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, 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
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
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."
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.
