp to support technologies that teach us about the way people learn.
F E A T U R E
Pala tribal member welcomes global community to explore Indigenous culture through OurWorlds app
DECEMBER 25, 2022
“...This is really a manifestation of the idea of putting communities first and building the technology around people instead of making people build themselves around the technology.”
– Kilma Lattin, Founder, Executive Producer
E V E N T S
OurWorlds Immersive Reality Exhibition at Gallery QI, UCSD
JANUARY 26 – MARCH 16, 2023
Gallery QI at Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego. Closing Reception March 16, 5pm
We are also grateful to announce that we have been invited to present an immersive reality exhibition at Gallery QI at UC San Diego, hosted by Lisa Cartwright and Dominique Rissolo and titled, “Beyond the Metaverse with OurWorlds: Indigenous Stories Are All Around You.”
From the exhibition poster: What can Kumeyaay art and design – past, present, and future – teach us about the value of Indigenous knowledge and practice in a culture where humanity, the natural world, and media are irreversibly converged? This exhibition foregrounds work from OurWorlds about Kumeyaay weaving and boat-building featured in the flagship project of OurWorlds.
The exhibition will feature immersive 360º videos from our stories about Kumeyaay, Kuupangaxwichem, and Payòmkawichum lands in San Diego, augmented reality baskets and boats, and volumetric video interviews with Dr. Stanley Rodriguez, Ana Gloria Rodriguez, and tribal chiefs in San Diego.
Native American Heritage Month at e3 Civic High
It was a great honor to be invited to e3 Civic High to give a presentation of the app to the students. e3 Civic High is a progressive charter school in Downtown San Diego, and is located on Kumeyaay territory.
This past November, OurWorlds presented the students with an augmented reality scavenger hunt, placing domestic items from Kumeyaay households as well as a bark canoe from Algonquin territory around the campus for students to find. The first students to find all the items received a special prize from the school. Thank you to teacher Lauren Voigt, and the wonderful members of the e3 Civic High ASB for helping to make it happen.
OurWorlds Advisor Dr. Stanley Rodriguez and Miss Kumeyaay Nation, Priscilla Ortiz, gave an invocation and message over Zoom to the students over the large screen in the Student Commons.
Look for some of these objects on the OurWorlds app, and contact us if you are interested in a presentation.
A message from Kilma
“In many ways, 2022 was a breakout year for OurWorlds! The outlook for 2023 couldn’t be more full of promise. We are pioneering something new, and people recognize that. In the coming year we are strategically focused on earning revenue, raising capital and driving growth. A huge thank you to our team. Without you, none of this would be possible.”
Thank you for reading.
Apple is currently featured OurWorlds in the iOS App Store under Best New Apps and Updates!
