46. How XR Technology Creates Empathy for Nature with Ulrico Gregg-Kumbo
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Mizter Rad (00:01)
Hello, beautiful humans. Let me share a news clip from April 20, 30, 7:
Breaking news from the Greater Serengeti Migration Immersion Center, where an unprecedented 50 million people have simultaneously witnessed the annual antelope migration across the Mara River. Users across six continents participated in what conservationists are calling the most significant shared natural experience in human history.
Thanks to the latest haptic body suits and atmospheric generators, participants didn't just see the migration but felt the ground tremble beneath their feet, smelled the dusty savanna and experienced the rising temperature as the herd approached. The experience culminated in a collaborative fundraising effort that raised over $2 billion in conservation funds within three hours.
That's enough to expand protected migration corridors by an additional 1,200 square kilometers. Scientists report that among teenage participants, neural scans showed empathy responses identical to those experienced during actual wilderness encounters, potentially signaling a new era in conservation engagement.
Now, that future might sound like science fiction, but my guest today is already laying the groundwork for it. Ulrico Grech-Cumbo is a South African entrepreneur, technologist and conservationist who's using virtual and extended reality to democratize access to nature. As the founder and CEO of Habitat XR, he's created award-winning immersive experiences for organizations like Nat Geo, WWF and the United Nations.
His work spans from the Himalayas to African savannas, all with one goal, to cultivate empathy for the natural world through tech. Ulrico, welcome to the Mr. Rad Show.
Ulrico (02:06)
Thank you so much. Great to be here. And what a phenomenal introduction.
Mizter Rad (02:11)
Thank you for being here. It's a pleasure to have you here. Let's start Ulrico. I want you to take us into the journey of filming in the wild with XR technology. Paint us a picture.
Ulrico (02:26)
Sure, so it really starts with some specialized equipment, right? So we'll have a special camera, a 360 degree camera. Think of it as a soccer ball, the size of a soccer ball, a black sphere that has eight lenses on that. And those eight lenses can see absolutely everywhere, the panoramic up and down. And ultimately, when we're finished with the work, where that camera was is where a viewer's head is going to basically be. That's their perspective.
So us going out to the wild involves taking cameras like that, spending time in the field, in the baking sun, just like a traditional form crew would, but with the added complexity and difficulty of not being able to use zoom lenses to capture all of the amazing action that we wanna capture. The holy grail for an immersive experience is being in close proximity to nature and to wildlife, being able to really feel like you're physically present in that place. And so what...
we have to do, which makes our jobs really difficult, is we have to anticipate the action before it happens. So we start on the back of the safari truck, we spot some elephants a kilometer away, we have to read the wind, we have to predict their movements, and we have to get a camera down on a tripod several seconds before they actually come into that area and giving us enough time to then drive out of the shot, because again, the camera can see everything. So it's a freestanding camera that stands on this tripod.
And that's if we're not using a drone or a boat or some other sort of method of movement. But in a nutshell, that's what a typical day in the field looks like.
Mizter Rad (04:02)
So basically you leave the equipment there and you run away so that the animals kind of feel free to pass by sort of. And what kind of footage, what kind of content do you get out of it? It's not only video, I guess, it's also sound.
Ulrico (04:20)
Correct, yeah, it's sound as well. So we work with spatial audio, which is basically the 360 video equivalent of microphones. So we can record the direction of sound all the way around the human head in post-production to recreate completely what it is that it feels like to physically stand in that place.
Mizter Rad (04:39)
And so let's say, how long do you spend creating or capturing this content for a specific project on average? Is it about a couple of days, a weekend or months?
Ulrico (04:54)
Yeah, look, it's still nature, right? And it's the worst actors to work with, because they don't listen to our instructions. So the more time, the better. It ultimately comes down to the budget that we have or our client or our partner has for that particular project. But on average, we're in the field for about two weeks or three weeks for a specific film. And that film will be an immersive film of somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes in length.
Mizter Rad (05:21)
Okay, so what do do afterwards with that? Do you go back to the studio? What happens?
Ulrico (05:26)
Yeah, we bring all of that footage back to the studio. Remember that that camera, because it's got multiple lenses, has also got multiple sensors. Each sensor is connected to an SD card. So we'll have nine cards that are all being recorded to simultaneously for a single camera. And we'll often have three or four or five different cameras in the field. So all of that data has to come back to the office. The post-production team then starts sorting through absolutely everything. And the first major step for us is selecting the best shots.
