Space data digital collectibles create a brand new revenue stream for pandemic impacted charities
Strategic investment by the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency has created a brand new revenue stream for charities who have had their fundraising efforts affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The combined strategic investment by the two space agencies has been awarded to Landmrk – a digital platform that gives brands the power to create compelling audience-focussed interactions via the mobile web.
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the UK Space Agency (UKSA) investment has enabled Landmrk to build a new suite of features that encourage and reward the positive actions of young people.
Landmrk’s new digital muscle has been put to work with TackleAfrica, a UK based HIV awareness and sexual health charity. The charity were working with their young audience in the UK to complete a virtual journey from London to Durban called Race To Africa. Every mile of exercise carried out by fundraisers locally saw a mile completed on the virtual journey.
The Landmrk powered Race To Africa digital experience charted the race’s multi-continent progress and gave incentives and rewards to young UK based fundraisers through opportunities to earn dynamic badges.
The Distance badge gave fundraisers the opportunity to celebrate their personal achievements whilst tracking the progress of the Race To Africa. Satellite photography from the Landsat satellite was woven into the badge’s design, boasting beautiful birds-eye-views of the current location of the virtual race. Race conditions were also displayed on the badge through the integration of geo-location and hyper-local weather data sourced from an API integration from the Dark Sky API.
Other available badges gave young people the opportunity to nominate friends, increase the reach of the experience across social media and create dynamic selfie filters that further celebrated each fundraisers personal achievements.
The fundraising push by TackleAfrica culminated in a 12 hour marathon livestream by FIFA streamer AJ3. The online influencer took to the Twitch video streaming platform for a full day of gaming fun with an array of his influencer gaming friends. Throughout the day the Race To Africa digital platform was used as an accompanying tool for the livestream, creating a brand new revenue stream for TackleAfrica.
Every hour on the hour AJ3 gave his audience the opportunity to collect Augmented Reality footballs through the Race To Africa experience. His fanbase found themselves tracking down footballs in their own homes and collecting them to give a donation to charity. Every football that was collected saw £1 being donated to the TackleAfrica cause.
AJ3’s audience collected 5,000 AR footballs in total, generating an additional £5,000 for the Race To Africa fundraising push. The full total from the livestream contributed £13,829 of the grand total of £31,844 raised through the Race To Africa initiative.
AJ3, real name; Andy Castell said “TackleAfrica is a charity close to my heart so it was an absolute honour to be involved in the Race To Africa campaign, bringing a completely unique experience to my audience through the power of Augmented Reality.
It allowed viewers to contribute to this incredible cause even if they didn’t have the financial means to do so.”
Nick Appleyard, Head of Space Solutions at European Space Agency, said: “Using space-enabled technology to help raise money for charity is a great way to enable people to contribute to society. It’s wonderful to see young people using space to have fun while simultaneously making the world a better place.”
Emily Gravestock, Head of Applications at the UK Space Agency said “It is fantastic to see young people engaging with technology to do something so positive and this initiative just shows how space-enabled technologies are an important part in every element of our lives.
I would like to congratulate the TackleAfrica team, especially AJ3, for raising such an impressive sum of money for a worthwhile cause.”
Seth Jackson CEO of Landmrk said “By harnessing the power of space assets and the creativity of TackleAfrica and their ambassador AJ3 we believe this use of our platform has produced very real solutions for charities working with young people whose fundraising efforts have been hit by the COVID-19 crisis.
We look forward to taking the platform to a wider audience, allowing such organisations to raise much-needed funds, educate and engage.”
The successes of the partnership with TackleAfrica place Landmrk in a good position to continue their journey with local authorities and good causes, encouraging positive behaviours amongst young people during these testing times.
Video link – a screen record of the AJ3 Livestream badge on the Race To Africa platform.
Press image 1 – AJ3 Livestream badge experience
Press image 2 – Distance badge from the Race To Africa platform
About the European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space.
ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Slovenia is an Associate Member.
ESA has established formal cooperation with seven Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.
By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes as well as with Eumetsat for the development of meteorological missions.
ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities.
Today, it develops and launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space. ESA also has a strong applications programme developing services in Earth observation, navigation and telecommunications.
Learn more about ESA at www.esa.int
About Landmrk
Landmrk is a contextual experiences platform that has created engaging content-lead experiences for over 3 million people worldwide.
The Landmrk platform gives brands and organisations the ability to deliver any type of digital content to fans, anywhere in the world.
Fully branded experiences are opened by music lovers by one click of a URL, allowing them to be shared at scale with ease.
Contextual data feeds are used to create keepsakes and digital merchandise pieces that are unique to each user.
Since its inception Landmrk has created branded experiences for celebrities including Ariana Grande, Shakira and Pitbull and brands including Google, Nickelodeon and Unilever.
About TackleAfrica
TackleAfrica uses the power and popularity of football to deliver HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) information and services to young people on football pitches across the African continent.
They do this by training African football coaches, games teachers and community leaders to use fun, interactive football sessions with inbuilt health messaging with their players. Alongside receiving sexual health information during football sessions, players also have the chance to access sexual health services at sessions and football tournaments, such as HIV testing, condoms and other contraception, and referrals to further clinical services.
TackleAfrica runs programmes in 12 African countries, improving understanding of key sexual health issues, giving young people the skills and confidence to make safe decisions, and provide access to youth friendly services such as HIV Testing and Counselling, contraception, and even procedures like Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC), recommended by the WHO and known to reduce the chances of contracting HIV.
Website: https://tackleafrica.org/
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