philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Indigenous virtual reality company looking for knowledge keepers, storytellers, artists to promote culture

A virtual reality company based in Fort William First Nation in Ontario that is using their technical know-how to promote Indigenous cultures.

Partnering with Uber and the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB), ORIGIN is hosting a competition called Share Your Roots, looking for more people to share their culture.

The company started out as an interactive way for kids to learn more about jobs, primarily in the trades industry.

There are four prizes of $35,000 dollars each and each winner will get a personalized virtual reality experience that will be a part of the ORIGIN library. Along with the money, winners will also receive a one year membership to CCAB.

The library includes both career and cultural experiences including learning how to be a boilermaker, electrician, and millwright among other careers. On the cultural side, experiences include fancy shawl dance, scraping a moose hide and smudging with medicines just to name a few.

Hardy-Giles said the cultural side of ORIGIN is not business generated, rather they use the profits from their career experiences to fund the cultural experiences, and that one day she hopes ORIGIN can become international and have VR experiences from around the world from various Indigenous cultures.

See the full story here: https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/indigenous-virtual-reality-company-looking-for-knowledge-keepers-storytellers-artists-to-promote-culture/