This happens with very low res footage. We get preview files almost like proxies, which allows us to get a sense as to what it is that was captured. Remember, often we're running away, driving away, sometimes even diving in the bushes. So we don't often know exactly what we've actually filmed until we get back. So we sit for many weeks, we select all the best stuff, and then the team starts the specialized process of stitching. So each of those eight cameras in the one camera have to be joined together. We've got...
framed footage that then needs to sort of all be blended together to create this completely seamless, immersive video. And that process takes a really long time, especially because it's not just 360 in the field of view, but it's 3D in terms of its depth, just like an IMAX movie where you feel like things are popping out of the screen. The footage that we film has three dimensional depth to really bring that realism to it. So yeah, it's a really long process and a lot more manual than I think it will be into the future.
Mizter Rad (06:50)
So the final result is an immersive video, correct? And that immersive video can be seen with this XR or VR headsets. Is that correct?
Ulrico (07:06)
That's correct. Yeah. So we'll have, yeah, we'll have anywhere between an 8K and a 16K resolution video. And depending on what the headset is, we'll export a very specific version for a specific headset.
Mizter Rad (07:08)
Okay. Yeah.
And what's the whole purpose? mean, why are you doing this? Why is that important to you? And why do you think that connecting people through a piece of tech like a VR headset, for example, to nature is important?
Ulrico (07:42)
Well, I think it stems from that very simple idea that we don't protect the things that we don't understand and we don't understand them if we don't have access to them. So as habitat XR, we are very often talking about access, right? Access to the wild, access to pristine areas, access to wildlife, exotic animals. And, you know, the kind of closest comparison that most of the people in the world have will be something like a zoo or an aquarium, right?
but it's not a completely natural setup. And so for us, it's really about how do we maximize empathy at scale for animals, for ecosystems, and how do we make experiences that really make people care more about nature than they did five or 10 or 15 minutes before those experiences. And we've been doing that for 11 years now. We've had tremendous success in showing
how fast we can change a person's mind, how fast we can shift attitudes about things and how fast we can shift behavior using these different XR technologies.
Mizter Rad (08:47)
But, so let me challenge you here on something, because when you talk about these technologies, I'm inferring from what you say that you believe that they sort of connect us more deeply with nature and help us develop, like you said, greater empathy, you said, empathy at scale. That's a nice term. But I've heard similar claims before.
When television, for example, first appeared, I remember myself, I used to watch all these beautiful Nat Geo documentaries in Africa, actually. They were shot. And I always said, wow, that's amazing. I would love to be there. I would love to connect to nature and so on. And of course, these documentaries back then were revolutionary because it was for many people the first time they saw animals in the wild with such high levels of production and imaging.
Back then, of course, that was the latest tech. And you could suddenly see animals and ecosystems that you had never, ever witnessed before. Yet here we are. And a lot of people would claim, a lot of my guests will claim, or not my guests, but actually my listeners would be like, hey, but we're more disconnected from nature than ever. And it feels like that. I would agree. So what?
makes XR fundamentally different to that TV set, to that TV documentary back in the 90s? Aren't we just creating another layer sort of of technology between humans and actual nature? How do you respond to critics who say that we might just be building more sophisticated versions of nature documentaries that ultimately keep us in our living rooms instead of, you know, in the wild?
Ulrico (10:40)
Yeah, I think these are very valid ideas and concerns. And I think there's some very interesting things we've learned along the way. So the first thing for me is that a lot of the conservation that happens today is being done around the world, is being done by people who watch those nature documentaries, right? I mean, they were so inspired by them that they decided to dedicate their lives and their professions to protecting nature around the world. So what protection we do currently have in place all over the world, I think is
hugely to thank those documentaries for. The major difference between fixed frame media, we define fixed frame media as a video or an image that you'll see on something like a TV screen or a laptop where there's an end, right? There's a physical frame around it, around your TV at some point, the footage ends. The difference between that and immersive technologies is with framed media, you are essentially consuming somebody else's story.
In some ways you're being spoon-fed the story by David Attenborough or another narrator and you can feel things and you can be amazed and in awe of what you're watching but it's a third-person experience. With XR technologies, things like virtual reality, augmented reality, the holy grail is that you actually become a first-person participant, a first-person witness to the things that are going on around you and we know that the physiology
We know this from studies that have been done by various places, universities, medical institutions. There's a physiological effect that is completely absent in traditional TV, where the mind actually believes that its body is physically somewhere else. And the power of that is for all intents and purposes, you are having an actual reality.
of an experience, right? The virtual reality name is a bit of a misnomer. It's actually quite misleading because while it's digital, it is actually a real physiological response. So a person will feel, will experience pupil dilation, elevated heart rate, galvanic skin responses, so sweating, goosebumps, etc. through a virtual reality experience or an XR experience. And the immense power of that is the accelerating factor in how closely connected to the subject matter they feel.
Mizter Rad (13:00)
Hmm. Hmm.
