Bringing Indigenous Astronomy and Calendrical Knowledge to

Earth Timekeepers is a network of Indigenous wisdom-keepers of ancestral and contemporary knowledge about sacred time-space, to support processes of territorial protection and defense of the rights of Mother Earth and Nature.  Our mission is to support communities that are recovering Indigenous philosophies, knowledge, and practices by sponsoring on-site intercultural dialogues and teachings that combine traditional and modern modalities of exchange of information.   

From the first meetings of the Earth Timekeepers group in 2013, the Hopi participants emphasized that some of their knowledge of timekeeping and calendars has been lost or compromised, leading to a world out of balance.  Some of that timekeeping knowledge originally came from the south and so might be found again by consulting with Otomi and other Indigenous communities, restoring ancient connections. 

Today, this knowledge is not being conveyed to youth as they move to urban centers for employment and lose faith in the belief that the earth can provide a rich physical and spiritual life. In the centers of advanced learning, universities, and colleges, our youth are being taught that humans are separate and distinct from nature. Current immersive visual technologies turn the attention of young people away from the natural world rather than drawing them into closer relation with our environment’s cosmic cycles.

Indigenous beliefs recognize that we are a part of the solar system, beginning with newborn introductions to Dawa, Father Sun. We are introduced not only to our human social order but the metaphysical world as well.  

Western culture often teaches that time is money.  In contrast, ancient Hopi and Otomi knowledge, as shared by our ancestors, does not teach us to harness time to accumulate money but instead focuses on providing a sustainable way of life for our people. Our technology, informed by our 600 years of living in the same physical environment cultivating and providing sustenance for our children, has included irrigation, moisture retaining structures such as windbreaks, dams, and selective seed selection and collection to choose the most productive responses to our environmental conditions.  These choices are informed by Indigenous knowledge of time and Indigenous calendars. 

Among the ancient practical applications of the calendar knowledge was the accumulated experiences to determine the time to engage the natural world for sustenance: a time to plant, a time to access the tides, a time to harvest plants and wildlife and to process the bounty for continued community existence.  The study of ancient Indigenous calendars and the calculation of time indicates that the focus was and is on human interactions with the cosmos and all that are thought to occupy the cosmic spaces. It is this acceptance of the cosmic forces beyond our visceral comprehension, and the forces that influence and ensure our survival, that should be revitalized to establish our place, connections and relationships with the sensory world in which we all are immersed.  

Our project accepts the premise that we are facing a critical moment of climate change, perception, and narratives that define these crises.  Our solution is new technology paired with indigenous imagination. This project will create change in relation to community re-evaluation of technology as a tool, and how we can design and use these tools for our purposes, and for our benefit.

We utilize the rich store of Indigenous tribal knowledge about calendars and cosmic mapping to anticipate existence beyond what money can buy.  We are interested in working with others to share accumulated knowledge about calendars from Indigenous communities around the world, with the goal of sustainability, timekeeping and weather forecasting deriving from ancient knowledge. 

We envision the use of technology to create a portable dome experience, beginning with a prototype based on Otomi and Hopi knowledge, to test the limits of experiencing the ancient knowledge by placing the participant in a technologically recreated time and space environment. With this prototype in place, we will engage other Indigenous communities, who wish to use the same technological architecture to teach their members about calendars and cosmic knowledge. This process entails prior community consent of the appropriateness of the selected technology for the transmission of ancestral knowledge.

Through the use of technology, we are creating a learning environment for young people where they can see, understand, add too, and carry on the knowledge of celestial bodies.  We combine existing ancestral technologies—the knowledge held by Hopi and Otomi timekeepers and calendar keepers—with developing media technologies.  These technologies create immersive experiences that engage young viewers, turning their attention to the night sky through sensory engagement and creating a sense of wonder.

It is this acceptance of the cosmic forces beyond our visceral comprehension, and the forces that affect our survival, that should be revitalized to establish our place, connections and relationships with the sensory world in which we all are immersed. We should all be compelled to imagine the new order and new dawn of awakening, at this moment of climate crisis. 

Calendars calculated space and time, with movement as an essential component, or third dimension. The interlocking components of space and time as conceptualized within Indigenous wisdom must be introduced in the classrooms to imagine the new order and new dawn of awakening, at this moment of climate crisis. This recognition is the first step toward the re-engagement of youth with ancient indigenous wisdom.

