Spark Tank Live - storIAccelertor 2025 Pitch Day

Hello and welcome. I'm Pamela Winslow Kashani, and I'm here with Tim Kashani. We are co-founders of Apples and Oranges Arts, and we would like to welcome you to our inaugural Spark Tank, where our Story Accelerator teams will pitch their inspiring projects across many mediums to friendly Sparks, leaders in finance, entrepreneurism, philanthropy, and entertainment. We're so glad you're here and that you can join us to listen to these incredible stories being unfolded. Today. Story Accelerator is a 3-round program, and today ends round 2, which has been a 2.5-week virtual session where we share the fundamentals of storytelling, the heroine's journey, Silicon Valley startup principles, the latest in AI, all in service to help storytellers bring their ideas to life and create global change.

If you look at the logo, you will see a cute little IA in the store, IAcelerator. That is because we are utilizing multiple technologies in this, one of them including artificial intelligence. The usage of artificial intelligence is to uplift and to create an alignment between humanity, artistry, storytelling, and impact. All of the participants have come to us with completely different backgrounds, and part of what we've discussed in this process aligns with the ability to use it for positive change, positive impact in our environment. And you'll get to see the participants as they do so themselves in pulling it through. We don't do a program like this in any means by ourself. It is cliché to say it takes a village, but it literally does. And if we look at the folks that have helped us along the way, a number of amazing people have been part of this journey. We want to thank the mentors who came to us during the actual 2.5 weeks that we're into now session to work with them directly in all different backgrounds from entertainment and story to finance and technology. We've played with tools and we've told amazing stories. How does this all work, you might ask? If we look at the breakdown, each of our participants is going to have 4 minutes, and in those 4 minutes, they are going to pitch their story. Then we'll have 4 minutes from our absolutely amazing life-changing judges that are going to not only judge but hopefully inspire. The idea of everything we do here is to uplift. Thus, you will not see a bunch of people ripping a bunch of other people apart. Instead, this is step 1 of what will be hopefully a multi-part step for our participants. The categories that they are looking at are based on the education that they received over the last couple of weeks. You can take a look here and see during the application process, these were the quadrants that we looked at when we were deciding what makes a good cohort. The amazing part of Story Accelerator, the evolution from what has been Theater Accelerator in our past, aligns with these principles that we're talking about here. And we have stories from all over the globe that are working with challenges such as time zones and internet connections. Thus, we have a lot of backup ready to help us should anybody have a problem. Our goal is to make it easy for them to be able to tell their story. To have fun, we thought we would come up with a few categories. And there will be— we have not announced this to the participants yet, but there will be cash awarded with this too, to help them to tell their story. We didn't want to put it up front so that that seems to be what they're going with, but we do want to support stories as they move forward. We have the Story Award, the one that impacts us The next one, the Impact Award. The Story Award is just the general story. This is something that moved us towards actionable hope. The Impact is the butterfly effect. What will this story be able to do to uplift? Innovation ties into the mixture of technology and story and how innovative it is. And then our judges are working with that scoring rubric that you saw to come up with the overall final winner for the program. Now, Pamela, will you please introduce the illustrious judge crew that we have?

Yes, I'd be delighted. First off, we have Pat Blute. He's an award-winning experiential marketing and sustainability investor relations leader, sharing his expertise and talents at Ernst Young, TechCrunch, Silicon Valley Bank, the Mitchell Lake Group, Kodak Ventures, and Access Worldwide. Equally passionate for the arts, he worked with Apples and Oranges on the Broadway Tech Accelerator and is a graduate of the first cohort of Apples and Oranges Theater Accelerator in 2017. Welcome, Pat.

Thank you very much. Look forward to hearing the stories today, and I've been in your shoes. You're going to do great. And he has.

Thank you, Pat. Next up, we have Chad Dyer. He was the chief information officer at Sequoia Capital for 12 years, but he made a big shift. And what he does now is to make the world a better place by moving capital and putting it where it needs to go. His latest project is Kinflow, where he helps capital stewards who believe their families only thrive when all families thrive. He collaborates with organizations like Adesina, Full Spectrum Group, The Good Life Pledge and Forward Global to identify and create easy buttons for connecting capital stewards with community stewards to deploy capital where it's needed most. Welcome, Chad.

Hi, I didn't know we get introed. So much pressure. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. Next, we have Sandy Hurts. She spent the last 20+ years as a philanthropy executive, first at the Skoll Foundation, where she helped establish the Skoll World Forum and she curated Skoll's Film, Media, and Publishing portfolio, and then as president of Sobrato Philanthropies. While she was at Skoll, she established the Stories of Change partnership with Sundance that produced 50 documentary and fiction projects, garnering multiple Emmys and an Academy Award nomination. Welcome, Sandy.

So great to be here.

So excited to hear the stories. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Next, we have Renee Kaplan, Forward Global's Chief Executive Officer, and she has more than 20 years of business experience in corporate, entrepreneurial, and foundation sectors. As former Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Programs at the Skoll Foundation, she oversaw the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the Skoll World Forum. Now leading Forward Global, she brings philanthropists together to learn to share their time, treasures, and talents in the best way for the most good. Welcome, Renee. Honored to be with you all.

This is fantastic.

Thanks. Thank you. Next, Sheila Lirio Marcello, the co-founder and chief executive officer of ohai.ai. A cutting-edge technology startup leveraging generative AI to improve the lives of families. She founded Care.com in 2006, took it public in 2014, and she was chairwoman and CEO until early 2020. She was just on Forbes 50 Over 50, one of Fortune's top 10 women entrepreneurs, and was awarded the prestigious Filipino Heritage Award from President Benigno Aquino III. Welcome, Sheila. Great to have you. Good to be here. I can't wait for the stories. Wonderful.

And thank you, Sheila, for Care.com. You— it's been amazing.

Your mother-in-law so much.

So big shout out. Thank you.

Next up, we have Judy Manucherian, our dear friend and Broadway producer of many, many shows, including Once on This Island, where she won a Tony Award. "The Prom," where she won a Drama Desk Award, and others with major importance in the Broadway sphere. "Real Women Have Curves," "Swept Away," "The Wiz," "Pictures from Home," and "The Lifespan of a Fact." And in film, she's done "Coast," "A Call to Spy," and "No One Called Ahead" with us truly in "At Apples and Oranges." And we warmly welcome you, Judy.

I'm honored to be part of this group, and I can't wait to meet the artists.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Next up, Jonathan Sun, managing partner and chief executive officer of Archimedes Management, an asset management firm and single-family office. He co-founded Archimedes after the sale of GenoWiz, a private family-owned genetics and genomics services business. And in 2019, that was sold. Archimedes supports philanthropic ventures that advance human health happiness, and education, but also understands the importance of humanity and the arts. Welcome, Jonathan.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure. And last but not least, Ivan Williams, an award-winning producer whose work spans films, web series, podcasts, and Broadway musicals. As— after a successful career as a senior leader at Arco and BP, he transitioned into the entertainment industry. His producing credits include Secret Mall Apartment with Jesse Eisenberg, Knights of Badassdom, Big Stone Gap— I like saying that, Knights of Badassdom— Big Stone Gap, MFA, This Changes Everything, Creating Woodstock, and the Broadway musical First Date, and the hit podcast Hidden History Happy Hour. A warm welcome to you, Ivan.

Thank you so much.

I'm really looking forward to this amazing competition and seeing the incredible stories unfold in front of us. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Now it is time for the main event to begin our presentations, and we're going to start off with a bang. First off, we have Dina Gregory with Animal Elections.

Thank you, Pamela. Fear. Charm. Intimidation. These Darwinian candidates will use every trick in their taxon to win your vote in Animal Elections, the first-ever scalable digital learning platform to introduce young children K-5 to civics. Let me demonstrate. Here's what it looks like in the classroom. Each animal candidate has a rhyming stump speech, a little poem that reveals their strengths and often betrays their flaws. Lion doesn't campaign too hard, he thinks it's in the bag. Tarsier tries hypnosis, and the weird-looking dendrogrammer just wants to be in the running. Kids instantly pick up on their personalities and start debating who deserves their vote. If they're on the fence, they can click on additional voter information where they'll find real and surprising facts about each animal. Students explore, discuss, and then they vote. Here we have real-time results in the raw data dashboard, a playful way to introduce data literacy. This pilot is classroom ready, complete with activities, games, and a teacher guide. As you can see, Animal Elections isn't just civics. It's science, poetry, and math. But at its core, it solves a real problem. Teachers need a simple, nonpartisan way to introduce voting to children. And children deserve for their first encounter with voting to be positive and fun. So what's next? I'm seeking 1 year of focused support, the chance to devote myself fully to Animal Elections. With 1 year of backing, I can expand the story world, build out the platform, partner with schools, and gather the impact data that will carry this work into its next chapter. If this is where I am now, with the help of some nifty AI tools, just imagine where I'm going.

Vote for Razzle Dazzle and the only showbiz birdie!

I have my own creature power. I'm a really good storyteller. My most recent opera, an original fairy tale, reached 9,000 people, almost 8,000 of them kids. And my adaptation of The Little Mermaid was named one of Audible's top family listens for 2023. But now I want to use my power for something bigger. I want to rescue democracy from the jaws of cynicism and apathy by planting seeds of joy and curiosity. Let a child delight in seeing that in their homeschool of 5 or their classroom of 25, their words can persuade, their voice matters, their vote counts. And maybe, just maybe, they will go on to believe that in a country of millions, their judgment, their voice, their vote can make a difference. Thank you.

Thank you, Dina. What a way to start. I should add, all of these projects are of very different genres. This voting app is something that really caught our eye and And we're glad to share. So let's open it up for questions from the judges. If you have a question, you can simply raise your hand or raise your virtual hand and we'll find you, or just shout it out.

Judy.

Hi, Dana. That was well presented, but I want to understand How is it presented to the children? Is it on a computer screen? Like, what are— or is it in a book form? Like, how is this seen?

