Google‘s Daydream platform is many things, but now Google is keen on using the platform to help make change through its recently announced Daydream Impact initiative, a program which Google is using to take Daydream and turn it into a foundation for projects that will help make meaningful impacts on global citizens for any number of various reasons. Google wouldn’t be the first company to use virtual reality technology to fulfill a noble cause and change the world for the better, as Samsung has been an advocate quite consistently for using its Gear VR platform in numerous ways that were designed to make an impact, such as providing students with headsets to study the human body, but Google’s new initiative can help incite social change because it’s attempting o do things on a grander scale, and it’s doing so by placing the initiative into the hands of developers, third-parties, and creators.
In fact, groups of creators and “changemakers” as Google refers to them on its Daydream Impact landing page, have already started making waves. Projects like the East Congo Initiative aim to display the types of hardships that the people in the Congo have to go through every day by using 360-degree camera equipment (specifically the Yi Halo Cameras and the Jump Assembler Expeditions Kit) to make a film and a VR content that immerses people in the experience. Another organization called Springbok Cares is using virtual reality to help patients divert their focus from whatever is ailing them to a more pleasant experience.
These are just a couple of the handful of projects that are already in motion and quite a few more are coming and listed on the website as coming soon, and while using VR to help treat patients is nothing new per se, what makes the use of it here through Google’s Daydream Impact program is that it isn’t Google itself doing all of the work for all of these projects. This opens up the possibility for a lot more possible change and impactful movements because more people with more causes are able to put forth their efforts and use Google’s Daydream VR platform to make people’s lives better.
On the scale of what Google is looking to achieve here, which is to affect the lives of people for the better globally and not just on a local level, it would perhaps be almost impossible to handle the tasks all by itself. Daydream Impact makes things easier by essentially letting creators do the work, with Google simply providing a platform or springboard as it were for creators to launch their projects and get things moving. The reason why this has the potential to be so effective is because of Google’s reach. Google is a big company that has the means to lay bits and pieces of the groundwork for those looking to push a social change agenda who may not have otherwise been able to do so without Google’s initiative. While Google already has a number of different groups of creators that are set to push out their own projects in the future, Google is also still accepting applications from new creators that are interested in getting a hold of a Daydream Impact equipment loan with which to create their project. Google doesn’t specify how many applicants it’s loaning out equipment to but the fact that it’s still taking applications is kind of a big deal as it means more possibilities for social change to come about, and the more creators which start projects with the goal of helping change people’s lives for the better means potential for others to help do what they can to make positive changes for others too.