The Nature Conservancy

This is Our Future

Opportunity

The impact needed was straightforward but not simple: inspire and engage the next generation of California leaders to support The Nature Conservancy and their innovative work to help nature do what it does best — sustain all life on Earth.

In a time when concern for the environment had been consistently trending down behind other issues, to attract a new generation of technology oriented California innovators and funders, we knew we had to do something entirely different than a standard PSA campaign.

Shared Mission

We developed the shared mission “This Is Our Future”, that married The Nature Conservancy’s innovative approach to conservation with the pioneering spirit of Silicon Valley and California.

Instead of standard PSAs, enso proposed an immersive campaign featuring an innovation challenge inviting Silicon Valley’s best and brightest to develop and apply cutting edge technology to a real conservation problem. A VR experience was created that put donors in the middle of a fishery to get a first hand look at the often unseen complexities of an overfished and unmonitored ecosystem. The campaign also partnered with Kaggle to call on their 200,00-300,000 data scientists to help bring AI and image-recognition enabled monitoring to the long-line fishery in the Western and Central Pacific.

Positive Impact

Through the shared mission, innovation challenges, VR engagement, The Nature Conservancy has created a blossoming and prolific relationship with a whole new generation of California innovators and funders, securing the future of many critical conservation initiatives. Elevating this from a standard PSA campaign to an innovation shared mission brought on a new family of partners and collaborators. Technology leaders, including Matt Idema from Facebook, Engineer Tray Chou and Anthony Goldbloom from Kaggle signed on to be ambassadors for the campaign and galvanize the tech community. Cultural influencers and artists Yosi Sergant, Charlie Becker and Joseph Alessio brought their talents to the launch event to inspire the community and bring the issue to life.

MPC Launches VR Experience For The Nature Conservancy - VRScout
Share TweetIn the hopes of enacting meaningful environmental change rather than simply raising awareness for causes, the Nature Conservancy has launched a new experience for Oculus Rift and Gear VR. The real-time interactive experience dubbed "This Is Our Future" debuted October 6th at a Conservancy hosted event in San Francisco.

Wanted: artificial neural networks that can tell turtles from tuna, conservation-mindedness a plus
In one of the world's last great high seas fisheries, the western and central tropical Pacific, it's still a free-for-all. Only 2% of the fishing vessels are monitored by authorities, and as much of 40% of the catch may be unintended or illegal.

This VR Film Will Educate You on the Shocking Facts About Tuna Fishing
The Nature Conservancy Is Targeting a Tech Audience With Immersive Film

Nature Conservancy Takes New Marketing Tack, Depicts Future
A year ago, agency enso started working with the Conservancy to pivot its ongoing campaign toward attracting a new generation of supporters in California. It comes at a time when concern for the environment has been trending down behind other issues.

How humans and machines can work together to save the tuna
A majority of the 20,000 people in the island country of Palau rely on marine life for their livelihoods. The economy of the nation, which is spread across 250 islands in the Western Pacific Ocean, depends on tuna fishing and deep-diving tourism. The latter, driven by the shark population, accounts for the country's $85 million deep-sea tourism industry.

Step Up To The Next Big Challenge
We are the innovation hub of the world, creating new technologies and ideas that are transforming the human experience. And there's an epic challenge and opportunity before us. And it's not designing the next social network, disruptive app or new gadget in the internet of things.

Deep Learning Goes To The Deep Seas And The Billion-Dollar Tuna Industry
The Nature Conservancy plans to use machine learning to improve tuna fishing operations in the Pacific Island region.

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