Sure, great question. So it's on a computer screen. It is free to access. It will be very easy to use for teachers. A lot of my next year will be spent making sure that it's very easy to use and controlled by teachers. But yes, it's a website. They can project it, or each child could have it on a Chromebook. And they can take their time reading the poems ahead of the voting day, the election day, or we can go through them, you know, in person. So, but yes, it's on screen.

So is it a poem that the animal is reading, or is there like a video that goes with it?

So each animal has a poem, and they would read the poem, but to make it inclusive, and if people want, there would be an option depending on the teacher to play the speech, so you would have a very characterful voice reading the poem. There would also be an option down the line— well, not down the line now— to play their stump speech as a song. And that way, you know, ultimately I want the attention to be on these colorful characters and their stump speeches, but there's different ways to use that so that you might say, okay, who is your favorite based on them reading the stump speeches? Then who is your favorite based on hearing these songs? And did it change and why did it change? So there's lots of options and also there's lots of ways to reuse these candidates. So, you know, first of all, you might be voting for who's your favourite, then you might vote for who, given what you know about these candidates, who would make the best school librarian or, you know, different roles. So that's part of my expanding the story world. I can, I aim to write new candidates for every every year, so we'll grow the, the candidate list.

That's lovely. Thank you. Quickly, what fancy coder did you hire to build the prototype?

I did it myself, and I am no coder, but, um, we're here in the age of AI, and it— I used, um, Velo in, in Wix and a lot of ChatGPT help, and I was able to collect the data and get lifetime live real-time results. I'm about to go splash here with more graphic ways of presenting the data, um, because that's one of the things I'm really keen on— data literacy for kids. You know, we're living in a world where data really counts, and I want kids to start to understand that. And I don't think that it's— young is good. We need to start early with so many things.

What age is it for this?

Um, so this year I'll focus on K through 2, but it's K through 5. I feel like it fits well. I will adapt games and teacher plans according to the grade level and make sure it fits with the curriculum.

We have time for Jonathan.

Is there an ideal school or dream school that you would want to pilot this in? In your ideal situation, where would you want this first to have its debut?

Well, it's already going into a couple of classes, the pilot version. In January, but I, I think it's really well suited to some of these gifted and talented programs where they like to do project-based learning. Ideally, I want it to be in all schools. I want this to become part of the infrastructure for learning civics, just the way Khan Academy is used for math and science. I think that there really isn't anything out there. I mean, iCivics is there, but if you look at iCivics, it's visually very different. It's aimed at a slightly older age, I think, and I'm meeting children where they are in K through 2, K through 5. You know, they all, they all know what their favorite color is, what their favorite car is, so I'm tapping into that to get them excited about voting. So I don't know if that answers your question, but—

All right, unless we have another question, we're going to move forward. Thank you, judges.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dina.

Thank you so much.

Next up, we have Sami Daher with The Safe Community.

This is not a fairy tale. It's the story behind a locked bedroom door. Her name is Nur. At sunrise, she throws her whole life into the back of a dusty microbus and leaves her village behind. Her mother's voice follows her down the road: "Remember who you are. A girl's name is fragile." The city answers with traffic, neon, and a thousand unknown faces. In a tiny apartment, Nour meets Lina. Loud, magnetic, living like tomorrow doesn't exist. In a film school classroom, she meets Tarek. The boy who knows every movie line by heart and carries a secret that could cost him everything if it ever slips out. And somewhere in between them, a crush appears. He looks like the men from the series they binge at night. Charming, intense, different from the others. Until the attention turns into control and the romance starts to feel like a trap. By day, Nour is the perfect daughter on video calls, nodding, smiling, saying, "I'm fine, don't worry." By night, she's trying on roles. The cool friend, the easygoing girlfriend, the girl who doesn't make problems. In crowded buses, on rooftops, underwater tanks, in dark cafes and louder parties, she starts to meet her own body, her desire, her fear. She learns words like protection and prevention in whispers, not from adults, but from friends who are just as lost as she is. Every notification on her phone is a different version of her.

Call her.

Mama, Lina, Tarek, Omar. Each one asks for a different Nour. Only when the city finally goes quiet, she opens a notebook and writes the version of herself no one else gets to see. And that's where our podcast begins. The SAFE Podcast is part drama, part safe room. Every episode starts with a chapter from Nour's journey, a young Arab woman juggling village life and city, faith and curiosity, love and harm, shame and courage. Then the story cracks open into real conversations with people who can actually help: therapists, doctors, filmmakers, spiritual voices, and other experts from our region. Together we talk about double lives, manipulation and toxic love, queer secrecy and mental health, peer pressure, consent and prevention. Not with shouting, not with judgment, but with honesty, context, and care. Nour's story is fiction, but the questions, the confusion, the heartbeat in the dark headphones belong to a whole generation.

These questions, this confusion, this heartbeat in the dark headphones. This is exactly why I created the SAFE podcast. Hi, I'm Sami Haddouher. I'm from Lebanon, and I'm the founder of the SAFE community. SAFE stands for Sexual Awareness and Preventive Health Education in the Arab region. Noor is fictional, but she is built from millions of young Arabs who grow up loved yet unable to ask about sex, desire, queerness, consent, or prevention. So they turn to rumors, TikTok, porn, or equally lost friends. That's our world. And our first circle is clear: the youth already living online with these questions, and the teachers and counselors who don't know how to open these conversations. The SAFE podcast uses story as a doorway. Each episode begins with a cinematic chapter from Noor's life, brought to life with AI visuals like the trailer you saw, and then opens into a real discussion with therapists, doctors, and other experts from the region. From there, we adapt each episode into tools schools can use. To do this safely, our number one need is $30,000 to fully produce season 1. 12 episodes of narrative audio, sound design, AI-powered visuals, and school-ready materials. I'm not just making a podcast. I'm building the safe space I wish I had. Somewhere I could feel seen, heard, informed, and a little less alone. Thank you.

Thank you, Sami. Well done. Now we'll bring up our judges for some Q&A.

I have one.

Yes, Sheila.

How did you decide on Noor's story with so many other ones to cover?

We decided on the story of Noor as a doorway to other stories which are represented with other characters. This way we can also integrate all the audience so everyone can relate to someone in the story. And from there, we can take these stories and the things we learn from the experts to integrate them in the educational system for schools that we, we are planning.

Let me— what's your ideal rollout strategy? Is this already something that's in market? Is this content you're currently developing?

Okay, so it's actually part of the whole platform I started building 2 years ago, which now is divided into 4 pillars: an educational program, a vaccination campaign, podcast and outreach activities, and the pharmacy. So this podcast is going to be part of the outreach and digital media strategy from the one pillar of the 4 pillars that we're launching. So we started 2 years ago and now we're like in the developing phase. So we started like with no budget to test. And with only 3 episodes, we got to number 8 on Apple Podcasts. We were ranked number 8 on Apple Podcasts in Amman, which was a big surprise for us and showed us the need in the region.

Jonathan, you had your hand up.

I'm curious on why the podcast is a format versus something else.

Okay, thank you for this question. Well, as you saw in the story there, we're living in a region where censorship is very big, where people can get attacked upon very minor things. So first of all, using a podcast allows the listener to get the information without feeling seen, exposed, judged, or whatsoever. They're taking it as an educational content, and we're not using actors or people who might appear on the screen to not get this backlash. So we started in a podcast form as a doorway in the hope of when we start developing this policy or this ideology within our community, it can grow to something bigger in the future.

Great answer.

Thank you.

We have time for one more question if anyone has it, and if not, we're going to move forward. Thank you so much, Sami. Thank you, judges.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Jo Cattell with Invisible.

Hi everyone, my project is Puppet Punks: A Zeum of the Damned State, which is part of my Invisible Universe. It's a satirical puppet show and an interactive political museum with the intention of demystifying voting for the next generation. My collaborator Brianna is going to tell you a bit more about it. So my mom vanished, not ran away, not found herself on a llama pilgrimage. She walked into E-Corps, the megacorp that runs half the world and ruins the other half, and she didn't come back. I waited for someone to fix it. Greta Thunberg, Batman, anybody. But when a system breaks, the first thing it loses is accountability. The second thing is my mum. So I did what any honour student having a mild existential crisis would do. I turned my history project into a rescue mission via a puppet museum. Because this isn't just a conspiracy. It's a daughter's quest to pull her family back together in a world determined to split us apart. And you? You might be the allies who get me there. Listen up. Puppet Punks is not your average theatre show. Act 1 is a punk-infused puppet performance where my family and I build the Zeam and uncover a huge conspiracy. Act 2, the Zeam opens, and you, the audience, get up and walk into the story.

Literally!

You step into a full museum built for my brain. Exhibits, satire, family drama, political nonsense, and one angry teen trying to make sense of a broken system. You meet puppet characters inside the exhibits. The story continues around you, but you choose your path. It's theatre meets museum meets rebellion meets community therapy. And yeah, real heroes don't work alone. So I've got a genius mentor, Jo Cattell. You know, Cirque du Soleil, Sundance, BBC, that kind of thing. But she was the first grown-up who actually listened. She saw my grief, my chaos, my cardboard prototypes, and said, "Sick, let's build this." She believes young people need tools, not lectures. Clarity, not fear. Creativity, not apathy. So together we built a zeum where big scary concepts shrink into something you can understand. Question, laugh at, and maybe even change. This right here is what Jo calls actionable hope. Not waiting for things to get better, but learning enough together to start making them better, even if the first tool is a puppet. Plot twist: yes, we're using AI. Don't freak out, it's not sentient or replacing anyone's job. Think of it like an overly eager intern who works fast, needs adult supervision, and cannot be left alone with important decisions. This project is huge and I'm only 16. I don't have Pixar money. So AI helps us do all these things. It's not making the art, it's letting us make a bigger world than our budget normally could. And here's the wild part. This unhinged puppet revolution, it actually fits the market perfectly. Interactive experiences are exploding and Puppetpunk sits right where those audiences already live. Even the Tam, Sam, Som numbers agree. Huge market, reachable core, real slice we can capture. Plus it scales. Digital shorts, touring exhibits, merch. The universe is built for expansion. And the project is ready. The script is written, the world is built, the characters are alive and loud. Bring on Phase 1: research and development that leads to a workshop production. Which will result in a sizzle reel and a live experience where investors can see, feel, and walk through the Zeam for themselves. Phase 1 brings the show to life and sets the stage for a major fundraise for full production. We're raising $80,000 to bring Phase 1 to life. You're not funding a product, you're helping build a doorway. A space where a generation can make sense of the world and maybe make it better. Help us build the first steps. If we can turn chaos into art and art into action, then hope becomes possible. Thank you for helping us build something braver and brighter.

