Better World Museum, and Horizon Art Museum

I believe that Community Gardens and Creative Technology can be partners in dissolving isolation and feelings of powerlessness towards today's biggest crises; Social Intolerance, Racial Injustice, Climate Crisis, and Mental Health. Participatory Public Programs, Mobile and AR/VR Games, and social learning activities can solve these issues. 

An AR/VR Garden and real Urban Community Garden Program created with women, students, and diverse public participants can create Sustainable Cities and raise individual, group, and community resilience, justice, and empathy. 

The Prize will support creating sustainable edible urban infrastructures that employ creative social technologies. AR/VR World Building, Social Media, Spark AR Filters, Voice AI, and Game Design will be used in the Community and AR/VR Gardens to engage and amplify the voices of diverse communities and students in Climate Action, Food Sustainability, Social and Racial Justice, and Wellbeing.

The Prize will additionally provide aquaponic garden towers for community centers and schools, an AR Garden Mobile App, VR Garden Game for Oculus/Steam/Playstation, Created by Diverse & Women Artists and Educators, Public Outdoor PopUps, and Online Events for participatory engagement and inclusion. 

I use creative technology, museums, and public participatory art to create more individual, group, and community resilience. I do this with Community Gardens and XR Public Art that facilitates people growing better together. 

●Pre-Alpha Facebook Horizon Community Creator
●Inaugural Facebook Community Leadership 
Fellow 
●Top 117 Facebook community leaders (2018-19)
●Founder of Better World 
Museum, and Horizon Art Museum
●AR/VR/XR World-builder, AR Community Garden, MIT Reality Hackathon 

Exhibited or Presented: TEDx, WHO, 
Global ARVR Association, Solomon R. 
Guggenheim NYC, Nobel Peace Prize
Forum, Augmented World Expo, MIT Reality Hack, 
Museums and Web, Museum Computer Network, 
Facebook Global Safety and Wellness 
Summit NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, 
Singapore, Beijing, Shenzhen, China, and more. Founder of Women in Horizon Facebook Group and Monthly Meet-Ups, and Admin of Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice. 

Better World Museum was founded in downtown Minneapolis. It included participatory mural walls, an indoor edible garden, a Makerspace, and VR Lab. I raised money through grants to support a diverse team of non-traditional leaders, Artists, and community members. The museum's program VR Garden taught people resilience, how to draw in VR, and ignited digital and real-world relationships with meaningful impact. 

In 2019, a modular PopUp VR Garden traveled to communities impacted by Climate Change to engage people to draw for Climate Education. We raised the number of participants from under 200 to over 4000 people in three months. The impact measured included students, women, and diverse participants that reported feeling greater inclusion, more agency through developing new skills, and saw evidence that their voices were valued in their communities. 

Since 2016, I have been using AR/VR/XR Social World-Building platforms and games to create more community connections. Our +Community Voices Program pays diverse creators world-building skills. Recently, when a community creator was in a domestic crisis I rallied community members to create a purple flower for a safe-space. Community members worked together to create a network of support, similarly to our museum's first VR empathy garden which included 65 survivors of domestic violence. 

Innovation is the core of my creative tech XR world-building and equitable and empathetic community building. Recruited as a Pre-Alpha Social VR World-Builder in Facebook Horizon and participation in the inaugural Facebook Community Leadership Program offered me a unique opportunity to best understand use primitive shapes, gizmos, and block scripting in conversation with diverse and inclusive community-building. At MIT Reality Hackathon (2020), I created an AR Community Garden using Unity and Vuforia. 70 participants learned to draw a VR Dandelion for the AR Community Flower Patch and pollinate flowers with an AR Bee. I'm currently participating in the F8 Reality Hackathon learning to use Wit.AI and Spark AR to use voice commands in a Spark AR World filter to connect as a portal into Facebook Horizon. 

Furthermore, my experiences in game design, urban edible gardens, volunteer with teens, and history working in museums contribute to my ability to successfully create an inclusive movement for change. Combining edible smart-city public spaces with XR learning games and experiences will activate people from inertia caused by isolation and feelings of overwhelming powerlessness while creating a circular economy with new community leaders, XR Artists, and edible gardens producing new pathways for sustainably and resilience. 

Better World Museum creates individual, group, and community resilience by fostering leadership roles, compensating Artists to learn new skills and our commitment to using creative technology and gardens for social and climate justice we can share testimonies and data that supports deep impact. 

Placing Garden Towers and edible landscapes in schools, city centers, government centers, and libraries with mobile and virtual AR/VR/XR learning games, people participate in Climate Justice and have stronger group and community connections.VR Garden has data and testimonies that prove people feel more connected, less isolated, more empathetic, and more empowered to take action, especially with new people previously considered different or others. 

The experience of learning to draw or build with shapes in VR empowers people to understand that it is easy to participate and create a positive impact. Experiencing this socially transforms people into deeply caring community members. People meeting in VR adds presence and defies social distancing. Gardens are universally safe spaces. Every city can be a safe, smart, equitable, sustainable Garden City. Everyone has the potential to feel connected, safe, empowered, equal, and radiate wellbeing. Isolation and feelings of overwhelming powerlessness to today's greatest problems can be SOLVED!