Aurora

Worldwide, there is a growing inequality gap that now has disadvantaged youth placed at the position of greatest economical and social risk (OECD,2014). Severly undermining their inclusion in social affairs and subduing their great power as agents of social change.

Aurora is Improving disadvantaged youth Mental Health, Social Inclusion and Neurocognitive Development through an Augmented Reality mobile App Game. The game reduces screen exposure hours by inviting adolescent to enjoy of outdoor actvities either individually or in multiplayer mode. It improves adolescents social and cognitive skills, it promotes their participation in society and fosters their engagement. 

Empowering and preparing 617 million disadvantaged youth worldwide can be a game changer (UNESCO, 2019). Social change that begins within communities is much more powerful than exogenous social change. Motivated, prepared included and engaged youth can truly transform societies from within. 

Worldwide, there is a growing inequality gap that now has disadvantaged youth placed at the position of greatest economical and social risk (OECD,2014). Severly undermining their inclusion in social affairs and subduing their great power as agents of social change.

This trend comes with negative life outcomes such as dropping out of high school, lack of motivation, screen addiction and early pregnancy (Science Daily, 2019). Rapidly rising anxiety, stress and suicide numbers (World Health Organization, 2018) and a worrying increase of unemploeyment (United Nations, 2019). 

We are at a time in the world’s history in which there are 1.8 billion youth in the world - the largest population of youth ever. Youth engagement can truly revolutionize the world.

Here lies the importance of securing equitable and inclusive economic growth by preparing and empowering disadvantaged youth to reclaim their place as cocreators of our modern societies. 

We are starting with Chile´s disadvantaged youth.

According to the OECD, Chile is one of the ten countries with most unequal distribution of wealth. This situation has been getting worse during the last decade. There is a huge cultural and economical divide in the country that creates conflict, uneasiness, tension and an imposibility for mobility within the social structure. The problem just keeps getting worse because most resources are all enjoyed by less than 10% of the population (2017). 

Our youth is angry, hopeless, in debt, anxious, depressed and lonely. Unemployment is over 17% (La Tercera, 2017). Suicide is their second cause of death, with a 41% of the population presenting suicidal behaviour, 47% showing depressive behaviour (World Health Oraganization, 2018).

We are working with public highschools, public mental health institutions and goverment organization across the country. Conducting focus groups, surveys and interviews with students, professors and parents. We have been assessing their needs since 2016, prototyping posible solutions in situ and recieving feedback as to how to to better design solutions. Students have had an active participation and voice during the process, in many ocassions involving themselves in the design an prototyping process.

Aurora is Improving disadvantaged youth Mental Health and Social Inclusion and Neurocognitive Development through an Augmented Reality mobile App Game. The game reduces screen exposure hours by inviting adolescent to enjoy of outdoor actvities either individually or in multiplayer mode. It improves adolescents social and cognitive skills, it promotes their participation in society and fosters their engagement. 

Aurora is location based, it is provided as a service to different highschools around the country for students to play with during recess hours. Each student gets to choose a augmented reality AI animal companion that will constantly invite them to go on adventures to unlock superpowers.

Waterbending for emotional intelligence and adaptability. Firebending for cretaivity and drive. Earthbending for body awarenes and movement. Airbending for selfawarness and imagination. 

These are some examples of the superpowers students set out to unclock and the skills they develop while doing so. Each invitation to play implies one adventure that is played in real life. Aurora serves as an AR hinge between the analog and digital world, inviting students to get out of instagram and into skin and bones challenges. 

Some adventures are enjoyed alone, some are enjoyed in groups. Tribes of affinities with different elements are made. Participants are encouraged to learn from other superpowers. A supporting and nurturing community is built within the game and wisdom is crowdsourced. Participants are invited to create adventures and stories to go with them, they end up being narrative and game creators. This is the ultimate strategy for skill development. Once the journey reaches the point where the students become the creators and designers of this imagined society. Then our job is done.

We are crowdsourcing the key to collective wellbeing. While designing the game, we have realized there is no chance we can solve such challenging issues such us inequity, mental health decay, lack of engagement or unemployment as teams of observers and analizers. 

We are convinced we need everyone to be active creators of the diagnostic and solution. We believe starting with disadvanted youth is specially powerful because they are being specially affected by XXI centurie's inequities and they hold great power for change were they to choose to use it. 

This crowdsourced solution is a game, wich makes it more engaging. It is an analog form of social network, we are attempting to use technology to strengthen social tissue. We are providing skills without homeworks or boring endeavours and promoting location based outdoor adventures through augmented reality.

We base the experience around an augmented reality animal companion, similar to a tamagotchi that accompanies the user thoroughout the experience. This animal companion has a simple AI that identifies when the user has the time and/or the need to play and encourages the user to engage on fun adventures either alone or with other students. The AI feed from a lantern stress tracking system embedded in the mobile app.

