VisPIE

Promote sustainable lifestyle with AR gamification and digital twin

Summary

VisPIE is the winner team of the Deloitte ESG Innovation Award in HackUST 2022 (Top prize under the ESG theme). We enable individuals to Perceive the environmental implications of their measurable activities, Immerse themselves in the climate change impacts, and Empower both individuals and organizations with climate-smart choices. We make people believe every action matters and create a more sustainable world together.

Features

We build a digital twin of our living environments with gamification and advanced Augmented Reality (AR) techniques. Our demo takes place on a green campus. We define measurable activities and map each activity to reward points to gamify climate-related choices. For example, each time students use stairs rather than elevators, they earn climate points to exchange for virtual trees to be planted in the digital twin campus.

They can explore the campus in both public displays and AR. The public displays show the overall digital campus, which lets students perceive how their behaviors influence the degree of greening on the virtual campus. AR provides students with an immersive experience to explore and observe the trees from the first-person perspective. The whole concept empowers students with higher awareness of climate-smart behavioral choices.

We first obtain the buildings’ BIM model to implement the digital twin. Then, we adopt automatic (e.g., sensors) and manual (e.g., self-report) ways to track students’ activities with permission. Next, we develop a mobile AR app that allows students to plant and observe the trees on the digital campus.

Benefits

For individuals, the previously invisible behaviors are quantified with digital tracking to make them aware of their actions’ meaning. Through intuitive visualizations, we amplify small, instantaneous behavioral choices to big, prolonged environmental impacts. AR provides novel immersive experiences and information about climate-friendly alternatives. Gamification creates a sense of community where healthy peer pressure can foster positive habit transformation. The reward system motivates us to adopt sustainable actions.

For organizations, granular and inter-connected data are collected to facilitate efficient operation management. The digital twin acts as a simulation tool that supports resource optimization and climate-smart decision-making, such as eliminating ineffective power usage and rejecting consumables with high carbon footprints. Our solution opens new opportunities for digital transformation initiatives to fulfill sustainability missions and marketing campaigns to develop closer relationships with individuals. Sponsoring the users’ rewards is also favorable to organizations, contributing to higher ESG ratings.

Demo video

Contact us if you are interested about the project.