Ulrico (13:00)
So the other aspect
of the conversation is really about, well, aren't people just gonna be in their homes the whole time and now no one's gonna garden and look at real nature anymore? And I think the answer is that a very, very small percentage of the world's population ever gets access to some of these pristine areas like the Serengeti, like the Himalayas. And so we already have a connectivity problem. And so first and foremost, these immersive technologies solve that problem. It's an access problem.
And what we know by working with a lot of players in the ecotourism sector, for example, is that digital immersive experiences actually increase people's likelihood to seek out real wilderness experiences for themselves, which cannot be replaced through digital technologies.
Mizter Rad (13:46)
Hmm. Okay. So they cannot be replaced according to you. They're raising awareness and connecting us better.
Ulrico (13:55)
Well, it's the next best thing, right? Right now we've got a huge gap between being able to put 8 billion people in the wild and see herds of elephants and fall in love and realize that, you know, we humans have a huge part to play in nature as well. We've got a huge gap between that situation and where we currently are in day-to-day life, where people are just kind of going to work in dense urban environments, built up cities that have completely displaced nature. And really for me, XR falls that huge void in between and tends to try and
get people towards seeking real nature and building their own real physical tactile relationships with nature.
Mizter Rad (14:32)
Okay, let me ask you something more fundamental because you talked a lot about physiological reactions and I definitely have used VR headsets and I've played some games and actually did some boxing as well. you can definitely feel the thrill when you use the headsets. And I'm sure if you're connected to some sort of natural wilderness environment, you also feel
much more immersed than just looking at the fixed frame TV documentary. But when you talk about, let's say, physical human connection, and I'm going to move aside a bit from animals and nature and talk more about humans. And again, this is a bit more fundamental. How do you think communication between two human bodies, let's say, being in the same physical space is?
Because when I think about your work creating these shared immersive experiences, I wonder if something essential is lost when we replace physical presence with virtual presence. What do you think about that?
Ulrico (15:44)
Look, I think that's true. To some degree, it's definitely true. Again, for me, as somebody who had the privilege of growing up in the bush in South Africa and going to these places, there is nothing that can replace a physical experience. And I think it's the same thing. We learned this during COVID, right? Yeah, we had all these technologies that kind of symptomatically solved the need for connection between people, but it's just not quite the same as being face to face with a person and having a heartfelt conversation.
So there is something that is missing. There's no doubt about that. But the question is where on the spectrum do we sit and how can we shift as many people, given where we are with the state of the earth, how can we shift as many people as possible into a much more connected state and a state where we can actually understand some of the very complex problems of our time, right? Like climate change and ocean acidification. We hear about these on a daily basis. The average person,
in a city can't really tell you why it's been created, how they're a part of it, how they're a part of the solution. They're very abstract concepts. Being able to embody these things, even digitally, create a cognitive bridge to ideas. And that is really the kind of the power of these digital technologies.
Mizter Rad (16:53)
Right.
Okay, let's talk about the tech tech tech. Yeah, go ahead,
Ulrico (17:06)
And I think,
no, sorry, I was just gonna kind of add to that, in the sort of podcasting realm, you've got this ability to kind of curate interesting conversations and interesting guests and share your thoughts to a massive audience through a digital platform, which wouldn't necessarily be possible to do in grandstands, once a week you're filling a stadium. And I think that's sort of where it is, a stadium vibe is very different.
but it's just not practical. You can't achieve that kind of physically and that's why digital sort of augments your reach, which I think is really interesting.
Mizter Rad (17:46)
And it is definitely interesting. And I want to talk about the technology itself. And because right now, most immersive experiences require this bulky headset that cut us off from the actual physical world around us. And I want to know what do you see as the future of XR devices? will we still be using this, you know,
Polky headsets in 20 years or do you envision something more integrated maybe with a human body or maybe even invisible?
Ulrico (18:22)
Yeah, look, think I certainly hope we're not in that place in 20 years from now, but I have also learned over the last 11 years of working in XR that predictions are usually pointless. What I can tell you is what I've seen. And what I've seen is that we started off with very bulky headsets, very expensive headsets that were required to be tethered to a PC. You could not get an immersive experience without having a $4,000 PC.
Mizter Rad (18:27)
You
Ulrico (18:50)
running a $4,000 US dollar VR headset. In 10 years, the prices have come down by a factor of 10 and there's now no more requirement to actually have a PC to have a really good VR headset. So the tech is getting lighter, the batteries are getting better, the screen resolution is getting better. And so I think we'll just kind of continue on that trajectory. The other really interesting thing that we've seen change is that
we had these different pillars of immersive technologies. had virtual reality that required a headset that was completely closing you off to your actual world. You had augmented reality, which required an iPad or a cell phone or some other device that while it could project some of your own environment onto the display, it still framed the media. You're still quite disconnected from the subject matter. We're now seeing this convergence of these technologies, even holograms. We're seeing this convergence of technologies into a single device, which can kind of do it all.
