Businessaire Mixed Reality Experience

We're addressing financial exclusion, a challenge affecting over 1.8 billion adults globally, who lack the necessary financial education and resources to access and navigate financial systems effectively. Our solution provides an engaging platform to learn and practice these skills.

Businessaire is a mixed-reality game that couples traditional board game mechanics with advanced technologies like ai, mixed reality and blockchain. The game simulates real-world business scenarios, teaching players core financial and entrepreneurial principles. It introduces digital transactions through City coins, our Bitcoin-based tokens, and modern economic concepts like Regenerative Finance and digital twins. Each game version is city-specific, starting with Baltimore, enhancing localization and relatability. 

We're using AI algorithms to analyze data sources such as social media activity, utility bill payment history, and mobile phone usage to build credit scores for the individuals who are unbanked or underbanked.
We're integrating AI-powered tools that can help individuals manage their finances, including budgeting, saving and investing. These tools will provide personalized recommendations based on an individual's financial situation, goals and objectives in the game.

Our solution primarily addresses the financial education gap and the need for familiarity with digital transactions, two key drivers of financial exclusion. Through our game, we're making it easier for individuals to understand and engage in investments and transfers, while also helping them build knowledge that can improve their credit-worthiness.

Our solution primarily serves unbanked and underbanked individuals, focusing on communities facing systemic financial exclusion. Businessaire offers an engaging way to learn and practice financial management, entrepreneurship, and digital transactions, thereby enhancing their financial capabilities and increasing their economic opportunities.

The City Social Impact Coins (used for transactions in Businessaire Mixed Reality) will engage and build trust in the communities that need it the most. We're establishing channels, more solidarity and economic development between the members of the community, local businesses and the organizations addressing the needs of the community.

Our diverse team combines expertise in game development, mixed reality, and blockchain technology. We are driven by our commitment to financial inclusion and education, positioning us uniquely to develop and deliver this solution.

Our solution currently serves about 40-50 people. Throughout the development process, The Businessaire game on the tabletop platform is the first step and we've had over 300 people play this game so far with about 40-50 people regularly playing it through our partnerships and Businessaire workshops.

Through play-testing, we're able to understand what people like about the game and also brand the game with people in the community before we test the mixed-reality version of the game.

We're applying to Solve because we feel we're tackling a big enough problem that is related to the Financial Inclusion challenge and MIT Solve can help us with resources and guidance to help accelerate our progress. Specifically, we would like to increase our engineering development team with a few more people with the technical skillset to work on this project and we recognize MIT Solve as an initiative that can help support us in that manner.

The fusion of traditional board game mechanics, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology in Businessaire provides an innovative platform for financial education. The use of city-specific tokens and incorporation of modern financial concepts make the game relevant and forward-thinking.

It can catalyze broader positive impacts because it is not only engaging and mobilizing members of the community to help with their own economic development, but also educating and building trust amongst the people and the businesses and organizations that serve the community.

Our one-year goal is to engage 10,000 players, primarily from underbanked communities, and refine the game based on their feedback. In five years, we aim to expand our reach to one million players globally, demonstrate a marked improvement in financial literacy rates, and contribute to increased economic activity. We'll achieve these goals through strategic partnerships, continuous game refinement, and an expanding roster of city-specific versions

Our progress will be measured through key indicators like player engagement, geographic and demographic reach, and improvements in financial literacy and economic activity. We'll leverage game analytics, pre/post surveys, and follow-up studies for data collection and analysis.

We believe that by offering an engaging and relatable platform for financial education, we can empower financially excluded individuals to understand and participate in the economy more effectively. This participation can lead to improved financial stability, increased economic opportunities, and ultimately, reduced financial exclusion. The integration of modern economic concepts and technologies further prepares players for the evolving financial landscape.

The Core technologies that power the solution are AI, Blockchain and Mixed Reality.

We're using AI algorithms to analyze data sources such as social media activity, utility bill payment history, and mobile phone usage to build credit scores for the individuals who are unbanked or underbanked.

We're integrating AI-powered tools that can help individuals manage their finances, including budgeting, saving and investing. These tools will provide personalized recommendations based on an individual's financial situation, goals and objectives in the game.

The game itself is using mixed reality-based software.

We're using smart contracts which is a self-executing contract with the terms of the agreement between the buyer and the seller directly written into lines of code. The code and the included agreements are stored by a distributed, decentralized blockchain network. The code controls the execution of the agreement, and the transactions are trackable and irreversible.

At For the Culture Games, we respect, celebrate and welcome people from all social, cultural, and identity-based attributes. 

Our leadership team come from diverse backgrounds and represent groups of people that have been marginalized so we understand the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.

We feel diversity is crucial because it brings different perspectives and experiences to the table, allowing for more innovative and creative solutions. We practice and look to improve equity ensuring that everyone has equal access to opportunities and resources regardless of their background and will continue to practice inclusion by creating an environment where everyone feels valued and respected.

We have and will continue to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion by having intentional efforts and strategies in place. This includes actively seeking out and recruiting individuals from diverse backgrounds, providing training and resources to address implicit bias and systemic barriers, and creating an inclusive culture where all voices are heard and valued.

Collaborating with organizations that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, and regularly assessing and improving our internal practices to ensure they are inclusive and equitable is part of our commitment as well.

Businessaire Mixed Reality Experience will use several core business models.

Sponsored events to get people to participate in the game, game competitions will introduce the coins to the members of the community. These events (B2B) can help onboard membership to Businessaire Mixed Reality Experience.

The whole point of using the city coin is to benefit the local economies. This happens when we educate and engage people that are unbanked and underbanked and as the local businesses accept the coins, they can be put to use for the social needs of the community.

There will be several revenue models that we will start out with the Businessaire Mixed Reality Experience.

1. Sponsorships: The game features sponsored events and collaborations with brands to generate revenue. The Sponsors can gain trust within the communities and sign people up to participate with City Social Impact Coins that can be spent with local businesses and/or fund social initiatives. We're establishing channels and more solidarity between the members of the community, local businesses and the organizations addressing the needs of the community.

2. Free-to-play with microtransactions: The game is free to download and play, but players can purchase virtual goods, real goods and City Coins cryptocurrency with real money to enhance their gameplay experience and become more financially literate.

3. FTCG will collect on transaction fees and use money/City Coin to run and enhance features to the experience as well as contribute to the specific needs of each community.

We have raised grant money from the Warnock Foundation ($2,000 grant), UMBC Social Innovation Business Competition ($4,000 grant) and Conscious Venture Labs ($125,000 investment/convertible note) and the Maryland State Arts Council ($6,000 grant, game artwork in and around Baltimore City).