In the U.S., the Hopi population is estimated to be approximately 12,000 individuals living full-time or part-time on the reservation. Currently we are serving both our population and the neighboring Navajo community with advocacy work on rights to the water in the Southwest.  With the historic drought year in 2018, when no one brought in the usual harvest, the Hopi appealed to ceremony to bring the rains and reached beyond weather forecasts and scientific research to understand the present conditions and plan for the future. Every Hopi was affected by this existential moment when our crops failed. Hopi survival and resiliency, informed by our deep knowledge, continues to carry our people beyond these challenging times by providing options to adapt and respond to changes, including technology solutions. 

The project requires extensive consultation and collaborations with other Indigenous communities. This includes the Otomi Nañhu, another old indigenous culture preceding the Maya and the Nahuatl of the Mexico basin. One creation story as derived an old Codex, by elders and knowledgeable Otomi, along with Hopi elders’ knowledge, has shaped the storyline now being scripted for a planetarium venue. In the original Otomi language version, we anticipate that it will be shared with Valley, Sierra and Coastal Otomis numbering millions of people in Mexico, as well as with Nahuatl and Mazahua peoples from the Central basin. We have presented the demonstration prototype in Toluca which is home to a large Otomi population.

We have castigated our young people for lacking the knowledge to participate in ceremonial observances at the proper place and time when spirit guides are present. We are now providing an opportunity to engage in reclaiming that celestial knowledge, through a portal that will stimulate that learning. 

Our solution is based on the history of our successes and failure in the previous worlds, and our solution is based on the best ideas for sustainability, tempered and tested by several cultures, as well as centuries of planning, execution, evaluation, refining and revising, applying, and looking to the future.

Victor Masayesva is the head of Dak Kiva where initiations of youth are conducted. He has lived his entire life in Hoatvela Village, farming and carrying out ceremonial responsibilities incumbent upon a kiva leader. He convened the first meeting of Timekeepers in 2013 to follow up on the instructions to look southwards to fill in the knowledge vacuums. 

 A Water Coyote Clan member with ties to the south, he has been aware of connections to the large Uto-Aztecan language family that extends from central Mexico to Idaho. He has been involved for 30 years in researching cultural, spiritual, social, and genetic linkages.

The team is uniquely qualified to work with both indigenous and science communities led by the Earth Timekeepers organization and creative team from US and Mexico, all members of Otomi-Nañhu, Mexica, Hopi, Kiowa, Mapuche, Cherokee, Mvskoke, and Anishnaabe.

Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Muñoz is Otomi-Nañhu and member of the Center for Earth Ethics, where he manages the Sacred Biocultural Sites project. He is also the General Coordinator of the Otomi-Hñahñu Regional Council in Mexico, a caretaker of the philosophy and traditions of the Otomi people, and an Otomi Ritual Ceremony Officer since 1988. He is on the steering committee of the Indigenous Peoples' Biocultural Climate Change Assessment Initiative and has served as a delegate to several commissions and summits on indigenous rights and the environment.

Geraldine Ann Patrick Encina, Mapuche, manages the Time and Place Revival project. She is also a member of the Otomi-Hñahñu Regional Council in Mexico, and a professor of Ethnoecology. Her research focuses on archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy, particularly on ancestral and current ways of measuring and conceiving time and natural cycles in Mesoamerica, especially among Maya, Nahua and Otomian cultures.

Jorge Garcia, is the Executive director of CESOSS (www.cessos.org), a non-profit organization headquartered in Albuquerque NM, has managed the Cultivando Nuestro Futuro Leadership Institute for over ten years. The purpose of this institute is to teach young people about identity, culture, history, water policy, and advocacy, and to understand the connection between natural and cosmological systems. His expertise areas are related to the Aztec calendar and other cosmic movements.

Jennifer Wemigwan is Anishnaabekwe from Wikwemikong First Nation, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and author of the book A Digital Bundle: Protecting and Promoting Indigenous Knowledge Online. Dr. Wemigwans’ research focuses on the convergence between education, Indigenous knowledge, and new media technologies. Projects include the online indigenous knowledge website: FourDirectionsTeachings.com. The website is widely used and sought out in education and by a variety of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. 

