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SXSW EDU, SXSW FILM FESTIVAL, & ASU+GSV SUMMIT
MAIN STORIES
WE WON SXSW EDU LAUNCH!
"Our Worlds, Inc. was announced as the winner of the fast-paced live pitch event at SXSW EDU, Launch, presented by Schmidt Futures and the Walton Family Foundation," says SXSW writer Auva Saghafi. "Our Worlds, Inc. provides place-based, primary source, educational content about Native Americans in Extended Reality 360º throughout the world. The experiences are unique, immersive, and available to anyone with a smartphone. Our Worlds, Inc. provides a portal to the indigenous stories that surround you."
Winning the SXSW EDU Launch competition positions OurWorlds as the top start-up company in the EdTech space. It took us 18 months to get here. Thank you to SXSW EDU for validating our work and our communal approach to world-building and storytelling. Special thanks to our contributors Christina Steiner, Dr. Stanley Rodriguez, Alec Calac, Brandie Taylor, and Maximilian Mackh.
"CHOCTAW CODE TALKERS 1918" SXSW XR EXPERIENCE
Our Worlds presented the World Premiere of our XR360º experience, "Choctaw Code Talkers 1918" at the SXSW Film Festival as one of 11 official selections in the 2022 XR Competition. Our period WWI tents and WWI re-enactors were a huge hit with the 12,000+ exhibition attendees. While the film was designed for mobile and you can currently view it on our beta, we presented it on Oculus Quest for the festival. We are currently preparing it for the Quest - look for an announcement about its availability soon!
"OurWorlds and 'Choctaw Code Talkers 1918' take South by Southwest by storm" from Biskinik
"This year, the Choctaw Nation had a unique link to the festival’s historic return. OurWorlds Inc., a San Diego-based tech start-up and XR experience, entered their film, 'Choctaw Code Talkers 1918' into the 2022 SXSW Film Festival in the Extended Reality category. The film was one of 11 to be selected to compete in the category. The film tells the pivotal story of the original Code Talkers, a group of 19 Choctaw soldiers from Oklahoma who fought bravely on the fields of France during WWI and used their Native language cryptographically to help turn the tides of war—even as their language was forbidden to be spoken at home."
—Biskinikg, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
PANELS
"A byproduct of our work is that we are helping Americans arrive at a truer understanding about Native Americans, while helping Native Americans arrive at a better place in America." —Kilma Lattin
Watch full panel on ourworlds.io starting April 19th.
This panel clearly resonated with our audience: we should all have a voice in shaping our immersive realities.
Here are some highlights from the panel:
“Beautiful things can evoke emotions, inspire creativity and motivation. Historical examples of this are churches, temples, things we build as humans that transform us. Let's think about the parallels with technology today, its intersection with design to create new worlds.”
- Kilma Lattin MBA, Founder/CEO of Our Worlds
“Our identity is very much tied to where our ancestors walked and how they shared their memories through time in certain places. The same is true today. We can use technology to bridge this divide.”
- Christine Luckasavitch, Native Land Digital
“We all created the current immersive reality we are living in right now. It was created by our ancestors with contributions large and small. Corporate metaverse projects approach world-building as a design challenge with few decision-makers – but we should all have a voice in it.”
- Catherine Eng, CTO/Co-Founder of Our Worlds
“We are talking about the metaverse not as a place to escape and spend, but rather engage and learn. We create spaces where indigenous knowledge bearers can bring information about the natural environment and traditional ways of being in the world into these realities.”
- Dominique Rissolo, Ph.D., Co-Director, Cultural Heritage Engineering Institute, UC San Diego
Watch the full panel on ourworlds.io starting April 19th.
PODCASTS
Listen to Kilma, Our Worlds Founder/CEO and Catherine, Co-Founder/CTO discuss "Choctaw Code Talkers 1918," VR, the metaverse, and how this applies to the mission Our Worlds is setting out to accomplish.
NEWS & UPCOMING
"OurWorlds and 'Choctaw Code Talkers 1918' take SXSW by Storm"
From Biskinik
"2022 SXSW: New technology and traditional storytelling"
From Indian Country Today
"Our Worlds’ Kilma Lattin talks using technology to share Native American, Indigenous narratives at SXSW"
From The Daily Texan