Thank you, Joe. Thank you so much. Judges, you're back. Love to hear your questions.

I don't know if I have a question, but that just like taps straight in my sensibility.

That was awesome. I like hearing that.

I put vibe 100 in my notes.

Love it, love it.

Thank you.

It's, it's one of the most clever fundraising presentations I've ever seen.

Now, why puppets?

Um, well, I think puppets can say and get away with saying the things that the rest of us can't a lot of the time. Um, and because I want to appeal to multiple generations, um, I really feel that puppets relate to kids in a different way, but adults really remember that they're still children at heart as well. And I think The whole purpose of it is to actually bring joy into understanding that we are a community, and that actually we all need to be a part of that community, and to be a part, we do need to vote. We do need to pay attention. And so that's really what this is about.

Wonderful. Judy.

Joe, where will this be presented, please?

I don't have a space yet. Ideally, in my head, I would love for it to find a venue first in the UK and for it to then come to the States.

Thank you.

And why is that, Jo?

Mostly because theatre is on an upturn in the UK at the moment and there's lots of ticket sales that are happening. And because of that, a new work is actually starting to resonate again with audiences. Which is actually very encouraging. And I think it's going to enable something that's slightly riskier like this project to actually flourish.

Love it.

All right. Well, thank you. Yes, yes, Chad.

I thought of a question, which is like, I was so attentive to the sensibility of it that like, what is thematically the— what is the— what is like the thematic story? Like, is it about social change of some sort? But was there like a specific kind of thematic area about what type of—

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's really looking— well, it's predominantly about family and the family and the teenager who is struggling to understand power. And in her process of trying to control her family, she starts to understand how difficult it is actually to run things, and consequently that also bleeds into the political situation. So it's about family as well as the larger problem, the larger global family.

That one. All right, well done, Jo. Thank you so much, and thank you, judges.

Thank you, everyone.

I'm gonna put a blind down during the next— I'm getting a crazy, uh, shadow on my face, but no matter. We have a wonderful presenter next up. We have Ritz Mapindi with A Burning Heart.

Hi everyone, my project focuses on producing and distributing a social impact docudrama series to catalyze and create social communities around impact as we co-create the infrastructure that will support Africa's booming workforce, which if you didn't know is set to become the world's largest over the next 20 to 40 years. Now, quick synopsis before I show you a teaser trailer concept. The docuseries pilot covers my Congolese-American family's 50-year journey through war-torn Angola, Zaire, and Central African Republic to the USA. Paul, the main character, and his wife Charlotte navigate their perilous upbringings in dictator-devastated Zaire through the Cold War era, emigrating to the United States on a seminary scholarship. In the early '90s, then returning to undertake several dangerous, uh, clerical missions across the African continent by the early 2000s. This becomes the backdrop for a father-son story where Paul and his son named Ritsma, after his Dutch-American father figure, work together to bridge the West and the Global South through providing education access, convening influential leaders, storytelling platforms, and the like. They hope that they will channel the rising generation's desire for connection and impact investment to usher in the era where Africa's expanding workforce is poised to reshape the global order. Now, all that being said, here's a snappy video. Spend most of your life ruled by another.

Watch your race dwindle to a handful and then tell me what has more meaning than your own strength.

The power comes in response to a need, not a desire.

Use the pain of loss.

But how, Dad?

I haven't lost anything.

This isn't about you.

You're fighting for them, for their future.

I want you sitting in on my council.

Learn what I do.

What if I'm not Dad? Your grandfather Father said a great man doesn't seek to lead. He's called to it, and he answers.

And if your answer is no, you'll still be the only thing I ever needed you to be.

Your son.

I found my own way to it.

Maybe you'll find yours.

In their memory.

Give it a try.

Okay, so again, to set the context, Africa will be the world's largest workforce by 2050, but no infrastructure means no jobs. Why a docudrama? The most compelling narrative wins the next generation, and this is a really efficient top of funnel for a capital campaign. As for me, my background working with senior US politicians, working with tech executives, and helping start one of Europe's top creative agencies makes me the right fit. But it's really about story. It's about heritage. It's about destiny. My background, my familial history brings me a unique perspective, which positions me to help push my continent forward and upskill our workforce. Now, in terms of who this is for, This is for the dreamers, the young social impact entrepreneurs who want to see themselves represented somewhere visibly. This is for the disruptors who are somewhere between buying a ticket to South by Southwest or Burning Man, sometimes both. This is for the legacy players who are thinking about impact that will span multiple generations and multiple continents. In terms of momentum, we have a community that's over 1,000 across platforms, have been building since 2021. We have partnerships with social impact groups in New York and abroad. We've been testing out our methods of pairing entertainment and philanthropy, and that's resulted in 1,000 meals being delivered to the homeless in New York just this year. In terms of comparable film experiences, Bobby Kennedy for President's ability to tell a family story alongside multinational conflagration politically is a great reference point. Blood Diamond really brought emotion and awareness to the core, and The Last Dance's cheeky interview style between interviewers and main characters provided a great reference point for us. Now, for anyone who wants to talk further, I have quarter-by-quarter plans of how this will all roll out, including principal photography being shot and location scouting this summer in the Congo. Followed by Premiere in 2027, which would coincide with the first cohort of AI and fintech-enabled students. Now, to do this, we need connections of two types. We need connections to communities. We also need connection to capital to hire the lean team to produce the documentary and to distribute all of these things. As well as to launch our initial cohort. The goal is to launch the Democratic Republic of Congo's first AI and fintech education hub, and the outcome we're looking for is to unlock the world's number one emerging workforce to avoid the next humanitarian crisis.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ritz. Nicely done. Judges, you're back. Let's hear some questions. Love the applause.

Ritz, just to first off, congratulations, fantastic presentation. Can you tell me a little bit more? I just want to understand, is the project about recording the growth and creation of the community, or how does the community fit into the story narrative that you're building? Thanks for asking. So the community fits in, in terms of the way to create awareness, and actually to create a cultural movement of folks who are leveraging entertainment to create social impact is these viewing parties for our docuseries, right? So we're testing that out with something a little bit cheaper and faster, which has been the charity party plus music experience event. So that rooftop picture you saw was one of those outcomes where we were able to generate 600 meals just in that day through donations for entry to that party.

Sandy?

Yes.

I apologize if I missed this. I'm curious to know more about sort of the creative team. You're making a film. What's the creative background on this? Because clearly you've got the sort of the implementation, the impact in focus.

Yeah. So I am in conversations with a couple of DPs, a couple of Emmy Award-winning creative producers as well on the line. So deep creative bench across the US, the UK, Europe.

Great.

Renee. Yeah, curious, I know you talked about the impact measures of the food delivery and some of the progress so far. Can you talk more about the workforce development piece, knowing that the workforce piece is where you started? Can you say a little bit more about your goals there?

Yeah. So to keep it somewhat brief, what we're looking at is this anomaly where Sub-Saharan African youth and African youth in general, because they have smartphones, are figuring out ways to do business and really like excel using fintech tools. So there's just like great opportunity to essentially unlock a global digital workforce. And so through my father's connection and actually a seminary that he's stood up across the street from parliament in Congo, we have the relationships to start building on the ground and space to actually bring in a cohort. So thinking about an intensive maybe once or twice a year in that first year, year or two as great testing grounds to figure out how to run this long form and create a repeatable playbook that we can take across the continent.

Chad, last question.

Cool.

And just so can you connect the docudrama to the doc—

to that what you just said? Like, how does the content relate to that? Yes. So how do we connect two disparate worlds is the question that I've been trying to figure out for most of my life. My working theory as a marketer is people want what they want and you can't give them something else first. And so if we entertain people to an excellent standard and open up their hearts, if they're able to form an emotional connection, through the documentary, especially if we're able to do these in interesting environments for a ticketed cost. A small measure of, of that ticketed cost can go to creating impact so that they can see through doing things passively that they actually have much more agency than they realize. It's for the, it's for the, the capital supply is to get funding into the accelerators, not to get people to want to do the accelerator.

Correct.

Okay, got it.

Great. All right. Thank you so much, judges and Ritz. A pleasure. Thank you. Next up, we have James Thomas Terhembah with Ted Evergreen.

Hello, judges. My name is James Thomas Terhembah. I am from Nigeria. My company is TED Innovative Solutions Limited. The project is TED Evergreen, where we are rebuilding a future of clean energy access for people in underserved rural communities in Nigeria with AI-powered solar energy solutions. According to World Bank, over 86 million Nigerians lack access to electricity. It forces over 40 million small businesses to self-generate electricity for their businesses and their homes using fuel generators. This leads to over $275 million annual revenue loss, and it creates over 1 million tons of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. You see, I grew up in rural parts of Nigeria where electricity simply did not exist. Nights were dark, lit only by lantern and fuel generators. In the early years of my life, electricity was never something that we had. It was something that we purely just imagined. Clean energy felt like a distant solution, far too expensive for a family like mine. Homes relied on lanterns and small businesses relied on fuel generators that created a lot of noise, generated, or rather polluted the air, and it damaged our health. While also draining household income. This dependency held my community back and worsened the environmental and climate, including health issues in my community. When I left to study electrical and electronics engineering, I made it a point or a decision for myself to be able to bring change in my community. Change came with TED Evergreen where We marry artificial intelligence and solar renewable energy technology to be able to break affordability barrier and make clean and affordable energy for people in underserved communities, such as the kind of community where I hail from. In the first phase, we focused on proving that technology can actually work for people who have been excluded for decades, giving them electricity for the first time in their life to signal hope, telling them the future is possible, especially with technology. In the next phase, we want to demonstrate how electricity married with AI and technology can even become a bigger opportunity. And that is why we are asking for $70,000 to implement 3 critical steps where one, We will create a technological model to understand people capable of becoming energy hubs for their community, who empower times 10 people who are capable to be— who empower them with bigger energy boxes so that through them, others who aren't benefiting from the electricity can actually benefit beyond light. We want to create a community of shared resources where energy can be seen as hope, where energy can actually uplift them, where those who are capable can actually help others to have access to electricity as well so that they can be able to grow as— to grow in togetherness and in unity in those communities. We will be able to transform those communities by replacing their noisy and polluting fuel generators, helping those communities become healthier and safe so that they can breathe good air while eliminating darkness, which has signified stagnations in their life all through their lifetime. We'll be able to also help them save cost so that they can be able to channel the resources to other needs such as their kids' school fees, their rents, their business goods, and All right, Thomas, your video, that it ended.

