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In Part­ner­ship with NYC Media Lab, Havas Funds and Sup­ports New York City Grad­u­ate Stu­dents’ Emerg­ing Tech­nol­o­gy Pro­to­types On Gov­er­nors Island

Mar 23, 2018 11:15 am

Grad­u­ate stu­dents from design and engi­neer­ing dis­ci­plines will demon­strate inter­ac­tive pro­to­types in a spe­cial event on Gov­er­nors Island on Tues­day, April 10^th, 2018

Havas New York with NYC Media Lab is pro­duc­ing the Havas Fel­low­ship: Pro­to­typ­ing the Aug­ment­ed Island in col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island. The pre­lim­i­nary 12-week pro­gram has already grant­ed five teams of local grad­u­ate stu­dents $5,000 and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to apply their skills in emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies (such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty) to tell the sto­ry of Gov­er­nors Island, allow­ing future vis­i­tors to bet­ter explore the Island’s land­marks, cul­ture and his­to­ry with new mobile and nar­ra­tive-dri­ven expe­ri­ences. On April 10, the stu­dents will present their pro­to­types at a spe­cial Demo Day event on the Island. The win­ning team, cho­sen by Havas and NYC Media Lab, will receive an addi­tion­al $10,000 to fur­ther their project. 

“Gov­er­nors Island has a rich and diverse his­to­ry that is still undis­cov­ered by many New York­ers,” said Michael Samuelian, Pres­i­dent and CEO of the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island. ​“Inno­v­a­tive media tech­nolo­gies have the pow­er to bring these sto­ries to life in a way that bal­ances the sense of explo­ration and enjoy­ment of pub­lic spaces.”

Announced last fall, the Havas Fel­low­ship saw pro­to­type appli­ca­tions from grad­u­ate stu­dents across NYC Media Lab’s net­work of city-based uni­ver­si­ties, with stu­dents from New York Uni­ver­si­ty, Par­sons School of Design and The City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York ulti­mate­ly cho­sen to par­tic­i­pate in the pro­gram fol­low­ing a com­pet­i­tive appli­ca­tion process. In addi­tion to receiv­ing $5,000 in fund­ing, Fel­lows were giv­en access to the 172-acre island for con­cept devel­op­ment dur­ing the parks’ off-sea­son, access to a range of doc­u­ments from The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island’s archives (includ­ing maps, data, pho­tographs, vis­i­tor data and land­scape plans), and ongo­ing men­tor­ship from Havas exec­u­tives in cre­ative direc­tion and expe­ri­ence design. 

“At Havas, we are in the busi­ness of cre­at­ing expe­ri­ences for our clients,” said Marc Maleh, the company’s Glob­al Direc­tor. ​“Now more than ever, these expe­ri­ences live across mobile and con­nect to the phys­i­cal world.”

“With expe­ri­ence design, inno­va­tion and data sci­ence at our core,” added Lau­ra Maness, CEO of Havas New York, ​“Havas is always look­ing to cre­ate mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences and learn from the next wave of thinkers, inno­va­tors and lead­ers of tomorrow.”

“Aug­ment­ed real­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy and its influ­ence on civic engage­ment is a major area of inter­est for NYC Media Lab,” said Justin Hen­drix, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of NYC Media Lab. ​“Sto­ry-dri­ven appli­ca­tions of AR can help keep the rich his­to­ry of our city alive for all New York­ers, while cre­at­ing new eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties with­in the city’s industries.”

April’s Demo Day event on Gov­er­nors Island will debut the five pro­to­types to an audi­ence of media, tech­nol­o­gy, adver­tis­ing and civic devel­op­ment pro­fes­sion­als. To learn more about the Demo Day and to request a Press/​Media pass, please con­tact Alex­is Ave­disian, NYC Media Lab’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er, at alexis@​nycmedialab.​org.

