We need to fill an empathy gap
Climate change is the most urgent threat in our backyard, yet we are largely unaware, overwhelmed and divided. Society is not acting with the necessary urgency to mitigate the disastrous impacts of our environmental crisis. How did we get here? How did society become so complex that we lost touch with our dependence and responsibility to the planet that sustains us. How do we not notice the inequities and how our species suffer? How do we release ourselves from a trap?
How can we change hearts, minds and actions before it's too late?
How can we change hearts, minds and actions before it's too late?
Virtual Reality builds empathy.
Virtual Reality (VR) has been called the ultimate empathy machine. It is an immersive, high-tech medium for storytelling that allows its viewers to inhabit another world. Importantly, this powerful tool has proven to influence minds. Organizations such as the United Nations have used VR to make us profoundly connect with other humans.
Before It’s Too Late (BITL) is a cutting edge initiative led by young people to create multi-user VR simulations to awaken and unite people to solve big problems like climate change. Our simulations bring real data to life in visceral storylines where users become decision-makers, uncover new perspectives, envision solutions, and experience trade-offs of different paths.
Before It’s Too Late (BITL) is a cutting edge initiative led by young people to create multi-user VR simulations to awaken and unite people to solve big problems like climate change. Our simulations bring real data to life in visceral storylines where users become decision-makers, uncover new perspectives, envision solutions, and experience trade-offs of different paths.
A social theory of change
deployed via Virtual Reality
Empathy motivates.
Empathy has been shown to have greater impact on intent to change behavior than knowledge. Stemming from climate simulation research conducted by Professors John Sterman and Juliette Rooney-Varga from MIT's System Dynamics Group, our theory of change is based on two ideologies grounded in social behavioral science: 1) experience and stories amplified with VR creates empathy and 2) empathy motivates action if we can create knowledge and agency for the individual to contribute to a scalable movement.
Simulations build education and collaboration.
Group simulations and games have been used effectively as industry training tools, and they have been used for climate disaster preparedness. We believe that re-imagining simulations inside VR represents our greatest opportunity to improve people’s capacity to generate the empathy, awareness and agency necessary to save our planet. We are connecting with researchers and professors at MIT, Yale and Wharton who specialize in game theory and simulation design for climate preparedness.
A student initiative emerges to fill the empathy gap to solve the biggest issues for our generation.
Before It's Too Late (BITL) is a cutting edge initiative led by young people to create multi-user VR simulations to awaken and unite people to solve big problems like climate change. We are currently conducting due diligence, customer interviews, storyboarding and prototyping to develop our first product, "Save or Sink Miami," which portrays the calamities and solutions for sea level rise in South Florida.
Our simulations bring real data to life in visceral storylines where users become decision-makers, uncover new perspectives, envision solutions, and experience trade-offs of different paths. We will bring the VR experience to target communities and policy and business leaders in order to inspire critical new groups to collaborate. We are incorporating the latest research in climate communication, policy, simulation theory and behavioral science.
BITL was founded by a group of MIT graduate students in September 2016, and we've now engaged over 30 passionate and talented interdisciplinary student interns across 9 universities including Florida International University, University of Miami, Harvard University, Yale University and George Mason University. We also have a Florida steering committee with 7 members from SE Florida Compact and regional universities and climate organizations.
The time is vital for a grassroots solution such as BITL to transform the narrative on climate change by opening hearts and bringing people together behind a common cause #beforeitstoolate.
Our simulations bring real data to life in visceral storylines where users become decision-makers, uncover new perspectives, envision solutions, and experience trade-offs of different paths. We will bring the VR experience to target communities and policy and business leaders in order to inspire critical new groups to collaborate. We are incorporating the latest research in climate communication, policy, simulation theory and behavioral science.
BITL was founded by a group of MIT graduate students in September 2016, and we've now engaged over 30 passionate and talented interdisciplinary student interns across 9 universities including Florida International University, University of Miami, Harvard University, Yale University and George Mason University. We also have a Florida steering committee with 7 members from SE Florida Compact and regional universities and climate organizations.
The time is vital for a grassroots solution such as BITL to transform the narrative on climate change by opening hearts and bringing people together behind a common cause #beforeitstoolate.
Why our solution is differentiated
BITL transforms the climate change narrative through these traits:
- Embedded empathy and agency
- Interactive group simulations to show how collective actions can lead to different future worlds
- A collective experiential narrative on climate change from many contributing artists
- Stories that highlight solutions not just issues, connecting people to initiatives and tools to take action in the real world
- Measurement for resulting behavioral change
- Traveling pop-up expo brought directly to change-makers and local communities, reaching audiences outside the choir.
- Use of high tech, premium VR production tools to amplify experiences
- Partnership across interdisciplinary organizations
We are bringing BITL to target communities and policy and business leaders.
Many of the powerful institutions best poised to drive systemic change have fallen prey to this lack of empathy that is impeding climate change action. Before It's Too Late is striving to galvanize accountability to influence policy, institutional behavior and cultural norms to drive collective action.
We will bring our exposition on a nationwide tour to inspire critical new audiences (outside the choir) to collaborate. We will deliver a high-tech, fully immersive VR experience and calls-to-action for both key influencers and the public.
We will bring our exposition on a nationwide tour to inspire critical new audiences (outside the choir) to collaborate. We will deliver a high-tech, fully immersive VR experience and calls-to-action for both key influencers and the public.
We are measuring BITL's effect on behavior and perceptions.
We recognize that the content produced is only as great as the minds it changes and the positive action it drives.
We are thus collaborating with academic partners at MIT, Stanford University and George Mason University, leveraging decades of research to measure the success of our project. We will pair our viewing with robust measurements on the emotional response from viewing and changes in behavior towards climate action.
We are thus collaborating with academic partners at MIT, Stanford University and George Mason University, leveraging decades of research to measure the success of our project. We will pair our viewing with robust measurements on the emotional response from viewing and changes in behavior towards climate action.
The success of our collaborative VR project, Before It's Too Late, relies on the alliance of many people. Our core business development and research teams reside at MIT. Our partner VR production companies which help to produce our stories and simulations and our grassroots partners reside around the nation. Finally, none of this would be possible without our generous sponsors, and we are forever grateful for their financial support.