We're to see more and more and more of that to the point where this device will also be able to bring in some smells, devices around you that bring in some tactility, vibrations, humidity in the room, et cetera. So I think we're going to start seeing more sensors being incorporated into immersive technology. And yeah, it's got to get lighter. It's got to get more user friendly. The dream is
It's a pair of Ray-Bans that you put onto your face and completely transform your environment into this alternate world. I think we're well on the way to doing that, to be honest with you. think that a lot of people have been talking negatively about the Apple Vision Pro, and I couldn't disagree with them anymore. think the Apple Vision Pro technologically, from a pure science and technology point of view, achieves things that people just three years ago said were impossible to achieve in science. Very intelligent.
people said it was impossible to do what that headset can currently do. And while it's quite a pricey headset right now, it's still consumer tech. This is not, you know, military, you know, black ops, stealth sort of stuff. This is like, it's in retail. It's in retail, which is amazing. So yeah, I'm super excited about the future.
Mizter Rad (21:01)
Right, right, it's out there for everyone, Right, yeah.
Hmm, very interesting. Very interesting. Talking about the future, I want to know your thoughts about zoos, because traditional wildlife experiences can be also experienced somehow in zoos, at least in our current society. Will zoos exist as we know them in the next five decades, or do you think that we'll instead go into rooms with, just to give you a
crazy thought, lion fur standing somewhere in a corner of a room and you or the user wearing XR glasses being able to actually touch the lion remotely, touch the lion that they're seeing through their lenses, through these like physical proxies. Do you think that's something that could happen in the next decade?
Ulrico (22:03)
I don't just think it's something that could happen. I think it's something that is going to need to happen for a number of different reasons. The first one being that, you know, while zoos were really, I think, set up initially with the intention to try and democratize access to nature, it was all built on the instrument of going out to the wild, capturing a little slice of that wild and then bottling it up and putting it in the cities and making that accessible to people.
And while that's still kind of interesting for kids, you know, it's a lot more like a rollercoaster experience. There's a novelty to it that wears off very, very fast. And there are many studies that show that if our intention for zoos and aquariums and natural history museums is to get people to fall in love with nature, they've actually been failing for about 200 years to do that. So they've done a really good job at scale. There's a zoo in every single major city around the entire world.
10 % of the world's population every year goes through a zoo's door, which is amazing. They do not cultivate empathy. And at worst, they are also quite cruel to the animals, right? If you've ever had the privilege of spending time in the wild and you've seen wild animals, a tiger, a leopard, a pangolin, and then you go to a zoo, it's quite a traumatic experience actually, as it was for me. So I think that their business model is doomed. I think that
Consciousness is changing around the world. I think that consumers are feeling more and more guilty about taking their kids to go and see a tiger caged up in a little glass box. And there currently isn't any viable alternative, which is a big risk. So there's a big opportunity on one hand, which is that I think that facilities with that intention need to exist. We have to have environmental education and particularly environmental education that can connect people.
as a species to all other species. So yeah, I think the future is kind of hanging in the balance a little bit, to be honest with you.
Mizter Rad (24:08)
Mm hmm. So when we when you say that we have we need to have those institutions for connecting better with the wilderness or with animals, with nature, I agree. Right. But I've noticed also very often that we try to save the planet, but we kind of put aside ourselves. We work hard to create empathy. In your case, you're an engine for empathy at scale, as you put it.
to create empathy with the wilderness. like I said, we worked hard to create that empathy with,
animals like polar bears or bees or turtles, animals that most people will never ever encounter. And we tell ourselves, don't use plastic anymore because it affects these distant creatures living here and there. But in reality, we humans are also directly affected by that. And microplastic, as you know, they appear now in newborns, which is crazy. They're everywhere in my body. I don't know, we don't know much about it.
be honest so far, shouldn't that be more concerning and easier to empathize with? How about creating XR experiences focused on our own environments and bodies, showing people what's happening inside their lungs when they smoke or how microplastics are circulating in your bloodstream? Wouldn't that create a more urgent conservation mindset in your head?
Ulrico (25:47)
Well, I think it's all related, right? I mean, I think this is part of the human culture we're trying to change with some of our programs and in particular with our foundation, is that everything is completely interconnected. And there's this very old school thought that conservation is about saving wild areas. And in some cases, of course it is, but it's not about saving the planet. It's actually about saving the life support systems that every living being on earth, including
humans rely on to be intact, because it is when they start spiraling out of control and we go beyond what are known as the planetary boundaries, when we reach the point of no return, there is a scientific trajectory beyond which we can't come back from. We can't continue to thrive as a species. So it's really not about saving, it's saving lions as much as it is really about trying to save ourselves.
