In early 2019, Facebook and Oculus invited each of their agency partners around the globe to participate in the VR 4 Good Hack-A-Thon.
The challenge:
How would you use VR to solve a problem for St. Jude Children’s Hospital?
Under the radar, I assembled a small team of benevolent misfits from Arc, Leo Burnett and Digitas to answer the call.
Our proposal ultimately earned us a trip to present our work at the 2019 Cannes Int’l Festival of Creativity in France.
In our research, we discovered that while pediatric cancer attacks a child’s physical cells, the treatment journey can quietly attack relationships in the background.
This is especially true for one of the most important relationships in a child’s life: the relationship between their parents.
In fact, when a child is treated for cancer, 40% of parents say their relationship “went in a negative direction” and 53% report their relationship as “challenged” following their child’s diagnosis.
At their core, these are problems of distance, presence and connection – all of which we felt Virtual Reality was uniquely positioned to help solve.
Our proposed VR solution – “Virtually Inseparable” – was comprised of 4 key components, each contributing to an overall meaningful experience every time parents meet up in Virtual Reality, no matter how far apart they are.
These include physical/tangible connection, remarkable immersion, collaborative engagement/creativity and reinforcement of support.
The video below – created as a (very) rough proof of concept – features a real family in treatment at St. Jude. It is narrated by the mother of a survivor whose life was saved by treatment at the hospital. In it she reads a personal note, passing on what her own family has learned and introducing the new parents to the "Virtually Inseparable" VR experience.
Presenting to the festival crowd in Cannes, France.