In their various careers and occupations as tribal mentors, researchers, teachers, and artists, the group prioritizes celestial observations accounting for placement and progressions recognized by Indigenous people. This research is the central contribution from the Timekeepers coalition of Native researchers, which intends to produce and share their groundbreaking work with Native communities across the Americas in order to recover their original timekeeping methods and devices. This is paramount for our survival.

We are beyond the concept stage because we have been meeting since 2013 to talk about our indigenous youth’s access to ancestral knowledge about calendars and time keeping. As our meetings expand to include participants from Canada, Central and South America, we have confirmed the commonality of the problem in our indigenous communities regarding access to traditional knowledge of the cosmic bodies by our youth. Our prototype will offer one way to convey that knowledge with full regard for community protocols. 

Our prototype and refinement of that prototype stems from exchanges with informed advisors responding to the storyboard, resulting from several screenings and viewings. This stage was essential to clear the appropriateness of our chosen technology to convey Otomi-Nañhu knowledge.

We have presented the prototype in planetariums, on the Oculus platform and on YouTube. With the input our prototype has become viable for the presentation of ancestral knowledge in an imagined 360-degree space that was not available to our generation. We began with our experiences of time and space within traditional tribal initiations and now this prototype has evolved to share and engage a larger audience.

We have provided viewing opportunities in two large dome facilities in Toluca and Santa Fe, New Mexico plus dozens of viewers with our link to YouTube and through Oculus. Link to prototype on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/pwN-fmYZzPk

Approximately 150 people attended the Toluca viewing and 50 people, including students, guests and instructors attended the IAIA viewing, both in the Fall of 2022. Additionally 30 students viewed the prototype at University of Oklahoma in 2023.

We continue to send out the prototype link to various people and organizations and with their input seek a better solution.

The SOLVE program can help complete our current prototype by supporting production opportunities and development through meetings, exchanges, and consultation with SOLVE’s network of people, entrepreneurs, and projects. More specifically, SOLVE can assist by introducing their network’s 3D animation and VR developers and distributors.

We are not aware of a mature distribution outlet for planetarium programs in the United States, unlike the co-operatives in Mexico, such as Tu Museo. Film has a long history of distribution that does not seem to be reflected in programs for planetarium venues. Introductions to any organization involved in collaborative programming would be very helpful. 

Financially, our goal is to seek out public and/or private funds and to develop a distribution plan that will measure up to the intended purposes of those program funds. The legal aspects of these types of funding are being considered before selecting one or the other. The type of funding must not impose on the groundwork we have established regarding the respect for indigenous intellectual property rights, particularly when our main content is ancestral knowledge.

At this point we seek advice on other funding possibilities which take into account the primary purpose of educating our youth rather than focusing solely on making a profit, because we in our indigenous communities have agreed upon the condition that no one assembly, corporation or venture capitalist should profit from knowledge that is guided collaboratively and shared equally. 

This condition that we have maintained has created distribution and market barriers. We are uncertain how SOLVE approaches such cultural barriers. Indigenous staff with knowledge of other projects would be very helpful from their body of experience evaluating proposals from Indigenous communities.

The cultural barriers could include language, gender, age, status, privilege, and tribal processes for securing assent. What age and maturity are required to adequately observe the movements of celestial bodies? Some passages of lunar standstill approximate 20 years so that 40 years would be required to observe the full lunar progression. Although the Maya have codices with information about Venus’ passage and the anticipation of eclipses, it is doubtful one Mayan astronomer would be present to witness a particular eclipse or comet expected far in the future.

Our common goal should be to provide indigenous STEM curricula in places of instruction and learning, encouraging environmental studies that include traditional indigenous knowledge of our environment along with empirical Western sciences. By accepting this approach, we overcome the stereotype of insufficient indigenous sciences, instead advocating for an inclusive improvement in all of our lives that comes from the shared experiences of this earth, this environment, and this cosmic order. 

The project is innovative because: 1) it is led by Indigenous people whose responsibility to the community is around timekeeping, 2) it connects Indigenous communities to fill gaps in one another’s knowledge of ancient timekeeping, 3) it translates this restored Indigenous knowledge and observations of the solar, lunar, and Venusian cycles to an immersive experience through an accessible, portable dome, based on images, narrative, and research created by those with experience utilizing that information over the years, and 4) access to this information exceeds or complements the normal practices of gifting, travel, trade, and transmitting knowledge through Indigenous storytelling and ritual practices.

