ORIGIN has joined forces with Uber and Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business to launch the Share Your Roots VR Competition. The competition is seeking Indigenous knowledge keepers, artists, story tellers or those offering Indigenous experiential tourism opportunities to submit an application to be considered for the creation of their own custom virtual reality experience. There will be 4 winners selected in early April.
“Our nations are so diverse,” says Melissa Hardy Giles, owner of ORIGIN. “We want to be able to highlight Nations from across this land and demonstrate to Canadians the resilient, vibrant and beautiful cultural experiences that Indigenous people bring to the fabric of our society.”
ORIGIN is an Indigenous-owned progressive business enterprise that takes pride in offering innovative technology solutions to a growing portfolio of clients in targeted industries. Founded in 2009, the company’s history is rooted in workforce development and Indigenous Engagement and has evolved over a twelve-year period into a provider of a full suite of 360 VR solutions. ORIGIN is the creator of ImmersiveLink (IL), a comprehensive virtual reality-based platform that was created for career (Exploration, Development & Training) as well as for Indigenous cultural awareness & diversity purposes.
“We originally developed the tool to enable Indigenous job seekers to see the opportunities that might not be available in their communities,” says Hardy Giles. “I want our people to be able to dream and be connected to careers that fit their own natural gifts and abilities.”
ImmersiveLink technology is used as an effective engagement and communication tool between First Nations and Industry. The company works with Indigenous communities and knowledge keepers to build and create virtual reality content to highlight, capture and preserve First Nations valuable traditions, language and protocols; helping industry, employers, students and Canadians to better understand how individual Nations want to be engaged, what priorities they have pertaining to culture and how they care for the land in their traditional territories and teachings.
“The whole idea of this competition is to inspire Indigenous knowledge keepers, storytellers and artists to share their gifts, and we will go to work promoting those across Canada,” says Hardy Giles. “This is our opportunity to educate youth, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, we are currently in 27 school boards in Ontario, representing 1000s of young Canadians just beginning their lives, now is the time encourage reconciliation.”
For more information, or to schedule media interviews, please contact: Charmaine McCraw – charmaine@immersivelink.ca or 807-356-2123
