Unity has unveiled the 2024 Unity for Humanity grant winners and honorees each of whom will be given a bespoke grant from a pool of $500,000.

With nearly 500 applications received, the lucky winners will also recieve technical support from Unity to help bring their projects to life.

Unity's vice president for social impact Jessica Lindl wrote in a blog post, “Each year, we are humbled and inspired by the dedication of our creators who are passionately driving positive change in the world."

The 2024 Unity for Humanity program singled out eight grant recipients in total, with two additional projects receiving honorable mentions. This year’s partners were the Inspiring Children Foundation (ICF), co-founded by singer-songwriter Jewel and Innerworld. 

Each year, Unity for Humanity’s judging panel reviews submissions from hundreds of projects by Unity creators who are leveraging their development expertise to drive meaningful change. The judges look at each project’s inclusivity, viability, potential impact, and overall vision in deciding on winners.

And this year's winners are…

Akiiwan: Survival from Little Buffalo Studios

Akiiwan: Survival is a crafting/survival game created by Indigenous communities around the world. In it, players discover the stories and wisdom of Indigenous nations through their crafts, tools, and survival skills. It aims to “re-Indigenize” this genre by ensuring players win through finding balance, not endlessly exploiting resources, while also restoring Indigenous technologies and knowledge to a place of pride. 

Crab God: Mother of the Tide from Chaos Theory Games

Crab God is an entertainment game meant to create a positive impact on ocean conservation and climate change. Gamers play as a colossal crab who is guiding its crab babies (crablings) through a great migration across the ocean, from the Great Barrier Reef to the Mariana Trench. Players must nurture a healthy ecosystem that can support them on their journey in order for their crablings to survive.

Chaos Theory already offsets stage 1 and stage 2 emissions, meaning the production of the game is carbon neutral. Crab God will also offset all emissions from player engagement, making it a truly green game.

Eddie and I from Moosh Studio

Eddie and I is a VR experience that blends interactive storytelling with hand-tracking technology to teach sign language and promote empathy. It invites users to interact with a deaf young boy, encouraging communication through sign language learned in the VR environment.

The experience exposes users to new perspectives and highlights the power of communication, courage, and diversity, acting as a link between the digital and real worlds. The project draws inspiration from the director’s 10-year-old deaf niece, adding depth and realism to the VR experience.

MAYA:The Birth of a Superhero from Just Another Production Company

MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero is an immersive story following Maya, an ordinary 21st-century girl, as she transforms into a uniquely female superhero whose powers derive from the process of menstruation. 

An odyssey of womanhood and femininity, referencing ancient symbols of spiritual and feminine power, the piece draws together the real and the imaginary to trace possible paths to resilience and justice. 

Surgeons without Borders from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

 

The Surgical Mediverse and VR3S platform leverages the power of a Unity-based VR gaming network to create a global collaboration, aiming to enhance medical outcomes and equalize access to advanced health technologies worldwide.

The goal of the project is to reduce infant mortality by lowering congenital heart disease (CHD) mortality in infants. The team at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has developed a VR Surgical Simulation Suite (VR3S) for detailed 3D surgical planning and has multiuser capabilities to connect surgeons globally and, someday, save all children’s lives.

The Arctic Lighthouse from Platô Cultural & The Necessary Space

The Arctic Lighthouse is an AR Game about climate change connecting young changemakers from all over the globe on a mission to protect portals to a sustainable future. The game, featuring physics-based interactions and 3D scenarios, introduces players to a scientist from a collapsed future, who invites them to join the mission to rewrite the future and save the planet. Players travel back and forth from an “Arctic Lighthouse” in 2073 to complete challenges and discover and “reintegrate” portals to sustainable futures in their present.

The Light Within from Pomsky Games

The Light Within is a mobile adventure game focused on mental health featuring a biracial protagonist and queer characters. The Light Within is narrative-based and uses nonviolent puzzle-solving mechanics and real-world tools for improving mental health. Throughout the course of the game, the main character, Erin, courageously explores her inner world and many sub-personalities representing different mental health issues, eventually coming to terms with all of them.

Solving problems in the game requires players to use real-world mental health techniques like breath control, self-compassion, and mindfulness.

YourHaven from Haven Studios

YourHaven allows young people to design immersive, scalable mental health and wellness support to reduce youth violence and improve employability skills and wellbeing. Using the Haven Engine, young people can cocreate sessions that focus on anything from anxiety reduction to trauma recovery and deescalation. The sessions are personalizable and usable by any number of people at one time, in any language.

Honourable Mentions…

BetaBEN fromBenvision Inc.

BetaBEN will be a catalyst for positive change in the lives of the visually impaired. This project is centered around empowering this community with unprecedented levels of independence and mobility by transforming the way visually impaired individuals perceive and navigate their environment.

Waves of Jeju from Old Hara Studios LLC

 

Waves of Jeju is a VR game that educates players about environmental justice and climate solutions, while facilitating cross-cultural awareness and healing. The story is told from the perspective of a Korean Jindo puppy and a Haenyeo free diver showing how their resilient community fills them with hope for a livable world for future generations despite all that they have faced.

Want to know more (and take part next year)?

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and honorees! If you’re a social impact creator, join the Unity for Humanity Community Discord to meet like-minded creators and ifyou have a project you’d like to submit in the future, sign up to the Social Impact mailing list for updates about when next year’s grant will open.