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Extended Reality Creators get $30K Africa No Filter and Meta Grant

Extended Reality Creators get $30K Africa No Filter and Meta Grant

by | Mar 15, 2022 | Africa, General, Kenya, Other News, South Africa

Africa No Filter, in partnership with Meta, Electric South and Imisi 3D are awarding African Extended Reality Creators with up to $30,000 in grants to support the production and development of new content.

Six creators are winners of the ‘Future Africa: Telling Stories, Building Worlds’ programme. The program focuses on harnessing and investing in the next generation of Extended Reality (XR) creators and ecosystems in Africa.

The winners come from Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Cameroon, and Kenya. They will incorporate the creative uses of music, multimedia installations, films and sculpture in their work. To explore projects around spirituality, heritage, the cosmos, imagination and memory and masculinity into their extended realities projects. All with a focus on telling compelling African stories that are contemporary, narrative-shifting, and immersive.

Each creator will get funding of up to $30,000. Participate in XR-industry events to improve their creativity and showcase their projects. They will also access mentorship from Electric South and Imisi3D. 

It’s reassuring to see the amount of incredible XR talent on the African continent, says Jessica Hagan, Arts and Culture Program Lead at ANF. “The creativity and innovation we encountered in the selection process has been very exciting. It shows that Africa is also on the pulse of global innovation and tech trends that are redefining how stories are told and experienced. XR content creation is costly, but African creators are not falling behind,” she adds.

Extended Reality Creators Africa

The six Extended Reality Creators are: 

  • Pierre-Christophe Gam, Cameroon: A multimedia artist who is working on a hybrid art installation that fuses VR, film, photography, and mixed-media sculpture to imagine the future of Africa from the perspective of an African family living in 2070.
  • Xabiso Vili, South Africa: A writer, performer and new media artist. Vili’s visual album is a speculative fiction piece that explores reconciliation and healing. Vili hopes to turn toxic masculinity into compassionate masculinity.
  • Nirma Madhoo, Mauritius: A fashion filmmaker, XR creator and Ph.D. candidate. Her work explores African cultures as technologies, which she illustrates through ancient practices like cultural astronomy. 
  • Michelle Angawa, Kenya: A film editor XR creator. This creation centres around a short tragicomedy that depicts a day-in-the-life of a Nairobian boda boda rider. Exploring desire and the complexities of Nairobian life. 
  • Malik Afegbua, Nigeria: A multimedia artist who is curating a virtual heritage experience of the Kofar-Mata dye pit, a cultural and historical site in Kano, Nigeria.
  • Lara Sousa, Mozambique: A director and producer. This creation uses the journey of Lemanjá, the Afro-Brazilian goddess of wisdom, to explore the ocean as a sacred site of spirituality.

“This specially curated program is an opportunity to support African storytellers who are leveraging the power of the next evolution of social technology. Whilst also shining a spotlight on the amazing, creative, and diverse talent pool we have here on the continent. We understand the power of Extended Reality and how it can be used to tell stories that shift narratives about and within the continent. We’re excited to see these visions come to life.”

Sherry Dzinoreva, Meta’s Public Policy Programs Director, Africa, Middle East, and Turkey

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Minecraft Earth: Microsoft drops blocks on stage at Apple’s WWDC event

Minecraft Earth: Microsoft drops blocks on stage at Apple’s WWDC event

by | Jun 5, 2019 | General, Microsoft

Microsoft demos new iOS specific Minecraft Earth features at WWDC.

Minecraft Earth

Microsoft demoed its latest creation in Minecraft; Minecraft Earth at Apple’s 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference(WWDC). The augmented reality (AR) game was announced last month and will be released on iOS and Android. Saxs Persson and Lydia Winters, Minecraft Creative Director and Mojang Brand Director were on stage for the hologram demonstrations.

The directors showed off the game on a tabletop before moving it out to cover the whole stage. Then showed off some cool things like immersing themselves in the game. A fully interactive world they called it.

What is Minecraft

Minecraft is a randomly generated world filled with secrets, wonders and peril where players place blocks and go on adventures. Players can build whatever they can imagine with limitless resources in the creative mode. Or explore the world and mine its resources to feed, house and defend themselves in the survival mode.

Minecraft Earth and AR

Minecraft Earth

Minecraft Earth brings augmented reality to Minecraft letting users experience the mobile game in our world. It gives you the same immersive feel as Pokémon Go. Allowing players to interact with builds in real life. Taking advantage of new iOS-only features, it was demoed that players can even step into builds.

Microsoft says you can build in tabletop mode with 3D holograms and then bring those creations to life with full-size augmented reality. Thanks to some new iOS-only features, you can even step into your builds yourself. 

Two new technologies introduced to make the AR game immersive is People Occlusion and Motion capture. People Occlusion will let players show up in their build. Players will be able to walk through their builds as if they existed in real life. More so other players will be able to see players mess around inside their own build. Motion Capture, on the other hand allows players to trigger pre-set animations for their in-game character. Mirroring the actions of the player.

Tom Warren of The Verge got to hear about and experience the game and shares this in depth. It will be coming out officially on iOS this summer, but you can signup to try it now.