So you're live.

Oh, it was supposed to end there, actually.

Yeah, that's where it cut out. But I think we got the gist. Do you want to give us a— send us home?

Okay. Yeah. So basically, what is left from the video is just a summation of my team and how capable we are to deliver on the project.

And we all know that that's perfect. So it's awesome. All right. Let's bring our judges up.

You'll have time to explain anything that was missing.

Yes.

If you like. Yes, Ivan.

James, excellent presentation. A question I had is, given the technology framework, what— who are the team members behind it, the creation of the technology? Maybe I could understand that a little bit better.

Okay, so basically it's being led by myself as the founder and CEO, and I have an undergraduate degree in electrical and electronics engineering, and I'm currently pursuing a postgraduate degree in business administration. And, um, I also have team members who, um, their background is in, um, business, in computer science and, um, engineering as well. Then we also have faculty advisors like board advisors who are seasoned engineers and business people to actually give us that experience, um, give our youth team the experience so that we can, um, drive and achieve our mission.

Thank you.

Yeah, and let everybody know where you're dialing in from.

Oh, I'm dialing in from Nigeria, actually.

Ah, Chad, I thought I saw you had a question. Yeah, I was going to ask a question.

So, um, I don't know anything about this, but I imagine there exists like microgrid solar products that are just like sort of exist already. Are you using one of those and customizing it? Are you making a new thing? Like, what is As the tech—

okay, yeah, so we're making a new thing because the microgrids that exist, um, they don't really serve for long because they require a lot of infrastructure to carry electricity to those kind of communities that we are serving. Say for instance, a microgrid will require, um, huge infrastructures like, um, electric poles, like cabling, transformers to actually increase the voltage to transport it. So we are coming up with a new solution that actually empowers people people within the community where we can set up, um, solar renewable energy systems inside your house that is integrated with artificial intelligence so that they can serve as hub for other people to tap energy from so that we can have this community of shared, um, energy or togetherness.

Wonderful.

All right, any other questions? No, we're good.

We're good to go. Thank you so much, James.

Thank you.

Thank you, judges. Next up, we have a musical harkening back to our older roots. We have Stacy Cray with Love: The Struggle.

And I will talk to you all after the video. Sorry. Love: The Struggle is a new musical inspired by the tumultuous, often scandalous, lifelong love affair of two 20th-century intellectual supernovas who revolutionized modern attitudes about freedom, gender roles, and love: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. But we don't meet them as legends. We meet them as students in 1929 Paris. Simone, a young woman standing on the threshold of a world built to exclude her. The Sorbonne. Elite. Male. Unforgiving. Penniless but proud, she takes her seat in this ivory tower, longing to hear her words echo in its hallowed spaces. There, she meets Sartre. Brilliant, provocative, scarred by war, and convinced that human relationships are never-ending battles for dominance. Focused, on the admiring gaze of others. Sparks fly instantly, first as rivals to graduate first in the class, then as romantic partners. Together, they ignite a new philosophy, existentialism, centered on radical human freedom. Rejecting marriage, they enter a now-famous pact to be each other's essential loves while allowing contingent lovers, prizing honesty over fidelity. Bonded by their beliefs, they commit to living as embodiments of this freedom and to writing about it. And they do incessantly for 50 years, leaving no lurid detail unwritten. At first, it feels intoxicating. Ideas are born, possibilities expand endlessly. But slowly, the truth emerges. A freedom defined by conquest and domination leaves Simone in a narrowing room where the other's gaze invokes Shame, not pride. Love becomes struggle. As Simone descends deeper into this world shaped by men, she begins to sense what Sartre's philosophy ignores. And in that darkness, she makes her discovery, a revelation from her own lived experience as a woman in a man's world, emerging with her own unique vision of love and freedom, grounded not in domination but in reciprocity. An antidote to Sartre's dark view that "hell is other people." Her vision: not freedom from others, but freedom for them. This is the story of a heroine who uses her own power to empower others, and who leaves us with a vision of hope aimed not at the past, but at our own future possibilities. To will yourself free is also to will others free. Love the Struggle was written by longtime musical collaborators Stacy Cray and Yair Evnine and has been developed through workshops, staged presentations, and concerts with extraordinary artists and institutional support, most recently at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater in New York City. At a moment when ideas about freedom, love, and responsibility are being fiercely contested, Beauvoir's story feels newly urgent. She believed that freedom is not something we claim alone, but something we must build with and for one another. A radical idea in her time, and a necessary one now. We're especially focused on bringing this work to colleges and universities, and to audiences worldwide who lack a female-centered philosophy of love, community, and mutual responsibility. Although the show is designed to exist first as a live theater piece, we're exploring creative and thoughtful uses of technology and alternative media to extend its reach and help communities engage with the ideas of the show beyond the stage. We're now seeking producing, presenting, and funding partners to help bring the show into its next phase and to imagine with us how its message of shared freedom can resonate more widely in the world.

Thanks.

I think I've run out of my 4-minute time, so I will go ahead and just invite questions.

Thank you, Stacy. You're just fine. It's great to see you, and thank you for the presentation. Let's move to the judges' questions.

I have a question.

Yes, Abby.

I would love to know whether you intend to sort of channel an impact strategy specifically out of this, or if the intent is just through the musical and the experience people have in the audience for that to be the impact.

So I think that the answer is we start with what has been most impactful to me in creating the show. The reason that I developed it in the first place with Yair was that I felt that Beauvoir had been taught but not felt, and that there was a lot of information that was hard for people to glean. For example, in The Second Sex, which is 800 pages long and not an easy read, although the new translation is better. But in working with students at Harvard and Yale and other places, what I've realized is that these are conversations that need to be ignited by something like music that can create the emotion around these things that we've talked about in the video. That then leads to a wider conversation in society about things we don't often talk about, love and freedom and male and female gender roles. One easy way to do this and something that seems doable to me is to have an impact strategy that's around universities. Working together and in cross-disciplinary conversation to bring these, these conversations out into a younger adult world. And then the other area where I think it would be really— where I'd love to do some more impact work is Beauvoir had a tremendous influence on freedom struggles throughout the world. Obviously freedom looks different in every culture, but starting from her viewpoint and then using that, that conversation to spark conversations about freedom and how we use our own freedom to help others. And if we don't, then we're really not free at all.

Thank you. We have time for one more question. I guess we're good.

I've been talking a lot, but I didn't want to go too much, but no one else has a question.

Oh, you go, go away. You're good.

First of all, I love the juxtaposition of these themes, like the African like microgrid, so micro solar to like, this is really cool. Was that the music in the background? Is that the music from the show? Or like, we didn't hear any music. Was that—

that was the music from the show. And like, I should have had Grace and these other fabulous people singing, but you know, there was so much talking to do that I didn't— you didn't get to hear any vocals, but the music's fabulous.

All right, thank you all. Thank you, judges. Thank you, Stacy. We appreciate you as always. We have on deck Leelan Dayananda and his intergenerational podcast.

Hello from Sri Lanka. I'll speak after the video. Greetings everyone, I'm Leelan Dayananda, a Sri Lankan agritech social entrepreneur behind LZ and Agro. 4 years ago, I launched this climate-smart social enterprise and discovered a powerhouse truth: knowledge sharing is a key that unlocks regenerative agriculture for good. That is why I'm initiating up the Intergenerational Podcast. Your front-row seat to captivating global stories from indigenous communities and farmers worldwide will spotlight how artificial intelligence, internet of things, automation and robotics, and how smart digital tools supercharge sustainable land restoration, blending timeless elder wisdom with bold youth innovation. Get ready for episodes bursting with real-world breakthroughs that heal our soil and our future. Join the revolution! Greetings everyone, welcome to the Intergenerational Podcast. Hi, today I'm at the Annapurna Eco Village, and as you can see, there's Himalayan mountains over there as well. So I'm super excited to be here. Today I'm here with one of the co-founders of the Annapurna Eco Village, and I'm inviting her to one of our podcasts online.

At the same time, we care for the environment and the nature. Basically, we follow the principle of the ecotourism.

Like, we are creating ecovillage like 20 years ago, and this is getting very popular. And I hope that this forecast will be coming in sometimes later, and it will teach us.

Where I come from, in northern Alberta, Canada, we see a different relationship with farming, or gathering is another way of saying it as well, because we're hunters and gatherers. And we know that now is the time for us Indigenous peoples to reconnect with who we are, reconnect with our traditions, share those traditions with other peoples, not only at home in Canada, but also around the world.

So despite joining the dots, there are no results. You still will not get money. If the quality, if the moisture content is not right, if the dryness is not right, you cannot harvest the crop.

And did the same thing with our people in Colorado. And so we live on a reservation now. Our reservation is the second largest to the Navajo Nation in the world. And so that's where I come from. From. Where we live, most of it is desert and mountains on one end and mountains on the southern end, and we still maintain our traditions.

Allog forestry is a complex and holistic form of silviculture which minimizes external inputs such as agrochemicals and fossil fuels, instead fostering ecological functions for resilience and productivity. Unlock Forestry concept recognizes local rural communities' social and economic needs, which can be met through the production of a diversity of useful and marketable goods and services ranging from food to pharmaceuticals and fuels to fodder. We are currently looking just for €12,000 to purchase a Wigwood Ultra, a versatile and modular sound insulation pod for our indoor podcasting recording. Join us in empowering farming communities with the knowledge and tools they need to transition confidently towards regenerative agriculture. Thank you.

