XR Portal — The ‘XR for Good’ search engine

Maryam Sabour
Virtual Reality Pop
2 min readOct 2, 2018

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Today I’d like to share with you my long-time passion project, XR Portal.

XR Portal enables anyone to easily search and discover ‘XR for Good’ content.

How was this born?

While in law school at McGill University, I was working on a research project on climate change and how immersive technology is a beneficial tool for non-profit campaigns trying to effect change in this regard. As I began my search for immersive content on climate change, I found that content was distributed sporadically across multiple platforms and hidden among leisurely or irrelevant content. Trying to solve my own problem, I started curating social good content.

As a consultant to several AR/VR companies, many who are focused on location-based entertainment such as museums or aquariums, they too would ask me to help them source content about various topics for educational purposes.

Alas, XR Portal was born with the objective to make XR educational and social good content open, accessible and most of all discoverable.

Why is this important?

Immersive virtual environments enable perspective taking, whereby one is placed in the shoes of another through mental simulation. When one takes the virtual perspective of say another person or an animal, this leads to an increased mental overlap of the self and other, which induces feelings of closeness and empathy and increases helping intentions and behaviour.”

Thus, XR content can create positive behavioural changes. Whether your cause is to promote climate change, women’s equality, or animal rights, any social issue depicted effectively through XR can transport users in a way that allows them to build compassion and action towards your social cause. For example, in a study measuring this effect, participants who experienced XR content where they were granted the “superpower” of flight were more likely to show altruistic behaviours in the real world (i.e. helping a researcher pick up a spilled cup of pens) compared to those who rode as a passenger in a virtual helicopter. These studies have been replicated to show similar effects in cases of racism, ageism, sexism and even speciesism. So what does this mean? It means that XR content enables a novel way of allowing us to experience the world through the eyes of another, in a way that can actually encourage us to change our behaviour.

As this content evolves, XR Portal will be your gateway to these immersive perspectives. We empower creators of XR social good and educational content and to make it accessible for all.

Every person and thing experiences the world differently. Our mission is to create an empathetic society by enabling individuals to immerse themselves within diverse perspectives. Join the movement to help us promote empathy and inclusiveness, while transcending boundaries of division.

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