The Walt Disney Firm hosted its 2022 Disney Accelerator Demo Day on the Firm’s historic Studio lot in Burbank Thursday, showcasing the six firms collaborating on this yr’s Disney Accelerator program. The Demo Day presentation featured greater than 15 senior executives from Disney in dialog with the founders of the choose development stage firms, as they mentioned innovation and new applied sciences, and the influence they may have throughout the Firm.
Demo Day is a celebration of the annual enterprise growth program designed to additional the expansion of modern firms from world wide via collaboration with Disney’s government and artistic management groups.
“Since our founding practically 100 years in the past, Disney has introduced iconic tales and characters to life in new and modern methods, changing into a part of the worldwide tradition and creating generations of reminiscences for billions of individuals,” mentioned Bob Chapek, CEO, The Walt Disney Firm. “Walt himself believed that know-how actually was the important thing to creating these tales come alive to create actually lasting, significant connections along with his viewers and turning storytelling into an expertise. The Walt Disney Firm has used know-how to invent and reinvent practically each facet of leisure, all in an effort to convey our audiences nearer to the story. And that’s why we now have chosen the businesses you’re going to listen to from. Every of them is pioneering know-how that we consider has the potential to assist us attain extra folks and inform tales in new methods.”
Since launching the Accelerator in 2014, Disney has continued to collaborate with most of the Disney Accelerator participant firms to convey thrilling merchandise and new applied sciences to market.
“For practically 100 years, Disney has embraced cutting-edge know-how to stay on the forefront of artistic storytelling and ship essentially the most modern leisure experiences for audiences and friends world wide,” mentioned Bonnie Rosen, basic supervisor of the Disney Accelerator program. “This dedication to development can be an integral a part of the Disney Accelerator, which permits us to collaborate with excellent development stage firms like these on this yr’s class that share our want to redefine the media panorama. We hope that Demo Day is just the start of our relationship with these firms, and we are able to’t wait to see the superb issues we might construct collectively for Disney followers.”
The businesses on this yr’s program concentrate on a spread of applied sciences in areas comparable to augmented actuality (AR), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and synthetic intelligence (AI) digital characters. The individuals embrace:
- Flickplay: Flickplay is a Web3 social app that permits customers to find digital collectibles tied to real-world places that they’ll expertise and share by way of AR. Flickplay is in conversations with Disney Client Merchandise, Video games and Publishing (CPGP) to create and ship digital collectible activations inside bodily places throughout the Unites States.
- Inworld AI: Inworld permits customers to create interactive, AI-driven characters for immersive experiences. In the course of the presentation, Inworld introduced that it is in conversations with ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s immersive storytelling studio, to construct developer instruments for creating characters at scale in immersive worlds. Moreover, Inworld is exploring the event of an AI persona for Disney Star’s DisneyStarverse platform. Throughout Demo Day, Inworld demonstrated a “Droid Maker” prototype that the corporate created in collaboration with ILMxLAB.
- Lockerverse: Lockerverse is a neighborhood platform that empowers creators and types to inform culture-defining tales and ship distinctive entry and experiences. Lockerverse is working with ESPN to launch a free NFT of the Celebration Bowl Trophy, to be solely first provided on the Celebration Bowl on December 17 in Atlanta.
- Obsess: Obsess is an experiential e-commerce platform that permits manufacturers to create immersive 3D digital shops on their web sites and on Web3 platforms. In early October, Obsess launched the Disney Music Emporium digital expertise, an immersive on-line retailer celebrating the surprise of Disney music. Obsess can be in conversations with Disneyland Resort and shopDisney to create a particular retail expertise.
- Polygon: Polygon is a enterprise layer for blockchain know-how that enables builders and enterprises to construct Web3 experiences. Polygon is working with Disney on growing a proof of idea for unique digital collectibles to acknowledge Disney staff throughout particular events.
- Pink 6: Pink 6 is an AR firm that has created a patented headset and interface that works outside in dynamic, high-performance environments. Walt Disney Imagineering and Industrial Mild & Magic (ILM) are exploring alternatives to convey this know-how into Disney’s story-driven environments for subsequent era experiences of the long run.
“As a startup, it’s very troublesome to succeed in the suitable folks. With out this program, we might not be having the conversations we’re having proper now,” mentioned Neha Singh, founding father of Obsess. “It’s very targeted on the collaboration with Disney groups and completely different divisions and startups, so it’s actually good. Disney’s mission of storytelling, and our mission is, ‘How can we make manufacturers inform their tales higher?’ Manufacturers have unbelievable tales, which at the moment’s instruments don’t enable them to actually say. So, it’s a really pure match for us to be working with an organization that owns storytelling, primarily.”
Following the formal presentation, the Disney Accelerator introduced Web3 to life on the Walt Disney Studios lot for attendees by showcasing unique demonstrations from the 2021 and 2022 Disney Accelerator firms, together with life-sized variations of Disney’s hottest NFTs and a particular Flickplay scavenger hunt that allowed attendees to seek out and work together with Disney digital collectibles.
For the primary time, the earlier yr’s Disney Accelerator firms—who accomplished this system in a completely digital format—attended Demo Day and showcased their modern applied sciences. These included startups with latest collaborations with The Walt Disney Firm:
- Attentive: Attentive is a complete cell messaging platform that enables retail and e-commerce manufacturers to attach instantly with customers via customized communication experiences. This summer season, Attentive launched an opt-in expertise to supply Disney friends a seamless alternative to speak with Disney Theatrical Productions by way of SMS and e mail via www.aladdinthemusical.com.
- CAMP: CAMP creates experiential retail shops and on-line media locations for the entire household. CAMP launched two collaborations with Disney this yr, “Disney’s Mickey and Pals x CAMP: An Further Massive Journey,” now in Dallas, whereas New York Metropolis households are having fun with the magical “Disney Encanto x CAMP” at its flagship retailer this vacation season. These immersive and interactive collaborations journey to different CAMP places each few months.
- Miko: Miko creates lovely robots which might be playful studying companions for youngsters, obtainable throughout 140+ nations and utilized by mother and father, educators, and technologists. Earlier this yr, Miko collaborated with Disney Publishing to launch animated storybooks that includes characters from the worlds of Disney and Pixar on its Miko 3 robotic.
For extra data on the Disney Accelerator, go to DisneyAccelerator.com.
