Winner: MIT 2020 Virtual Reality Hackathon

I was accepted to compete in MIT’s 2020 Virtual Reality Hackathon where my team conceptualized and built a project in less than three days. Our project, “Voice of One”, won the awards for both “Best in Storytelling” and “Best in Social Good” and was a top 5 finalist for “Best in VR.” We were invited to present our project at Canada’s VTRO conference, but it was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19.

In Voice of One, the user is set in an eerie gray-scale landscape filled with violence and shadows. The user must utilize their voice in order to bring color and life back into the world, all while stopping the violent acts and trying to understand the mysterious shadow who appears during violent conflicts.

Using the built-in microphone, players used their words and their actual voices to affect the environment around them and stop violent acts through speech instead of physicality. We believe this same concept could be used to help children and those who have experienced traumatic events to learn to speak up and understand that their voice has real power.