University scholars and specialists are applying their interdisciplinary practices to anticipate the perils threatening our future existence, a field described as “environmental humanities.” This is a constant, annual process in the indigenous communities maintaining their ceremonies and rituals on a predictable timetable to maintain a balance that forestalls Koyanisqatsi (Hopi), life out of balance. This recognition and acceptance of the responsibilities assumed by Indigenous knowledge keepers to maintain life for all people, Sopkyaoh Sinom, has not been acknowledged by pro-Western knowledge holders.

We as responsible elders familiar with our communities, often western educated, are committed to immersing our youth in the events, creation visualizations, and the hope that is revitalized with this immersion. The script emphasizes this intimacy through the characters of a grandfather and granddaughter engaged in sharing ancestral knowledge, providing a profound experience.

Over the years of collaboration with our Otomi partners in Mexico, permission has been granted to share information about the Otomi calendar and star knowledge.  Working with an image from the sixteenth-century Codex Borgia (Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl) and interpretation from Otomi knowledge keepers, as well as Hopi star knowledge and a frame narrative developed by the Earth Timekeepers group, the script expresses the story of the creation of the universe by the Caiman and other cosmic spiritual forces.

Our primary source, the Codex Borgia (Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl) painting, conveys the cosmos as an orderly one, deduced from what the ancestors could know. Illustrations are statements of primary order, and the actions of humans follow, which is unpredictable and often disorderly.  The instructions provided by these illustrations are that by learning about the primordial, beneficial order, we humans can understand and correct our misbehaviors to return to synchronization with the cosmos. This method teaches humans that they have a place in this order and their misbehavior can lead to climate chaos. The animated image and narration represent not a reconstruction but rather a revitalization: recombinant knowledge from both Otomi and Hopi knowledge systems, reclaiming ancient connections and engaging current and ongoing astronomical observations.  

Our distribution plans include identifying and coordinating with international planetarium producers.  There are many domes internationally. More importantly, we are collaborating with a group of professionals (led by Héctor Lara Guadián, General Director of Tu Museo, www.tumuseo.com.mx) closely allied with Otomi protocols to collaborate on the original Otomi language version, to be followed by Spanish and English versions, for initial distribution in Mexico.

An interdisciplinary group created “Tu Museo, Exposiciones Interactivas” (“Your Museum, Interactive Exhibitions”), a company that takes advantage of spaces such as houses of culture, public squares and other forums, for the assembly of temporary exhibitions of high quality and innovative technology. The audiences are students and the general public, particularly in remote areas without access to the latest technology.

The specific external impact is stimulating youth curiosity. The spherical filmmaking (for dome planetarium viewing) creates an immersive learning environment for young people where they can make virtual trips to anywhere in the Solar System and our galaxy, explain the constellations, simulate eclipses, and see the starry sky from anywhere on Earth utilizing GPS systems. By placing the participant in a technologically recreated time and space environment, we engage young viewers, turning their attention to the night sky through sensory engagement, imagination, and cultural revitalization of ancestral knowledge. 

This use of immersive audiovisual technology to bring viewers into relationship with cosmic cycles and timekeeping counteracts current systems of separation from the natural world, inviting viewers to become, instead, more deeply attuned to their place in the solar system and to make better choices in giving and receiving sustenance from our environment.

Our impact goal is to make a groundbreaking work with native communities across the Americas in the years to follow, in order to recover their original timekeeping methods and devices.

The Indigenous Earth Timekeepers group (http://earthtimekeepers.org) initiated this project in Sept 4-6, 2013 at the first meeting in the Hopi village of Hoatvela. with the intention to revitalize Indigenous star knowledge and connections to traditional timekeeping, ceremonial, and agricultural cycles.  

During this meeting the Indigenous representatives discussed the ancestral conception of time and time-space, and the transcendence of this cosmovision today. This meeting brought together Time Keepers and Indigenous Knowledge Holders from the Highlands of Guatemala, Central Mexico, the United States, Colombia, and Ecuador. A few conclusions: This New Dawn is one of peace, tranquility and harmony; There is a growing need to turn to the Lunar Calendar as a fundamental base to better understand our ecosystems and issues with food sovereignty and sustainability; A need to reintroduce the cosmovision of indigenous peoples to give guidance to future generations is paramount to embark on this New Dawn.

One of the questions that emerged from this meeting was the general understanding that the transition that took place on December of 2012 represent the New Dawn of Indigenous Peoples. The completion of 13 Bakt’un represents a New Dawn, a new beginning for Indigenous Peoples in particular and for humanity in general.                                 