And this is something that it's not common. It's not a common thought or common part of our day-to-day sort of city culture that we have a part to play in it and it has a part to play in us and it starts at home. It starts with responsible power consumption. It starts with single-use plastics and trying to get rid of that incredibly toxic way of life. It has become very convenient but really, really bad for us. So everything is interconnected and absolutely it is about
understanding the effect of microplastics in our body and being able to go through the veins of a human being in a VR headset and understanding what it can create. So, absolutely.
Mizter Rad (27:22)
That would be fantastic actually. That's not out there yet. Or?
Ulrico (27:26)
There are some experiences out there. yeah, it depends on what it is. Maybe not so much on microplastics, but certainly biology experiences that allow you to sort of shrink down to the size of an atom and travel around inside bodies.
Mizter Rad (27:40)
Well, I've interviewed scientists that are creating micro bots, like all kinds of micro bots, micro bots, nanobots that you can just swallow and check your intestines and so on, and then just poop them out again, or anthrobots actually made of stem cells that go into your lungs and fix them. A lot of them are still in clinical trials, but some of them are already on retail and can be
purchase. yeah, technology in that sense is very immersive as well. And that's very exciting because it's about understanding ourselves as well, which is something that I think we fail totally, how our body works and how are we so connected actually to nature, how everything is just a single organism if you want to see it like that.
Ulrico (28:34)
Yeah, absolutely. It really is. And I think that's the huge opportunity here. And there's no better time in human history for us to start making that connection in a much more meaningful way than we ever have in past. And by the way, your friends making the nanobots, maybe they could make some nanobots that can help us film inside the human body as well. It would be really great to have some little 360 cameras in there.
Mizter Rad (28:56)
That would be amazing. Can you actually, how big are these 360 cameras right now? They're not that small. They're big.
Ulrico (29:02)
They're massive. They're pretty big. mean, the consumer grade
ones are about the size of a brick and the bigger ones are even bigger than that.
Mizter Rad (29:13)
yeah, you said a football, yeah. So do you see that also becoming smaller? Because it would be very interesting to have these nano cameras distributed in different places.
Ulrico (29:25)
Well, the challenge is going to be lighting, think. The inside of the human body is completely devoid of light, right? So, mean, we've, for example, we've got a 3D team. So when we can't film live action things, we then 3D model things and we have control over what it all looks like in the lighting and all that sort of thing. So we'd probably go that route and have that kind of control. But it's an amazing way to be able to allow people to...
Mizter Rad (29:31)
Right.
Ulrico (29:53)
envisage things that are just kind of currently not possible to fully envisage.
Mizter Rad (29:57)
You mean like a synthetic content kind of like made in the computer. Yeah.
Ulrico (30:02)
Yeah,
made in a computer, computer generated, but completely hyper realistic, indistinguishable from the real thing. That's really the area in which we pushing for creatively.
Mizter Rad (30:13)
Interesting. Let me ask you something about that content. What do you do with it? Business-wise, do you license it? Do you own it and just rent it out? Do you sell it completely? You sell the rights completely? What happens with that?
Ulrico (30:33)
Yeah, the business model is really split into two. So we've got commissions on the one side, which is where conservation NGOs, governments, or the private sector, they come to us and they say, we've got a very specific communications need, very specific environmental education need, a very specific policy change need. And we want you to create custom content for us. And we're willing to pay a premium for that. And that way we take very little risk, but then they own all of the IP.
The second side of the business is where we develop our own IP and then we license it out on a kind of a use by use basis, which works really well. And then now again, we're talking more and more about the formerly secret project, which is the foundation. And the foundation really is about public engagement. It's really focused on environmental education and we are creating our own pipeline, a massive pipeline of content across various different XR technologies.
you know, different lessons and different experiences and storytelling to connect people to nature, the natural ecosystem, and some of the biggest challenges of our time like climate change.
Mizter Rad (31:38)
Tell me more about that. So you basically create content of a specific topic within the nature umbrella. And then what do you do with that? You said you use it for education purposes, but what exactly does that mean? How do you distribute it? Who is your target?
Ulrico (31:58)
So for some of the commission.
Yeah, yeah. mean, I think for the commissioned work, we'll work very closely with a partner who've already got a specific target market in mind. In some cases, it takes the form of a group of high net worth individuals. The conservation NGO needs to fundraise. These high net worth individuals are very busy. They're based in predominantly Western countries. They don't have time to come out to the field, whether it's the Amazon, Indonesia, the bottom of the ocean.