We also leverage on the power of behavioral design, the game is based on a CBT model for stress and anxiety relief that strengthens the users emotional, cognitive and social skills.

Social networks dinamics have informed the design of the comunity from which stories and adventures are crowdsourced.

Indigenous Knowledge is at the core of every story and wisdom shared in the magical narrative of the game. From spirit animals to natures elements, every bit of wonder is designed to invite the user to reconnect with nature, with themselves, other, and the world around them.

3 Full time staff

4 Advisors

4 Mentors

Pilar Dueñas (CEO) is a Psychologist (PUCV), Product Designer (Singularity University), Therapist (Neuro Arts Institute of NY), Artist (CalArts, MoMA) and Game Designer. After working in public education, research, her private practice and an NGO, she realized Mental Healthcare urgently needs creative solutions to increasingly worrying issues. 

Francisco Sosa is a Game Designer and Computer Scientist with various experiences in R&D, UX and Brand design. He is always eager to learn new things by studying intensely and applying right away. With skills in .Ai, .Ps, 3D modelling and Game Development in Unity engine with C# coding. He’s got broad leadership and team management experience, mainly thanks to his 4 years dedicated work at a social equality NGO.

Our strong board of advisors complement and support us. Raphael Rosa, Senior AR Game Developer and AI expert. Prof. PhD Rong-Seng Chang, National Central University of Taiwan, expert in IoT stress tracking. Balaji Teegala, Managing Partner. Skilled in Research and Development of Medtech. Matthew Biel, MD, MSc, is the chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Medical Center.

Our Mentors are Bárbara Silva, an incredible advocate for exponential technology social impact solutions, founder of 4 amazing startups that have impacted thousands of women in tech. Travis Giggy, AI architect of two unicorn startups, founder and CTO at Akin, an AI CBT companion that helps users achieve their goals. Robert Ellis, Strategy advisor at Silicon Valley, founder of futurosity and key mentor for 200+ successful ventures. 

Aurora currently has two group of partners for go to market and research:

1. DAEMS (Organizations that administer public highschools in Chile) from two different regions in charge of 32 highschools. Piloting the solution and providing their resources to support the deployments.

2. Stanford University and Georgetown Universities on technology development and a broader research partnership 

Our business model combines the service subsidization model with the fee for service model. End users are students and student parents are our customers. Students from private highschools will pay a subscription fee for the game that will serve as scholarship for disadvantaged students at public schools. Our partners, public and private highschools throughout the country will serve as channels of distribution and evangelists, providing students and parents with information. KPI's will be measured alongside University partners and High Schools being served. Ensuring the effectiveness of the service to its users.

First Stage, getting MVP done, so far we have been Bootstraping. 

Second Stage, go to Market we are crowdfunding and applying for Grants and Accelerator Program Investment funds.

Third stage, to achieve financial sustainability we are implementing a Service Subsidization Model were students from private highschools in Chile and the US will pay a subscription fee that will serve as a scholarship for disadvantaged students.

We are applying to solve because of MIT's proven experience combining tech with design to solve social challenges. And we are confident solve can help us with the following:

• To better focus our approach and tailor our master plan in a strongly cohesive proposal.
• To find excellent developers that count with both the skills and social sensibility we need.
• To plan for our KPI's and tracking systems. And from experiences from friends in MIT we believe solve is the right place for this.
• To raise funds that will help us hire more developers and accelerate our roadmap.

MIT. Tech development and talent search.

Chilean Ministry of Education. We are already partnered with 2 of its DAEMS (Regional Departments of Education) but we intend to go nationwide. We partner for information, access, entry points, media, and permits.

We are developing an AI companion to track students improvement and encourage and motivate them. We are applying neuroscience research around neurocognitive development in disadvantaged youth. 

We are counting on neuroplasticity to help students transform their nervous systems and therefore transform their opportunities. 

The AI is key to this development, it will train habits, track progress, provide feedback, train and stimulate our users. 

The data generated will inform the AI to make it more and more effective and tailored for the students needs. 

That is why we have partnered with Stanford's wellness department and Georgetown mental health unit, this project is meant to serve as valuable research for AI development.

We will use the prize to develop the research and the technology needed for this aspect of the solution.

We are going to serve the sector of the population suffering more of social and economic inequity according to the OECD (2017), disadvantaged youth. We want them to find courage to face the barriers they face and excel, promoting their social inclusion and resilience. 

• We will help them develop key skills for the future such as creativity, adaptability and emotional intelligent, 
• We will support their mental health, cognitive and social skills, and we 
• Will directly encourage them to connect more with other individuals and their communities, overcoming loneliness and isolation.

We will dedicate the prize to strengthen the community development aspect of the app, strengthening its crowdsourcing aspects and strengthening location based adventures designed for social integration.