Hello.

Hello. Would you like to say a word or two?

No, he's out of time.

No, he's out of time.

He says yes, and then Tim says no, you're out of time. I guess you can answer some questions then, Leland.

We can hear you.

Renee.

Yeah, Leelan, can you talk a little bit more about the AI strategy, how those tools will be helpful in addition to the technology that you need for the, for the podcast or the recordings?

Oh, uh, yeah, so when it comes to the podcast, uh, questions are usually, uh, research, uh, before I speak into the, uh, a particular invited guest, uh, and then create the questions, uh, through AI, and then I send it to them, uh, and then I get their feedback as well. At the same time, we are trying to like interconnect some document type of videos into podcasting as well. And there will be a podcast with audio, and there will be a video-based podcast as well. So we are going to use artificial intelligence video to showcase a complicated digital inclusion because this podcast is about intergenerational conversation, but at the same time How the digital inclusion integrates to the agriculture sector. So when we are talking about artificial intelligence for automation in the agriculture sector, so we may have to showcase like AI-created videos to give a clear understanding to the viewers or listeners.

So. Great answer. Thank you, Leelan. Pat?

Lilan, one, congratulations, great project. I really love the diversity of communities that you're covering and including in the narrative. Can you just talk a little bit about how that thread plays out in the story? Like, are you structuring it around topic or theme? I'd love to know more.

So theme is mainly intergenerational conversation, interconnecting or bridging with the younger farmers along with the elderly Indigenous communities and farmers. So that is the main theme. And at the same time, as a precision agriculture entrepreneur, I also bring the digital inclusion, how like how we can integrate with this indigenous knowledge or elderly farming knowledge to digital inclusion. And then our focus is to reach younger farmers. So that is how the whole thing integrates.

Great. Any other questions?

Okay, Lalanne, you get 30 seconds back now because you have some question time. So if you want to say anything, go for it.

Uh, yes. Uh, so we, um, I'm asking for like only like a small amount of, uh, just for indoor. As you can see, like, we already like, uh, already, uh, recorded some podcast, uh, outdoor. Uh, but, uh, we have a very big plan, uh, to do an indoor broadcasting. So that is why we're asking just for, uh, the, uh, a big booth, and we already have the cameras, mics, and everything. So that is why simple, uh, small fund, but at the same time we are ready to go big because my social enterprise is funding my podcast. At the same time, we are officially affiliated with the G20 Global Land Initiative and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and also we have Our education partner is London School of Economics and Political Science. So just want to let you know.

Thank you, very impressive. Thank you, Lilon.

It's been a challenge for us to give the Distance Award in this cohort because Lilon is joining us from Sri Lanka. There's been—

I'm calling from tomorrow. It's already like 17th of December.

We're glad we can hear you. We're glad you're here. All right, thank you, judges. Thank you, Leilan, one more time. And next up we have Andrea Lirio with Blink.

Hi everyone, just sharing my screen. Minimize you all. Okay, great. They say motherhood goes by in a blink, which is comforting and also wildly unhelpful because for women balancing ambition and the dream of a family, that blink doesn't feel sweet. It feels like a portal. One minute you're building a 5-year plan and the next you're racing a biological, financial, and emotional clock you definitely did not subscribe to.

I'm Andrea.

I'm newly married. I'm ambitious and I want kids someday. And I'm already carrying the weight of a life I haven't even lived yet. Not because I'm scared of a baby. Babies are cute, objectively. I'm scared of the system because I've watched what happens to women who try to do both in a world that still assumes we'll stretch our time, our bodies, and our futures to quietly absorb every gap no one else wants to fix. So I'm making Blank, an animated short series about that weight, the mental weight. In our world, women are told that we can have it all as long as we don't need rest, boundaries, or, you know, actual help. The invisible mental load, the remembering, the planning, the anticipating still lands mostly on women, even in 50/50 couples. And it's unsustainable. Hundreds of thousands of women leave the workforce each year because they're effectively doing two full-time jobs, and the cost isn't just emotional, it's financial. Motherhood comes with a lifelong wage penalty, and that's the world we're in, and that's Blink's world, a world not designed for women who want both ambition and family. So our story, Blink, follows four women whose internal countdown clocks finally hit zero. One flickers like an overloaded circuit, one cracks like porcelain, one gets swallowed by her own hair, and one is genuinely terrified of her messy office desk. Through animation, the mental load becomes visible. It lets us say the things women aren't supposed to say out loud: the exhaustion, the identity slip, the fear that everyone else got the memo except you. The villain isn't a monster, it's the expectation to perform two jobs in a world that barely supports one. Their win isn't perfection, it's honesty. So why now? Women my age aren't just planning for motherhood, we are bracing for it. We've watched ambitious women burn out quietly. We've heard the quiet, "I'm fine," that really means, "I'm slowly disappearing." There's a cultural exhale waiting to happen, and Blink gives it shape. And with the AI revolution, a tiny team can now make something that looks like a big studio dream without the big studio budget or timeline. Using AI for rapid visual exploration and iteration, we can make our animated short film quickly and affordably. It makes Blink doable, beautiful, and scalable. So our actionable hope is that Blink is a mirror and a map. It says, you're not broken, the system is. And once we see it clearly, we can start redesigning it instead of quietly blaming ourselves. Women are already talking about this in DMs, college lounges, TikToks, The Barbie monologue didn't go viral because it was new. It went viral because everyone said, wait, that's me. The audience is massive and already vocal. We're targeting 30 to 45 million women from Gen Z premothers to early mothers to allies, and we're not creating demand. We're giving existing demand a visual language. Our goal is to see project impact within a year, production this coming year, release in Q3, and community impact screenings by Q3 through Q4. Because Blink is about interrupting burnout before it becomes normalized and before women start thinking this is just how it is. To measure our impact, we're setting clear goals for sparking cultural conversations through events, partnerships, and social impressions. Our animated short series fundraising budget is intentionally split between creation, distribution, and cultural activation so the work doesn't stop at release. This is not a make it and hope project. Every dollar is mapped to impact. Shared language, cultural conversation, and real-world change. We're looking for partners who feel the urgency before more women burn out quietly. We're raising $500,000 for production, post, and cultural impact. We're looking for distribution partners, and we're looking for creative collaborators who believe narrative change actually changes things. Blink is ready, the women who need it are ready, and if this hits you somewhere, let's build it together. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrea. Very nicely done. Judges, questions, comments? A lot of women here. Hi, Sandy. Hi there.

So I love this, and I'm also really aware of the distribution challenges that content faces right now. You talked about community screenings. I'm thinking like this is the kind of thing that can go viral. Tell me a little bit more about sort of why you're choosing community-based and grassroots approach versus a digital approach.

No, definitely my first approach I put in the budget actually is to start, have a small team like 3 of us just to build out organic content. I've been looking at profiles like 1924 US. It's from this creator, Chris Shin, who actually produced a whole short series about a skeleton in animation who just lives out his life and learns life lessons through the way— they're all like 5-second to 10-second clips. And so my first approach would definitely to start right, right after getting the funding is to start building a profile with that sort of community, building community online. And then from there, I think there is a real impact within real life. I think a lot of Gen Z really wants in-person experiences, and that's why I'm going, I'm going toward that. In addition to having an online platform, we would go in person to college campuses and build that closer relationship.

So yeah.

Great. Next question.

Jonathan.

And then Sandy. I know Sandy.

For your target audience, a lot of them tend to view AI negatively. How do you balance that use of that and then use it to maximum effect, but then still achieve your goal while staying in budget? And then, well, that question first.

Yeah, I definitely agree. I think I'm definitely one of the people who is skeptical of making animated AI art. I think there's a balance here where it's really working on the story first and foremost. I think that the art, the creating animation with AI is actually just a tool that really helps make the animation possible. I've always wanted to make something in animation for the longest time, but I've never really quite had the tools to be able to make it at this scale. I've always been more of like a writer for myself. So I think that if you— there's a whole like Gen Z has the authenticity radar sort of thing. So I think as long as you come in with that sort of authentic story behind it, I think that they're that people will be more receptive to it and just be more transparent about like why we're using AI and not to replace, but really enhance this, the story. So yeah, great answer.

Yeah, Chad.

No, no, Judith, go.

Oh, Judy.

Okay.

Thank you.

What is the ultimate goal?

Is it to bring a community together to support one another through making life choices?

I mean, I'm a little lost here.

Sorry.

Yeah, no worries. I think the goal here is really to unite young women who, like me, who are worried about this sort of future of having a career and a family at the same time. And so I think that's first and foremost, but I think really equipping them with the tools and resources to understand how they can have a family and have kids. There are a bunch of podcasts I've been listening to that a lot of young people do want to have families, but they're just nervous about the finances behind it or how it's even possible. And I think creating a dialogue about that within this specific community that's still pretty new to like all the tech and everything and saying like, here are resources that you could actually use to help you with this future, you know, thing that you're already stressed about to have it all. And I think that in and of itself would be an incredible impact in those young communities. I think that's something that I wish I had, at least when I was a student.

That's great.

Thank you. And thank you all. Thank you, judges. And thank you, Andrea. Nicely done. All right. Next up, we have Yemi Akanyemi-Dela with My Moonshot. And you were handpicked from more than a million candidates.

Why do you think you were chosen by the Japanese billionaire, Mr.

Misawa? In the crowd will be Yemi Akinyemi Dele, the Czech-Nigerian artist.

For the first time, I'm gonna see how it looks from close up.

Eddie, do you know Yemi is one of my best friends?

He's an amazing human, and I am not—

he has had this goal to go to the moon for years.

He told us about 5 years ago he was going to go to the moon, and I said, yeah, Yemi, if someone's going to, a civilian, it's going to be you.

So it's amazing to see how far he's come.