So we create VR experiences that help them understand the need a lot better and that results in higher donations. Sometimes we help partners like the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund set up environmental education centers, which is quite similar to what we're doing on the foundation side. So imagine a physical permanent building inside which people can come and learn about a very specific animal or a very specific ecosystem.
And they get even close more closely connected through these XR technologies the subject matter in the case of the dying fussy gorilla fund We built a 360 degree theater, right? So this isn't even a VR headset. It's a room that you walk into which is like a VR headset 30 40 kids at a time are completely immersed in full 360 in full surround sound You know by the jungle and these mountain gorillas that live in Central Africa
Mizter Rad (33:13)
That's nice. Yeah.
But in this case,
sorry to jump in, but in this case, do you own the content or do you license it? Do you sell it off? Do you produce the whole thing? Who do you partner with? I'm guessing there's tickets to get in. How does that work?
Ulrico (33:45)
So in that particular case, with the Dinefossi Gorilla Fund, they don't charge any tickets. They really want to be a of a public benefit organization. So this space is free for people to access where they learn about mountain gorillas. In this case, we were paid by them to guard and film actual mountain gorillas. We were paid to 3D model and 3D animate and augmented reality experience of a silverback gorilla that...
Mizter Rad (33:50)
Mm-hmm.
Ulrico (34:09)
Kids can follow along the campus, they can walk on paths around all the buildings on the physical campus in Rwanda, and they can see all these incredible behaviors of the Silverback Gorilla as if it was actually there. So we don't own any of that IP, but for the foundation work that we're doing, we are creating our own physical spaces. We're creating our own museums, we're calling them the zoos of the future, and basically we're distributing our own content. We become our own client.
Mizter Rad (34:32)
Mmm.
Ulrico (34:37)
It's a physical space where people don't just get access to the stories, but they get access to all this cutting-edge technology, which is quite expensive to buy and in many cases is constantly updated upgraded and there's better stuff out there. So we'll always be providing the best of the best as a means to the end of these immersive experiences that connect people to nature. Various different topics, know, ranging from like I said before, mean, you know, marine experiences that can be species focused around, you know, blue whales.
to augmented reality experiences about birds. You might even walk outside into the garden at these centers, have real trees and have virtual birds populating these trees. And you kind of go on a fact-finding quest to spot the rarest bird or identify them correctly in exchange for points, et cetera. So we are building these physical spaces for ourselves in this case. And we're funding those through philanthropy. We're funding those through grants and other nonprofits. And really there the goal is to create
and completely reinvent environmental education for the future and not even for the future for now for a modern age You know, unfortunately these zoos these aquariums and many many natural history museums are just really stuck in the past And there's a huge opportunity to modernize it for where we are at in the world right now
Mizter Rad (35:53)
Tell me something, these zoos of the future, these spaces, are they already open to the public? Are they somewhere already?
Ulrico (36:00)
We're busy building the first pilot here in South Africa in Johannesburg. So with some luck by the end of the year, we'll be able to open the first pilot, which will become the blueprint for what all of the others can kind of become and leverage and learn from.
Mizter Rad (36:14)
And in terms of expanding this idea of the foundation of the SUSE of the future, what do you have in mind? Do you want to partner with people in different regions, different countries, and sort of license them your model kind of?
Ulrico (36:31)
Yeah, there are three different business models that kind of exist in our strategic plan. The one that we are hoping allows the fastest rate of scale across the world is going to be engaging with existing zoos, aquariums, and natural history museums and give them a viable alternative to captivity. Because I'm not anti-zoo. I want to make that very clear. I'm not anti-zoo. I'm not anti-aquarium. I'm just anti-captivity. A, because it doesn't work, like I said before, and B, because
it is actually pretty cruel. And we have a viable alternative now. So it's really about helping empower them to be able to usher in this new era of much more engaging, much more effective storytelling and empathy building experiences for nature. But we're pretty sure there's gonna be interest from organizations, private individuals, potentially even for-profit organizations that want to establish their own zoo of the future in a specific territory.
and in which case we've got a licensing model. We'll have this huge catalog of content across various different technologies. And instead of them having to take on the huge financial risk of commissioning anything, we'll have a huge catalog to be able to offer them. And they can rent it on an ad hoc basis and see what works and benefit from our team's understanding of how to meaningfully kind of create these experiences for people.
Mizter Rad (37:55)
Can you connect in real time the shoes of the future with the actual African savanna? Can you have like real time content being transferred so that what's happening in the Africa savanna in the wilderness is actually happening under the roof, under the virtual roof in, I don't know, let's say Panama?