As the New Dawn progressed we were gathering every two years in different countries, until COVID, comparing our observations. It become starkly clear that we are feeling the lash of Mother Nature. It has become clear that human activity has instigated some of these punishments. It is not clear that we have taken responsibility for our actions. Mutual respect, humility, prayer, language, community, and support for one another, all these that are embodied in ritual and ceremony are being ignored, rejected, displaced because humans have forgotten their roles and responsibilities. 

We are observing the progression of the New Dawn attentive to the increasing sorrows of the earth as revealed in the climate change crisis. In our participant communities we have seen and felt the intensities and frequencies of punishments visited on earth and our people. Examples; glacial melt, ozone depletion, fires, floods, drought, extreme heat, airborne diseases, animal and insect infestations, decreasing varieties of floral and plant varieties, We are sympathetic to the sorrows noting the outcomes that were predicted: Wild Animals reclaiming their old territories, shorter growing seasons, intemperate seasonal fluctuations, unexpected fires, flooding hurricanes, tornados, wildly diverging from their seasonal lanes. Children having babies.

The covenants with the Creator have been abrogated. We are measuring our progress through the comparisons of the predictions and outcomes of what has been foretold in our communities. We are nurturing our progress through engaging more knowledge holders into the future. Our current demo is on YouTube with narration in English:    

Over the years of collaboration with our Otomi partners in Mexico, permission has been granted to share information about the Otomi calendar and star knowledge.  Working with an image from the sixteenth-century Codex Borgia (Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl) and interpretation from Otomi knowledge keepers, as well as Hopi star knowledge and a frame narrative developed by the Earth Timekeepers group, the script expresses the story of the creation of the universe by the Caiman and other cosmic spiritual forces. 

The animated image and narration represent not a reconstruction but rather a revitalization: recombinant knowledge from both Otomi and Hopi knowledge systems, reclaiming ancient connections and engaging current and ongoing astronomical observations.  

The spherical filmmaking (for dome planetarium viewing) creates an immersive learning environment for young people where they can see, understand, add to, and carry on the knowledge of celestial bodies.  Our solution places the participant in a technologically recreated time and space environment. With this approach we engage young viewers, turning their attention to the night sky through sensory engagement, imagination, and cultural revitalization of ancestral knowledge. 

This use of immersive audiovisual technology to bring viewers into relationship with cosmic cycles and timekeeping counteracts current systems of separation from the natural world, inviting viewers to become, instead, more deeply attuned to their place in the solar system. The impact will be a recognition of extended relations, and with an acceptance of that responsibility our viewers can make better reciprocal choices of giving and receiving sustenance from our common environment. 

We think of the core technology as the simulation of an altar where various components of the altar are put up and when all is assembled, the songs, speeches and performances bring the entire altar to a functioning level of meaning, consciousness, and purpose.    

The core technology is an immersive media experience that constructs a pathway to engaging indigenous experience of space and time. First, the perception of space as contained within colors, as well as plants, animal and bird articles, minerals, and special objects, all together representing the four directions as well as above and below. These placements of the various objects are typical.    

The perception of time as an emergence, passage, and completion of a life journey through several levels described as worlds is facilitated by the guide ropes and directional determinants represented by the items previously named. 

The process is to bring the person into the enclosure (dome), as if within the containment and borders of an altar. This microcosm of the enclosed world and its interdependent, interwoven parts appears to the participant. These gain movement from breathing meaning and explanation into each complementary component until the mutual relationships all become apparent. These are the elements of an initiation.

In this manner, the altar representing the cosmos opens up and the performances speeches, and songs invigorate the altar. The purpose of this unique assembly is to implant the sacred in the mind of the participants and teach respect for the interdependence of the ideal cosmic order. 

The immersive experience from a well-designed core technology reaches its goal of a promising and sustainable environment by demonstrating the interwoven fabric of our existence and the interdependence of all seen/unseen, felt/anticipated, heard/intimated, and savored/imagined experiences.

A future VR portal will provide an opportunity for re-positioning the storyteller perspective and the participatory aspect. This participatory function gains greater role in a VR interactivity model where an environment is created which immerses the participant in an intellectual, sensory, and spatial experience familiar to indigenous people engaged in traditional tribal initiations. 

