At last year’s Oculus Connect 3 the VR company spent a significant portion of its keynote speech talking about its work in diversity with its Launch Pad program. This month, that program returns.
Applications for Oculus Launch Pad 2017 are now open and will remain so until the end of the month. The initative is designed to enable more people to work in VR, including women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, and other minority groups. Applicants can apply to create wither 360 films, VR experiences of VR games, and will compete for the chance to earn scholarships worth between $5,000 to $50,000 that will be awarded later in the year. Creators may also find themselves returning as mentors later in the year.
Applicants will be judged on their passion for VR tech and their competence with developing for it, as well as their representation of diversity.
It starts with a boot camp weekend at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlow Park on June 10th and 11th. There successful applications will get access to training in VR content production along with a Gear VR with which they can develop on. Travel to the weekend of up to $1,200 will be covered as will catering, though the program is only available to those in the US this year.
Following the camp applicants will be required to keep a weekly blog post building up to a full release on the Oculus store.
Last year Oculus parent company Facebook invested $250,000 to its diversity initiative, but at OC3 the company revealed it was pledging a further $10 million to these programs. Expect to see varied new experiences from its applicants later on in the year.