Ulrico (38:19)
Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's been possible for several years now. It's all coming down to cost really. But, know, broadband is the biggest bottleneck there. But it is completely possible. I mean, we've done a lot of interesting stuff in that space. We've even done some experiments. One of the experiments we did was with a local South African network provider. Using their 5G connectivity on their towers. We put a VR headset on a stunt driver.
Mizter Rad (38:26)
Hmm.
Okay.
Ulrico (38:49)
and we put a camera on the top of the car and we took him to a racetrack. And the camera live streamed the signal to the tower and then back to his headset so that he could actually see what the camera was seeing from the top of the car. But remember, in effect, he is completely blind-witted and he was able to race around this track without crashing and killing himself, fortunately, proving that even consumer-grade 5G network towers are actually good enough to stream 360 content in that fast a time.
Mizter Rad (39:10)
Wow.
Wow.
That's very interesting. Very interesting.
Hmm. Very interesting. You said that you can do this also underwater. how does that differ from the other content creation, let's call it, besides the equipment that you have to use? Because I'm guessing, of course, the equipment has to be a bit, let's say slightly different, of course. But have you done many of these projects?
Ulrico (39:57)
Yeah, we've done quite a bit of marine work. I think what excites me so much about it is that the oceans are, it's sort of like, you know, it's another world. Yeah, I mean, it's completely unexplored. We often hear the anecdotal figures about how little percentage of the ocean has been explored, but it's also, you know, the reason for that is because it's the least accessible ecosystem of all on earth. And, you know, the amazing ability to be able to take people under the waves.
Mizter Rad (40:06)
Unexplored. Yeah.
Ulrico (40:25)
You know for 10 15 30 minutes without them even needing to be able to swim or even to have physical access to the ocean is an amazing value proposition So we've done quite a bit of that stuff. We've done work throughout the coast of southern Africa. We've done Mozambique. We've done Mexico and yeah continuing to do quite a bit more of that and it's it's Quite similar to the terrestrial stuff. But of course you need an underwater housing for your camera
Mizter Rad (40:47)
Very interesting.
There is a, I don't know if you've heard about this artist called Jason Decaires Taylor. He creates underwater museums that with time they become a coral reef. So it attracts marine life and it becomes a natural home for life, even in places that don't have life anymore. So it's a great tool also to bring back nature.
Ulrico (41:07)
Okay.
Mizter Rad (41:23)
It just reminds me of that because I've talked to him quite several times and he uses sensors and cameras and a lot of things to measure actually also to measure sound. He says it's incredible the kind of sounds that you get under the water and how animals communicate, for example, things that we don't know much about. And I think this is a fantastic tool.
you're talking about to learn about all these like mysterious worlds that unfortunately we don't know much about but they're so cool, so interesting.
Ulrico (42:03)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there's also a huge opportunity in, what we call embodiment experiences where we can turn a human being into one of those animals. ⁓ and to be able to sort of teach them about the vocabulary of, of whales, for example. So we can actually, you become a whale, you feel like you are a whale. ⁓ and we can replicate the senses, ⁓ that an animal experiences, can, ⁓ we can make your hearing.
a lot more sensitive. can help you see what we believe that bees and flies can see. So, a deployment experience.
Mizter Rad (42:36)
Wow. So what
do you mean with that? Take me through that. What do you mean exactly? Because when you talk about, now I understand why you talk about empathy at scale. If you go that deep into feeling how a bee feels or a whale talks. How do you do that?
Ulrico (42:52)
Yeah,
yeah, it's really about, you I mean, if you look at any nature documentary, all they're really trying to do is they're trying to create parallels that human beings can understand, right? Behavioral parallels that we can see a little bit of ourselves in them. There's nothing more powerful than becoming them. That's currently not possible, right? In our imaginations, maybe it is, but in these immersive experiences, you can become an animal and through our own curationing sort of creative process, we can try and replicate to some degree.
what it's like to be that animal. So instead of having David Attenborough explain to you that whales, know, or elephants communicate through infrasonics and specific wavelengths, etc. To some degree, you can, we can get people to feel it, hear it, see it, taste it, which I think is a huge opportunity.
Mizter Rad (43:36)
Mm.
Mm.
Very, very, very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, well, I know you don't like to make predictions. And I know predictions are tricky, but let's look at this in a different way. What current trends in immersive tech and conservation do you see developing over the next few decades? If we follow those stepping stones forward, those stepping stones that are happening right now that you already see in the market,
If we follow them forward, what kind of experiences or capabilities might become possible that would have seemed like science fiction when you first started with your company working with XR 11, 12 years ago?