Administratively the Earth Timekeepers board is composed equally of men and women. The advising body is international but centered in Mexico. The production team is both from US and Mexico.

We will become more diverse through the demonstration of our prototype in the communities, welcoming our project. Beginning with Otomi, we have a Spanish and English version that will expand to Nahuatl, Hopi, Kiowa and other Uto-Aztecan language groups that have connections to Mexico.

When the prototype technology is accepted, by a community, the content will be adapted to their cosmic vision, in their language and in their storytelling techniques and aesthetic compositions. Each community will have limits to what knowledge they would provide access too, but certainly patterns of star clusters will become known. 

The Uto-Aztecan language family has many of the same cosmic orderings, such as emergences from previous worlds and the settlement of the current world surface. The Uto-Aztecan language family embodies a rich diversity of histories, stories, and creation events of our ancestors that will become available to the youth. 

Southwest research has revealed Meso-American connections, confirming tribal stories. For many, Meso-American influences on our American Southwest is not taught. Our diversity approach is to allow for all the historic events from our pasts, and the commingling of ideas and actions in the Southwest be equally regarded and weighed in consideration of who we are today because of where we have been. This is the inclusiveness and approach to diversity we enjoy. 

Internal organizational structure and external partnerships are being improved and have increased steadily over the past two years. These improvements are crucial for realizing the organization’s intended impact. The Indigenous Calendars project lends itself to two types of distribution and revenue streams: Full Dome and Virtual Reality (VR). Revenue potential also exists from selling social, educational services directly to clients and membership organizations, such museums, clinics, workshops. It is anticipated that operating expenses to continue offering community services and distribution of the product will be more than covered by the revenue generated. 

Full Dome refers to immersive dome-based video projection environments where the viewer is surrounded by the video projection in a hemispherical angle of view. The dome, horizontal or tilted, is filled with real-time (interactive) or pre-rendered (linear) computer animations, live capture images, or composited environments.

As with Full Dome, Virtual Reality (VR) delivers a multiple sensory experience, but the viewer wears a head mounted display (HMD) for immersive visuals and sound, sometimes with tactile feedback.

The team reviewed available statistics. The industry is growing at a fast pace, with the global VR market size projected to increase from less than 12 billion U.S. dollars in 2022 to more than 22 billion U.S. dollars by 2025, according to statistics obtained from the full dome content database: https://www.fddb.org/fulldome/ and Harvard Business School Publishing.

Income statements from our partners at Tu Museo reveal unique payments, for licenses of a certain period (usually one, three, five and fifty years), so it cannot be considered as a continuous income to Timekeepers. Current costs to set up a portable dome is US$ 1.120 for up to three days on site. More productions, or a series from within the Uto-Aztecan language family, can make a difference. 

Information from the international planetarium community (Digistars Users Group, or DUGs), which includes planetariums in the US and internationally, reveals strong competition, from a wide catalog of projections, that are very attractive in terms of prices, which makes them profitable for ticket sales. However, educational, indigenous content titles are rare.

To make the offer of the completed prototype more attractive, it could include complementary products, such as a website/app/social network that offers more information about the worldview of native peoples, personal strategies for better care of the environment under with the guidance of Otomí philosophy, products and companies that are aligned to this objective.

The US government’s green initiatives in several sectors, are promising significant sums of money for environmental education and changing consumer habits. This policy greatly benefits all parties (government, society, indigenous communities, etc.). Our goal is to seek public funds in these sectors, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, that will enable us to complete and distribute our production to a number of underserved learning centers.

Our financial plan and the social, educational plan to deliver astronomy curricular content are the same. We continue to discuss our production as an asset to be applied by Earth Timekeepers in the course of their educational activities. We have considered selling social, educational services directly to clients from a website and to membership organizations, such museums, clinics, workshops.

The project, to date, has been funded by a National Science Foundation exploratory grant. The grant funded cultural research, a community permissions process, and a demonstration VR/Dome video, as “proof of concept.” Beyond the National Science Foundation grant for research and development, we are currently seeking appropriate funding sources and grants, such as exploring investment funding from theme parks such as Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, NM. Part of our SOLVE request is for assistance in developing a comprehensive financial sustainability and distribution model.

Besides the National Foundation Science grant we have not received any revenue and we are not engaged in seeking investment funding, but that may change with assistance building a good business model.

To date the screenings of the prototype are free.