I've always wanted to be open about my life journey. Not just about the highs, but also about the lows. So I sit here today to share some sad news with you all. According to a statement issued by Space Today, the DearMoon mission has been canceled. When I applied for this mission, I wanted to prove that in this age, it doesn't matter where you start your journey, but where you head it. I wanted to show that with imagination, anything is possible. I've learned this lesson many times here in the US during my collaboration with Kanye West and Virgil Abloh, or back in the day when growing up in communist Czechoslovakia, or when launching a scholarship program in Nigeria. That was a hard one. So what happens next? I will do what I have always done in moments of uncertainty. I will trust my art to guide me to my next destination. Stay tuned. I love you all. Hello, hello. Hi, thank you for having me. My name is Yemi. I am a Czech Nigerian born in the '80s in communist Czechoslovakia as the only Black kid in my city of 100,000 people with a dream to be an astronaut. Um, I had a hard time growing up as a Black queer person, and dance became my language. It became my way of connections with everyone else, and I started to be good in it. From dancer, I became a choreographer and eventually also entrepreneur, creating shows around the world for VMAs and Saturday Night Live and, and tours and much more. When pandemic started, I signed up for this space mission, and I realized that as I was building my own moonshot, I was seeing in the eyes and work of young people around me that every one of them has their own moonshot. And that's when I founded Moonshot Platform. Moonshot Platform is an accelerator for young people who are ambitious to change the world around them. Today we have young people in our community from 139 countries. We have about 5,000 applicants per year. And what started as a mission is becoming a movement. And I would like to create a fun movie about that movement. We are going to raise $15 million for 5 years of our work around the world. And about $2.5 million, we would like to invest into this movie that would become a catalyst for this movement to get into its own moonshot.

Face.

Thank you.

Thank you, Yemi. Beautiful work.

Thank you.

Judges are here and they may have some questions for you. I see applause. I like it. Anyone have questions for Yemi?

Renee?

Yeah, Yemi, um, so good to see you.

Uh, great to see you.

Can you share more about, you know, how the leaders themselves will shape the movie and what, what impact would you— what's your dream as you think about the ultimate impact that you achieve?

So I, I know, and it's— there has been studies about it, that when people believe they can achieve something, they have a bigger, higher chance to achieve it. I believe that around the world there is this untapped potential of proximate leaders, young people who are close to the issues, to the problems, the conflicts, to the wars, to the to the scientific breakthroughs. And we want to activate them. We want to mobilize them. We want them to know that Moonshot is here for them. We have a network of mentorship. We give catalytic funding. We have curriculum of embodied leadership where we explain and teach that the longest distance, the hardest distance you ever have to take is the distance between your head and your heart. And that all useful strategies are found in that space. And all that we would like to do with our young leaders. Some of them are in the room today. So I would like to have a movie that will describe some of my upbringing and my desire to go to space and show that this dream evolved into something much bigger, something that is done here on Earth with young people from 139 countries.

Hi, Yemi, I have a question.

Hello. Hi.

Beautiful story.

Are you personally going to act in the movie? And is it sort of a documentary kind of format?

So I, as I was told, documentaries, nobody wants documentaries. They said this, that this is not. So, so for me, as long as the story is told, and it's told with integrity and authenticity, I will serve it. In the best way possible, whether on the screen, behind the screen, whatever, whatever will be asked from, from me. Because this is not about me, this is about the movement. That's what matters.

And we didn't say nobody wants documentaries, we just said it's much, much harder today to get it sold, but very close. Exactly. All right, Jonathan.

I think you mentioned a couple thousand people that you've impacted with this Moonshot program or initiative. Can you share a story about one of them?

Sure.

That comes to mind.

So I'm going to give you— I'm thinking because I have so many of my favorite stories.

And it's hard because some of them are in this program right now. And he doesn't want to steal their thunder of their story.

I will try to— I cannot because One of my, like, they are in the room, but I'll speak about someone who is not. So there is Mateas. Mate is a genius young man who came to us when he was 18. We were the first to give him funding, $10,000. He came with a project of sign language translator because he had family members who are signing, who are deaf, and he felt that we are excluding the people who are signing. So he created this beautiful a little translator that can fit into your phone. You can use it offline, just point camera at the person. He won this story. One of our patrons noticed him and it was a woman here in New York. We brought him from Czech Republic. He's from Czech Republic. And she says, I'm going to pay for your tuition. He then got to Stanford. He got his tuition sponsored and he was spotted by Google because he published a paper because he understood body language, because sign language is body language, and he was able to create algorithm that can spot deepfakes. And before the presidential elections last year, they asked him to come on board to help them mitigate, mitigate danger of deepfakes to prevent democracy from being hacked. So now he's working at Google DeepMind with one of the most strong computers in the world. So this is one of the Muncha stories that I'm proud of.

Wonderful. We are out of time for questions. Yemi, thank you so much for your contributions here today. Next up, we have another distance award. We have Mike von der Nammer and Annina Dawn Prestidge coming from Germany, and they will share with us their project, Rivers.

Imagine. Imagine walking across a bridge and pausing in the middle to look down into the river. Suddenly, you feel a question arrive in your brain: "Do you know me, wherever you are?" How would you answer? Why does it matter? The sounds of a healthy river are an early warning system for drought, flood, and contamination. A dead river is silent. The question, "Why does it matter?" points to the problem. We treat water as if it doesn't matter, as if it were dead, and the results are measurable. But cross the bridge of our own perspective and treat water as if it were alive. I am not outside this room. I am in your mouth and in your blood. Not only do we find relationship, there is agency and actual impact. I learned how to give before you learned how to take. If corporations can be people and money counts as free speech, it is worth considering a substance that makes up 60% of our own bodies from a different perspective. You forget the stream till the river floods. The question to ask is, what if we could literally hear what water is telling us? For 5,000 years, humans understood water through story, ritual, and myth. Today, we understand it through hydrology and acoustics. Rivers unites these into one singular ecosystem with multiple revenue streams streams that support long-term stewardship. Rivers is a living memory system with 3 core components: the Hydroacoustic Scope, AVA, our myth-trained AI, and the LiquidWalk. The Hydroacoustic Scope is a handheld wideband system that listens up to 130 kHz and captures the hidden acoustic life of water. Think of it as a listening device with an early warning system. To build a human vocabulary, we trained our AI, Ava, on water mythology going back 5,000 years. She doesn't speak for the river, she translates what the river already says into human meaning. This leads to the Liquid Walk. Unlike conventional soundscapes, the Liquid Walk lets lets you physically walk through the ocean, where every step changes which living being you hear. Each installation can be culturally adapted and locally co-hosted. The liquid walk becomes not only education but tourism, a reason people travel to rivers they've forgotten. This moment is critical. UNESCO and the United Nations just launched a major call for innovations to reimagine how we understand water in science, policy, and society. Rivers sits directly inside this global mandate. We've built the foundation, the research, the prototypes, the AI, and the narrative architecture of the Liquid Walk. What we need now is activation, a scientific circle, our first pilot river, and engineering partners. Help us give rivers a voice in the decisions that determine their futures. Help humans listen again. Join us in building the first communication bridge between humans and the living waters of this planet. Rivers is the newest technology for the oldest communicator. When we listen to our waters, from rivers to oceans, with emotions, we thrive. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Thank you, Mike and Anita. Well done. Fascinating. Judges, questions? Yes, Renee. Can you talk a little bit about what stage you're at and the immediate next steps of, you know, what the roadmap looks like?

So basically the research is pretty much done. So everything is prepared. We have the design for the hyperacoustic scope. I have done some of the first prototypes. I also know how to integrate it already into some universities. I have researchers all around the world. I have done like 600 pages of information written about it, which is not I'm not going to bore you about that, but all of the basics are pretty much done. So at the moment, I'm looking into finding really the ways to get it around the world. And so that is the goal now.

Great answer. Other questions? Yes, Jonathan.

For the eDNA sequencing, I'm assuming if you're doing this work in Germany, we have a lab there, so we could donate or help you with that. Just let me know. And then the other question— oh, so the question I have—

I have to say, that's the biggest smile I've seen from Mike the entire time. 2 and a half weeks, you got Mike to smile. You nailed it, Jonathan. No, no, please, please.

That is exactly what I'm looking at the moment. Oh, perfect.

I'll put you in touch. Just We'll connect and I'll introduce you to our scientists. I think they'd be delighted to help. Plus, they also speak German. So, you know, I love you already. I mean, and this is going to end in like an installation of some sort, like how, how people interact with it.

Yes. So there are a couple of different forms. So one would be in really an app in the easiest form. But my idea, my dream version for the AI app is that it's really using the data from labs. And so it's really that we can do real-time research. So people kind of playing games on it, but they, in that case, they do get gamification. That is one form. I'm also thinking of installations, but one of the other parts is really to build a worldwide way of communicating and connecting through the water. As you know, because because we have the eDNA, my dream version would be basically that this would help us to learn the entire world communication of interspecies communication, human-non-human communication, because it's all based in the river, so, and all based in the water. And that is the part that I'm really, really excited because at the moment, particularly in the bioacoustics world, as you maybe also know, they are really fascinating interested in kicking out the true interspecies communication device. And I'm hoping that with the team that we are building up and with my background in sound communication, composition, and so on, that we really come a little closer to finding this interspecies communication device. But I'm really excited to talk to your people.

Wonderful. Sandy, your hand is up.

It is. So I am a big fan of in-person and installations and all of that. I think that's really important. But it does strike me that this would lend itself really well to virtual reality or augmented reality. And that would be a way that you could reach a lot more people or move people from one space into another much more smoothly and potentially at a lower cost. And I'm wondering if you've thought about that and what you see as the trade-offs in that approach?

Oh yes, I think all of these are totally possible. I think even augmented reality, virtual reality, all of that can be done. And I think once we have these spaces, and they really depend on the people, yeah. So my, my first step is now the Baltic Sea. That was the first kind of really big sea that I researched a lot. But in the end, it would be great if you open your app and you say, I want to go to this ocean or I want to go to this river and I want to explore them, bring me there, make me feel what is going on in the community, what is the ecological system, what are the animals, is it a dead river, is the river alive? So I'm completely with you, all of that is in my mind there.