Ulrico (44:30)
Well, I think one of the areas I'm most excited about is holograms. Because a hologram has the theoretical ability to bring a digital element into your real world without you necessarily even wearing any devices. And we're already seeing some super interesting stuff by companies like the Looking Glass Factory out of the US. We've done some work with them, we've used their devices, and they've got these super interesting displays.
which allow you to look around a 3D object that isn't actually there. It also allows you to interact with it with your hands. So it'll use gesture control. If you try and grab an object, you can actually pick it up. It's got some physics. We can program, let's say, a little animal like a rabbit. If you get too close, the rabbit will run away or continue to create distance from you. There's also some voice control. So using things like ChatGPT, you can actually speak to these holograms.
They are still limited to effectively a flat surface that looks like it's got some depth. But I think where these technologies are going is we're to start figuring out like the princess layer projection from R2D2 from Star Wars, right? Like where you've got a hologram that you can physically walk around in your room. I think it's coming. I think tactile technology is getting more more interesting. You'd mentioned haptic body suits before. There've been tremendous innovations in haptic body suits, but even in
Mizter Rad (45:42)
Mm.
Ulrico (45:54)
in things like pressurized air, where scientists can now simulate feeling something like the lion fur you spoke about earlier on. You put your hand over a device that is pulsing very, very high pressure, but very specifically concentrated pressure, bubbles of air that simulates the texture of, let's say, a basketball. When you run your hand over this air, there's nothing there. When you run your hand over it, you can actually feel texture. That's incredible. That brings in the...
Mizter Rad (46:20)
Hmm. That's crazy stuff.
Yeah.
Ulrico (46:24)
Yeah, to just make all these things come to life in such an exciting and incredible way.
Mizter Rad (46:30)
I heard that this remote touching thing started or was developed at first by the porn industry, where people that were remotely engaged or they wanted to sort of feel each other. They would buy these toys that are remotely connected. And I don't know if this is true, but I heard this already like 10 years ago. Maybe. I mean, there's so much money in that industry that, of course, they have the capacity to invent
stuff. And the consequences are interesting because it spreads out into other industries that are a bit more impactful, let's say.
Ulrico (47:01)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I mean, I think what's interesting about the conversation is that, you know, I think that porn probably stems from a deep need for human connection, right? And I think that if it's well funded and it creates innovations that that are able to approximate real world connection, sure, other industries can definitely benefit from that. We certainly could, too.
Mizter Rad (47:22)
Great.
Hmm, interesting. Well, let me ask you something more personal. If you were to imagine your grandchildren's relationship with nature and technology, like both, the intersection, what would you hope that looks like? Like when you look back at your work in decades to come, what impact do you most want it to have had on how humans relate to nature?
Ulrico (48:03)
Man, that's such a good question. And just so well framed. You know, I think the thing that keeps me up at night is the fact that we really are hanging in the balance right now. Like this thing could go either way, right? The future of planet Earth. It really could go either way right now. So for me, the hope for the future of the impact of the work really looks like we were able to claw our way back from the edge because we were able to quicken
a ushering in of a new human environmental culture where we tend to just look after the stuff around us a little bit more. We understand our own impact on and our own benefits from ecosystems around us. So it's obviously a very broad answer, I, I, what I'm trying to really push for and dedicate myself to now is that we can create better human beings. We can create human beings that are good for themselves. First and foremost.
by being good for the rest of our environment.
Mizter Rad (49:06)
Yeah, it's about raising that awareness. And I think that if people can feel what others, what other creatures feel, hopefully that brings some strong connection and more awareness of, know, ultimately it's just about being nice to each other, right? To you, to the other human, to your neighbor, but also to your dog, to the duck.
Ulrico (49:30)
Okay, kind of.
Mizter Rad (49:35)
around the corner to animals, plants.
Ulrico (49:37)
Yeah, that's
what empathy is, right? mean, empathy is really just about living with more care. And that's what it's about, you know, we've just got a bit of an antiquated idea around like, there's human beings and then there's everything else. Life is constituted of humans and then animals. There's this superiority complex thing that we need to unravel, we need to deconstruct and rebuild in a way that is actually good.
Mizter Rad (49:44)
Right.
Hmm.
Ulrico (50:06)
for being a human being as well as good for other living beings. So yeah, it's about that culture. It's about that human wide culture. I'm not talking about tribal culture. I'm talking about systemic species wide culture, our own belief systems, our shared values around the fact that our world has to be protected even if it's purely selfishly.
Mizter Rad (50:28)
Hmm. I agree. Ulrico, it was a pleasure to have you in the Mr. Rad Show.
Ulrico (50:35)
It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you for your really great questions. Super happy to have connected with you, Mr. Rand.
Mizter Rad (50:41)
Thank you. Until next time, beautiful humans, stay curious, question everything, and maybe, just maybe, start thinking about how tech might actually bring us closer to nature instead of further away from it. Saludos, hasta la vista, chau chau. I'm gonna stop recording now. Hold on one second.