We use the power of emerging technologies (VR/ AR/ AI) and immersive storytelling to create positive social change. We shed light on the lives of everyday people struggling to overcome today’s structural inequalities. Because we believe that immersive storytelling leads to empathy — and empathy leads to action. We are LIGHTSHED.IO
Led by Gabo Arora and managed by Barry Pousman, LIGHTSHED.IO collaborates with individuals, organizations, and corporations to tell stories like they’ve never been told before. Together, we’re committed to using emerging technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence to inspire meaningful action: through our films, portals, exhibits, and more. Join us.
“In works like Clouds Over Sidra and The Last Goodbye, Gabo Arora has established himself as one of VR’s modern masters, bringing a keen understanding of film language to politically charged work.”
– Scott Macaulay, Editor-in-Chief, Filmmaker magazine
Whose Future? builds digital equity and inclusion by making creator tools accessible to everyone. Our physical locations are embedded in communities and run by local facilitators—from rural regions to urban centers—bringing diverse participants and perspectives into the metaverse. Leveraging our metaverse skills training, facilitators work with students, collaborate with partners on the ground, organize events, and maintain the hardware and software the students need. In addition to physical spaces, our always-on immersive learning platform, LightSchool, provides a virtual world for students to connect, collaborate, co-create, and share. We’re committed to leveraging this hybrid approach to teach the tools of creation for the Metaverse, inspiring meaningful impact through storytelling with emerging technologies.
Recognized by the World Economic Forum, the Webby Awards, and NYC’s Office of the Mayor with seed funding from Meta’s Immersive Education Fund.
We offer the best in Metaverse courses led by award-winning tech pioneers and storytellers to teach creators of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels.
PARADISE is a 20 minute two person immersive audio experience for intimate partners in their own home. Part interactive game, part theatrical experience, audience members progress through a world of simulated scenarios that explore why we stay together or fall apart.
We invite you to participate in our programme. It has been designed for you and people like you. Do not be afraid. Our programme is a simulation of what is real. But it is not real. Our staff will guide you and help you to improve your scores. Are you ready to proceed?
In this immersive documentary, you’ll inhabit the shoes of a prime minister who is preparing to deliver a high-profile speech at a virtual U.N. General Assembly in the near future. The political stakes are high. As you are about to begin your remarks, a group of students hijack the security system and take over the screens, asking to have a dialogue with you. Over the course of the next few minutes, you will experience immersive visualizations of income inequality, disproportionate military spending, loss of biodiversity, and rising sea levels. How will you answer the student’s questions?
The process of eviction involves the collision of home life, the law, the market, along with America’s fraught history of racial and economic injustice. These Sleepless Nights enables one to explore in-depth the experiences of those who have intimate experiences with these collisions, be it as memories from childhood, being bored at work or trying to be a mother when you can’t pay the rent. Making use of augmented reality and spatial computing, one is able to navigate their own journey through these stories and conduct their own experience. It brings nuance and a new perspective on a situation we can no longer keep sleeping through.
"Touching, viscerally vulnerable, and the stories harrowing "
—No Proscenium
This interactive Virtual Reality Memorial, commissioned by the Nobel Peace Prize in honor of 2017 winner ICAN, brings together harrowing first-hand survivor testimonies, data visualizations, 3-D scanning and photogrammetry. The experience seeks to pay tribute to the victims of Hiroshima, while recognizing those currently affected by nuclear
weapons testing in today’s fraught geo-political climate, proving that change is possible with the right tools and information.
“The Day the World Changed isn’t just a story about the past, it is also about our future — it reminds us that these weapons are still here, threatening us, but we can do something about it.”
—ICAN
An interactive social VR experience that uses song and dance to transport four participants into ecstatic Sufi rituals and explores the motivations behind followers of this mystical Islamic tradition, still observed by millions around the world
"One cannot truly fathom Sufism through rational or intellectual means—it’s categorically experiential."
In July of 2016, Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter toured the Majdanek Concentration Camp in what he vowed would be his final visit. By marrying a stereo video capture of Pinchas within a photoreal roomscale experience, The Last Goodbye reaches profound levels of immersion in service of the first ever VR testimony that will be archived and preserved. The importance of listening to Pinchas’ story is more important now than ever and this is also a beautiful testament to love, compassion and the human spirit.
"The Incredible, Urgent Power of Remembering the Holocaust in VR"
—Wired
My Mother’s Wing gives an unprecedented view of the Gaza Strip. It recounts the first-hand experience of a young mother coping with the loss of two of her children in the bombing of the UN school in July 2014. It highlights the grief and optimism in her daily life and role as a pillar of strength in her family, helping them continue with hope as they heal.
After surviving a bout with the deadly disease that stole the lives of her family, Decontee, a Liberian native, uses her immunity to help children orphaned by Ebola. This VR experience follows her story from illness to recovery, mourning to perseverance.
“This ebola documentary shows virtual reality’s radical potential.” - Wired
“Clouds Over Sidra” follows a young girl in the Za’atari camp in Jordan–home to 84,000 Syrian refugees. This is the film that took U.N. leaders on a tour of her makeshift tent, her school, and even the camp’s football pitch.
“The day virtual reality made me cry.”- CNET
Lightshed leverages the power of immersive media for positive behavior change with a focus on personal and professional development. As with all of our work, we use interactive and cinematic storytelling to activate new behaviors in our audiences—Foster empathy, improve social skills, and better understand how we present ourselves.
Our films have helped raise over $4 billion in direct support and funding.
Our Films have been seen in over 40 countries and translated into 15 languages.
1 in 6 people donated upon viewing “Clouds of Sidra”. This is twice the normal rate.
The UN Secretary General set a challenged goal of $2.3 billion in projected support related to “Clouds over Sidra”. We topped $3.8 billion.