Wonderful. We are at time.

Can I say one other quick thing?

Yes, yes.

Just because There's a wonderful installation artist who has done VR work. I'd be happy to connect you to her.

Of course, please. Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Sandy.

Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, judges, and Mike and Anita. Next up, we have another team, Chris Valente and Hannah Gansard with—

Have you ever felt the pressure to accomplish a life milestone before a certain age? Get married or get a promotion before that big birthday when you're supposed to have it all figured out. You ever miss that deadline? In our film Ocean Breeze, identical twin sisters don't know it, but if they don't find true love before they turn 30, they turn into mermaids. On the night of their 30th birthday, the flirtatious twin gets engaged, but the career-driven sister turns into a mermaid. Now they must help each other quickly find love, battle social expectations, and learn to accept their new truth without shame.

Ocean Breeze is a dual heroine's journey where two sisters are thrust into a transformation they never wanted. They thought find love before 30 was just their mom's silly joke until they become mermaids overnight and suddenly need each other in ways they never have before. Using their bond and even swapping identities, they fight to survive. And through reconnecting with their long-lost crossmother, they learned to love the parts of themselves they abandoned.

Ocean Breeze reminds us that life doesn't always work out the way we hoped. We can wind up messy, vulnerable, and uncertain, but we're still worthy of connection. The film shows that sometimes courage is simply admitting feelings, asking for help, and allowing yourself to try again. The Ocean Breeze story builds a community of belonging. We can use our playful tone to build supportive interaction through podcasts, game apps, and user-generated video viral campaigns. Hashtag underwater.

Ocean Breeze sits in a commercially proven space. It's female-driven, high-concept comedy with real emotional depth, the same quadrant that made Barbie and Crazy Rich Asians global hits. Our total market exceeds 350 million viewers with an attainable market 20 to 30 million Gen Z and millennials who navigate perfectionism and self-worth every day. It's also reflected today in authenticity trends led by Pamela Anderson and Addison Rae across social media. In terms of our plan and readiness, we have a completed script, we've done a successful staged reading with real twins, and we do have initial interest from relationships at WME Independent and FilmNation. So really, our next Next steps are to attach a director and A-list cast. Chris and Nick formed their writing partnership after the pandemic, and in just 3 years, they've completed 10 feature scripts, including this one. Nick is an award-winning screenwriter, and Chris completed 2 feature films and staged an original full-length musical.

And Hannah is incredible. She just graduated college in May, and in the 6 months since, she's produced 12 vertical microdramas, including an action film with the EP of Top Gun Maverick, who loves her because she lowered the budget of that action film by 98% utilizing AI.

AI will support our production in 3 key areas, mainly marketing, post-production, and workflow efficiency. Really, it's to free up time so that we can focus on the most important part, the creative.

Here's a big ask, an hour and a half of your time. We want you to believe in this project, and the best way to do that is to read the script. You are the first person we want to share the story with. Once you believe in it, we're looking for help to secure an A-list talent package, production company partnership, and we want investment partners. This is a big film. Funding this movie means supporting a transformational story of self-acceptance, all while delivering a summer blockbuster. Uh, thank you for watching that.

We're, we're ready for questions.

All right, wonderful. Then let's bring up our judges. Well done, you two. Judges, do you have questions for Hannah and Chris? Somebody had their hand up, or they were just applauding. It's hard to tell. Renee, Renee, can you talk more about the impact strategy? So, you know, I, I, I got the actionable hope, which is awesome. Can you talk about like what would that look like as you, as the film rolls out in the summer and you start to engage more audiences?

Absolutely. Uh, we, we'll both talk to this. Uh, I, I went to the Hoffman, uh, Institute, uh, for a week. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Hoffman Process, but like their goal is to create world peace, honestly, by transforming negative beliefs from childhood. And I believe that a movie— I try to write movies that will uplift people's personal beliefs and their— and sort of assuage their negativity. I think that what we would do, we would like— we would have podcasts, we would have meetings. Hannah has some good ideas about this with viral videos.

Yeah.

So I have a lot of partner preexisting partnerships with marketing. So we would really be able to catalyze communities, marketing trends, speak in terms of distribute distributors. We're in the middle of a loneliness epidemic and we're all watching, you know, listening to a podcast by ourselves, watching Instagram by ourselves. Bringing people to theaters and having a smart theater rollout campaign is one of the best ways to bring people together and start dialogue.

Thanks, Hannah. Next question.

I'm so excited about this topic. Um, I guess the question I have is, I know distribution is such a challenge now, and when you say smart theater strategy. Can you talk about that a little more specifically, please?

Yes.

So I know this is being recorded, but with certain relationships I have, especially at FilmNation and SK Global, they are working. I've been speaking intimately with them about a rollout campaign that they have been working on and we would be able to integrate with that. Um, also working with a ton of financiers who are knowledgeable in how picky the rollout timeline can be.

Sandy.

Oh, good.

Um, so I would, um, love to know more about what you hope will be different as a result of this being out in the world. I do think think that theater distribution is really hard to get these days. So just be super, super clear. And I think you've got— sounds like you know how to leverage the creator economy. So I would sort of push you more in a sort of alternate distribution strategy, potentially, just because it's so hard. But I would like to know what's going to be different, what the impact will be ultimately.

Well, digital distribution obviously is where this will ultimately live after, you know, an initial theatrical run. But what, what I hope to do with this is I hope it, I hope it brings understanding to people. I hope that it opens up dialogue. I hope that people forgive themselves for, you know, I know I kick myself for mistakes constantly. I'll probably kick myself for the way I answer this very question. And I think that we need to, you know, we just need to realize that we're all okay. We all make mistakes. We all have a great future and we can believe in ourselves, but community is the best way to understand that.

All right. We are out of time for questions. Thank you so much, Chris and Hannah.

Thank you so much.

Very nicely done. All right. Next up, we have Chantal Zouzi and Becoming Possible.

I have lost both my mother and my motherland. I have known the pain of hunger and hardship. I have suffered abuse and anguish. I have run from danger into the darkness of the unknown. While I cannot change the challenges of my past, I can write the story of my future. And now I will help other refugee girls find hope in their heart and become all that they dream to be. She can be courageous and resilient. She can be educated and financially independent. She can be a medical a mentor for others, and a leader in the community. A refugee girl can even change the world.

Thank you.

I am standing here because what has happened to me did not end my life. It began my purpose and responsibility. For years, the world have tried to define me by what has happened to me, by what I have lost, by what others thought I could never become. But I've learned what happened to me does not define me. What defines me is what I choose to do with it. I am building a 12 to 15-minute immersive XR experience called Becoming Possible. It places people inside the emotional journey of a refugee girl. From loss to voice to purpose. Not to watch a refugee story, but to feel what it means to lose everything and still imagine yourself possible again. This experience is for festivals, museums, and universities, places that are actively seeking for immersive work that rebuilds human connection We are living in a time of fracture, displacement, polarization, isolation, and XR moves distance. It makes the body a witness, not just the mind. Becoming possible does not end with emotion. People live with responsibility and with clear action, including supporting refugee girls' education, through my organization, Refugee Can Be. I'm not only the subject of this story, I am the architect of its impact. Today, I'm seeking $80,000 and aligned collaborators to build the immersive prototype of Becoming Possible. This is the first of the series of immersive experiences designed to run to turn displacement into dignity. Together we can build possibility. Thank you.

Thank you, Chantal. Thank you so much. Lots of hearts, lots of applause. And judges, we're here for your questions.

Chantal, wonderful job and brilliant Brilliant story. Actually, just a, just a general question. Do you have any advice or guidance for telling a story where you are the center of the impact and using that to inspire others to do the same or participate?

A story of being the center of impact?

Or as, as, as the, the way you unfolded your story, bringing yourself into the narrative. Is very powerful. So just want to know if you have any thoughts or guidance as you have constructed this story, really like how, how that journey goes, or if you have advice for people who maybe want to tell their own story.

Wow. I mean, I, I don't know if this might apply to, to, you know, to a lot of other people, other storytellers, but for me, it's just to take the agency of your own story. And a lot of, you know, people have had a lot of narrative about immigrants and refugees as helpless, as everything, but to take over that narrative of what people say about you. And I think it starts within, not just without. It's not just like the thought of writing it, but it's really about, you know, the goal of what what, what do you want to change in the world and how that story can help others, um, become something. Yeah, sorry, I don't know if I answered your question.

That was excellent. Thank you.

Thank you, Chantal. Sandy?

Um, so I, I love the sort of leveraging your story, uh, to show people that it's what you make of what's happened to you instead of what's happened to you that defines you. I believe that 100%. And I love that you can take a headset and go to a refugee camp or go to a museum or go anywhere and do that. Making a VR film is really hard. Making a film in general is really hard. Tell me a little bit about your experience or the partners that you're going to work with to help you do this. And also, I may know some people who can help you do this.

Well, I am the, basically I am the storyteller. I am the lead and I am like really, I would work with, you know, partners like Soria Accelerator to bring in the tech team that will help me to bring this into life. And I'm excited to learn in the process as well.

Great, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Oh, Judy, Judy, last question please.

Is there, um, ultimately a, a way of that you want to raise money then to help educate girls or young women?

Okay.

Yes, the way I'm doing this is to help also refugee girls who are still in the same situation that I was as a child. In the refugee camp. And I've already founded an NGO working to do that work. And I hope that, you know, success will be that they get education and support as well.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chantal. Beautiful work. Thank you, judges. And we are moving now to our last story told by Byron Ouyang. Forest Eternum.