Pro­to­type details:

Dan­de­lion
School: NYU Inte­grat­ed Dig­i­tal Media
Team Member(s): Emir Fils-Aime, Gabriel­la Cam­mara­ta, Naj­ma Dawood-McCarthy
Descrip­tion: Team Dan­de­lion imag­ines a hid­den, shape-shift­ing future muse­um exhib­it that when dis­cov­ered users can con­tribute their own wish­es for their vision of NYC as well as lis­ten to the wish­es of pre­vi­ous visitors. 

GLIMPSE: Invent­ing Amer­i­ca
School: NYU Inter­ac­tive Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Pro­gram
Team Member(s): Roi Lev, Anas­ta­sis Ger­mani­dis
Descrip­tion: GLIMPSE: Invent­ing Amer­i­ca is an AR expe­ri­ence that takes the user back to the 1620s and the arrival of immi­grants in what is now New York City. 

See Lev­el
School: Par­sons MFA Design + Tech­nol­o­gy
Team Member(s): Lau­ren Malka­ni, Pao­lo Vil­lanue­va, Aarati Akkaped­di
Descrip­tion: See Lev­el is an aug­ment­ed real­i­ty appli­ca­tion that explores how Gov­er­nors Island has been engi­neered to fight cli­mate change. Vis­i­tors will expe­ri­ence ris­ing sea lev­els first-hand, see the geo­engi­neer­ing inside ​“The Hills” and explore a new future for NYC. 

IslandAR
School: CUNY Lehman / EON Real­i­ty
Team Member(s): Cécile Ragot
Descrip­tion: IslandAR pro­vides mys­te­ri­ous puz­zle pieces that unlock shared AR expe­ri­ences, hid­den char­ac­ters and fun sto­ries from past and present on Gov­er­nors Island. 

Guide­Bot to GovIsland’s Past
School: NYU Cen­ter for Urban Sci­ence and Progress (CUSP)
Team Member(s): Char­lie Mof­fett, Gau­rav Bhard­waj, Isha Chaturvedi

Descrip­tion: Guide­Bot to GovIsland’s Past is a Chat­bot that guides vis­i­tors and shares local his­to­ry as they explore the island. The bot responds to users queries and learns from every inter­ac­tion to improve the experience. 

About Havas New York

Havas New York is one of three full-ser­vice Vil­lages and the flag­ship agency of Havas U.S., a pow­er­ful net­work of cre­ative agen­cies with the most mod­ern capa­bil­i­ties and tal­ent­ed peo­ple in the busi­ness. At Havas New York, we are break­ing tra­di­tion in our cat­e­go­ry to inspire and help pro­gres­sive CMOs speak the mod­ern lan­guage of adver­tis­ing through cul­ture, design and tech­nol­o­gy — cre­at­ing a bet­ter, more mean­ing­ful con­sumer expe­ri­ence. Cre­atives are cre­ators who deliv­er work designed to inspire con­ver­sa­tion in the real world, not the adver­tis­ing space. Learn more at our web­site, ny​.havas​.com, or fol­low us on Twit­ter @havasnyc, Face­book and Insta­gram @havasnyc.

About NYC Media Lab
NYC Media Lab con­nects dig­i­tal media and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies with New York City’s uni­ver­si­ties to dri­ve inno­va­tion, entre­pre­neur­ship and tal­ent devel­op­ment. A pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship launched by the New York City Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, NYC Media Lab funds pro­to­typ­ing projects that fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion across a range of dis­ci­plines core to the future of media; it also runs The Com­bine, an ear­ly-stage accel­er­a­tor for emerg­ing media and tech­nol­o­gy star­tups. NYC Media Lab is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing the city’s first pub­licly fund­ed VR/AR Cen­ter in con­junc­tion with NYU Tan­don School of Engi­neer­ing, fol­low­ing an invest­ment from the New York City Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and The Mayor’s Office of Media and Enter­tain­ment. More infor­ma­tion is avail­able at http://​nyc​me​di​al​ab​.org.