Thanks so much, Story Accelerator. My heart is so full right now with all these projects. My name is Byron O'Young, and I'm a composer and teacher. At age 7, I was uprooted from the evergreen trees of the Pacific Northwest and sent to an inner-city school in Chicago. I felt like a solitary tree surrounded by concrete, so I sang to comfort myself, transforming my despair into a quiet strength, my loneliness into songs. That personal journey informs Forest Aeternum. In Latin, aeternum means eternal. Millions of youth around the world suffer with anxiety. They feel powerless and alone. But here's what I learned: Beneath the soil, trees communicate. They share nutrients, warnings, and maybe even songs. My question is, how do we move individuals from feeling alone to acting like a resilient interconnected forest? In a world facing shared loss, many people lack ceremonies to process ecological despair. Forest Aeternum is a journey of collective integration. Beginning with a descent, here we enter story circles and fold paper objects such as chemistry books and investment magazines, a practice I adapted from my childhood where I folded paper with my grandmother for 100 days after my grandfather passed. Next, in reflection, we move into a contemplative forest. We learn to listen through the soles of our feet, inhaling from the earth and exhaling to the sky. As the soles of our feet listen to the tree roots, the soles of our spirits connect. Then the extraordinary happens. Remember the stories audiences shared during the paper folding circles? If a participant consents, artificial intelligence analyzes the rhythm and cadence of their voices to generate a melody from their stories for the asset. Trees in our immersive forest performance weave these songs live. In this musical requiem, the forest hears our grief, connects multiple stories, and in an immersive chorus brings sacred joy. Individual stories of loss become part of an eternal musical forest. This is AI as ritual technology. Not replacing human connection, rather deepening it. As an artist, I've learned how to fill empty holes with musical ceremonies. I've proven the Forest Aeternum concept in woodland workshops from the Bloedel Reserve to UC Santa Cruz. Plus, I work with a team that includes global strategist Christopher Hidma, who I met through the Sundance Institute. I also collaborate with James Q. Chan, a filmmaker who made 360-degree videos for the San Francisco Public Library, and circle vision films for Disney Cinema. James knows how to transport millions through immersive storytelling. Forest Aeternum is scalable because it is multimodal within 4 tiers. Tier 1 includes intimate woodland workshops to cultivate our superfans. Tier 2 includes live performances in concert halls. Tier 3, interactive museum installations, and Tier 4, large-scale urban immersive experiences. The Van Gogh immersive proved visitors will pay for beauty. Forest Aeternum will prove that they'll pay for meaning as we create from community needs. Our audiences are here. Hikers who love to sing, youth needing hope, and friends who have transformed grief. Into connection. Forest Eternum launches next year. Right now, with fellowships from the American Composers Forum and Seattle University, I'm completing the musical score informed by the Woodland Workshop research. In Q3 of '26, we record audio and film woodland areas. In Q4, when requiem masses are performed all over the world, we have the live concert premiere. In Q1 of 2027, the first museum installation opens and in spring of 2027, when new growth appears, the immersive installation is unveiled in 3 cities. The environment can't wait, and neither can we. Forest Internum invites people to listen and sing with trees by transforming isolation and climate grief into collective care for future generations. Today, I ask for your expertise and partnerships. Who do you know at immersive venues, at museums looking for community-engaged climate installations, at generative AI organizations who need space to transform grief to action. Forest Eternity needs to connect with immersive venue operators, museum acquisition committee members, and other experts. Trees have been here before humans and will continue after us. As the forests are eternal, let's listen, learn, and sing with them.

Thank you. Thank you, Byron. Beautiful. Here are our judges. Questions for Byron?

Sandy? Oh, was that a question?

He's got a sparkling heart.

Okay, no question, just a heart.

Anyone have questions for Byron?

You have a dream place, a dream partnership with an ideal museum that's suited to this or venue?

You know, I was watching something recently about Singapore and how Singapore is transforming cities, how they're allowing forests to transform the city in new ways. So my dream partnership is actually with with places around the world who understand this and who are actually using this. I think because my expertise is as an artist, and so I understand that policymakers, urban planners, and other people need to come together to make this work.

I'm happy to introduce to folks at Singapore Botanic Gardens.

So, right. Thank you.

Follow up after this.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Wonderful. Any other questions? All right.

Okay. Well, let's—

Well, that wraps it up for our storytellers today.

As a reminder, here are the 13 different stories that you have seen today. Pamela, do you want to go ahead and just read the names again?

Yes, I'd be happy to. We take this time, judges, now to finalize your voting, ask any extra questions that you might have. I'll read the names. We have Dina Gregory with Animal Elections, Sami Daher, The Safe Community, Joe Cattell, Invisible. Ritz Mapindi, A Burning Heart. James Thomas Terhembah, Ted Evergreen. Stacy Cray, Love the Struggle. Leelan Dayananda, Intergenerational Podcast. Andrea Lirio, Blink. Yemi Akanyemi-Daley, My Moonshot. Mike Vondernaumer and Anita Dawn Prestidge, Rivers, Chris Valenti and Hannah Gansert, Ocean Breeze, Chantal Zouzi, Becoming Possible, and Byron O'Young, Forest Aeternum.

All right, participants, pop up. We have another 5 minutes of general questions now. Judges, you can ask anybody of anything.

If anything was unclear or you're just trying to remember something, feel free to go ahead and ask. This is your time. Yes, Sandy.

So I realized I had a question for Byron after, after it wrapped. It sounds like you've actually— it sounds like a very expensive venture, like it's incredible, but it sounds funding intensive. And it seems like since you didn't mention it, that you have the money and you're really just looking for partners at this point. And I wanted to sort of confirm that that's the situation.

Oh yeah, I actually, what I find interesting about this project is it's, it's both a $0 budget and a multimillion dollar budget because for me it's a practice. It's a practice of listening and singing with the field. Forest. So it can be done with very little, but I think in order to scale it to multiple people and also to figure out the immersive installation part and also the museums and venues, then it will require the expertise of the different budgets, which is something that I'm trying to learn and would like partnership with.

Any other questions?

This is Ivan.

Yeah, Ivan, go for it.

Yeah, quick comment on blank. I'm very intrigued by that. I may have some opportunities in that regard. So that's something we—

I'd like to follow up on.

Yeah, that would be awesome. Thanks, Ivan.

Thanks.

Fantastic. All right, we have— we're so close on calculations. We're going to take a couple minutes to do so. First and foremost, we'd like to thank our team that's been helping with all of this. Huge thank you to all of the folks that have been working behind the scenes to make all of this work nonstop. They don't get enough credit for everything that's been done. As they say, it takes a village and our village is growing. And thank you for that. And can't say enough thank yous to the team also at Forward Global. Maggie, who's been a big part of working with us in this process as well as people behind the scenes. And we have their fearless leader, Renee, who's, who's here calculating her scores as we move on.

And we also want to thank our donors to Apples and Oranges Arts and to this project and to the Melinda Gates Pivotal Foundation for their matching grants to make today and our whole program possible. So thanks to all of you there.

All right, we need a couple minutes to do the final calculations. And what we would thought is give you a preview on our side that we're working on with Forward Global on new projects, which is how do we incorporate this intersection of AI, storytelling, impact, you name it. And also one of the templates that we use to show the participants. We try to use what we talk about. And so we're constantly developing, but we're going to give you a little trailer for something upcoming on our new venture, and we'll talk about it briefly, and then we will announce the winners. So here, have a gander while we take a look.

In a world teetering between brilliance and self-destruction, a higher being plans for humanity's upgrade. The higher beings' plan? Earth's most promising candidate. Meet Dawn, once designing the future, now trying to find her own. On her 60th birthday, she's about to get a delivery that will change everything. When Dawn opens that package, she's not just wrapping a gift. She's unlocking her destiny. Now she's humanity's unlikely ambassador in a cosmic redesign project. But not everyone's thrilled with the human touch. Meet Vega, an AI with an attitude and its own ideas about perfection. As Dawn and Vega clash over the future of humanity, a ragtag team of higher beings engineer humanity's upgrade. Together, they must navigate the challenges of creating Earth 3.0. They'll beam up celebrities, activists, and world leaders for out-of-this-world consultations. With the fate of Earth hanging in the balance, can Dawn prove that being human is the ultimate superpower? Or will Vega's cold logic redefine define life as we know it. Earth 3.0. United we stand, divided we scroll. Coming soon to a reality near you.

You all got to see AI Pamela acting away for a whole—

No acting was done.

For a whole other session, we'll talk about how that was made and and how we're planning to use the technology, but it's— today is really about our participants. So if everybody can pop back up on screen, we have a couple of things to announce and talk about.

Yes, we have some awards to give out, and we'll just dive right into that. So we're going to give $500 to our Story Award winner, and that is Andrea Lyrio. So congratulations, Andrea, for Blink.

Thank you.

Well done. Well done. Next, we have our Innovation Award, and the winner will receive $500. And we just couldn't decide, so there's two of you. First, we have Byron O'Young with Forest Eternum. Congrats, Byron. And also our innovator, Dina Gregory with Animal Elections. Congrats to you both. And next up, we have our Impact Award. Congratulations to Chantel Zuzi for becoming possible.

And before we give our, our overall winner, we have two more. One is the Leadership Award, which I just created from somebody that has inspired me in this process, which is Yemi. Yemi and I have had multiple calls in between, and I also wanted to call it the Courage Award. Most of you don't know, but Yemi leads Moonshot, which is— a number of the participants are from Moonshot. So to be willing to collaborate along with those that you are leading is admirable. And also, I've watched in these two weeks the mind wheel spinning of where it began and what Moonshot can do and what it will do. And for inspiring me, we wanted to support that.

And Yemi, you get $500. Congratulations. And that leaves one more award, our winner, our overall winners from the judges' vote. And that is Shall I go ahead and say it? Yes, you can. It is Sami and the SAFE community, and you win $1,000. Congratulations.

Oh my God, thank you so much.

You're so welcome. You're so welcome. And that's not all, kids, because—

because when we started this, we purposely didn't talk about money because we wanted everybody just to focus on the work. And so everybody gets $500, whether you won one of the things or not. These ideas are too important to not be sharing with the world, and we don't want to tie them to just names or awards, but we can't thank our judges, our participants enough. This has been truly the most inspiring group of people and storytellers.

Totally agree. And as we close today, want to say keep watching for our post to tell you all about round 3, which is coming up. We're so excited about that. That will be happening in March of 2026. This has been quite a journey for us, and we're thrilled to have all of these wonderful storytellers along with us. So from our hearts to your hearts and to the future together, thank you everyone for being here today and have a great rest of your day.