If you're reading this, chances are you care a lot about sustainability and climate change. So do we.
We're still figuring out our global response to it. According to a recent VOX article, “Want to fight climate change effectively? Here’s where to donate your money.”,"Since 2000, carbon dioxide emissions have actually risen 12 percent."
Luckily, the number of NGOs on a mission to tackle these enormous challenges that we will all face in the near future worldwide is on the rise too (poorer countries are already visibly affected by climate change). So, choosing a cause and an organization to donate to is no easy task as it also comes with debates around their impact.
Last year we initiated a new tradition at VUI.agency: donating our Christmas allowance from the company to a curated list of NGOs and communities close to our hearts. Each year, we review the list and add new organizations according to our affinities and not necessarily according to NGOs ranking.
Some of the leading causes that we want to support, and impact are education worldwide, bias in AI, inclusion, and diversity and climate change.
Regarding bias in AI, our entire team is highly aware and knowledgeable on the topic. In all our projects, we maintain that awareness, aiming for the least amount of bias possible, striving for zero bias (even though sometimes that's not entirely possible yet). We're also working closely with research institutes and universities to find a more sustainable conversational design standard.
The Asian Classics Input Project (ACIP) aims to find 2500 years old "philosophical, religious and cultural manuscripts (in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other languages), transcribe them, scan them, catalog them, and put them online free of charge."
This year, the third new organization we chose is Plan international, helping children in need worldwide. It is one of the oldest independent development cooperation and humanitarian aid organizations globally, with more than 80 years of history.
We invite you to discover the other impact projects from around the world that the VUIs chose to support in the last two years and have partly chosen to support once more this year.
Almada Mata Atlântica – supporting the ongoing reforestation long-term effort, maintenance, species protection projects, and land purchase for the preservation of the Mata Atlântica region. This vast region of South American forest extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to the Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and the Misiones Province of Argentina.
Asante Tanzania is the project of two German doctors who founded a day clinic in north-western Tanzania in 2008 and have been running it since then. For hundreds of thousands of Tanzanians, this is the only place to get proper professional medical care.
diversity München – the only LGBT youth center in Bavaria and one of Germany's few self-managed youth centers.
Malaria Consortium – helping millions of vulnerable people with preventive and diagnostic measures and treatment for some of the world's most devastating diseases.
Nying Drod – an organization that supports smuggled Tibetan children across the Himalayas to get a proper education in a reception camp in northern India at an exile school, sometimes without the possibility of returning home.
ReDI School of Digital Integration – a non-profit tech school offering free high-quality coding courses to newcomers in Germany, focusing on training refugee women. There are now present in Berlin, Munich, NRW, Copenhagen, and Aarhus.
You can read more about all of them here.
Let's take a moment together to acknowledge all the work that needs to be done in sustainability around the world, the millions of people involved to help, and the millions of people impacted by this support.
If you also want to support one of the organizations presented here, we encourage you to do so. We are wishing you all a more sustainable 2022!
This website is our digital embassy. It is a hub where we show what we do and what we have done. Conversation Design, Voice UX, Assistant Persona Design and many more – all our services, that will provide you with an intuitive entry into the voice industry can be found here. Simple, understandable and accessible at all times, that’s the most important thing. If it doesn’t move you, it won’t stay on your mind!
A contradiction or a thing of possibility? How did we celebrate this Christmas together in a virtual way? So, this year was challenging as well. Rising Corona numbers, strict restrictions, it just didn't feel right to celebrate Christmas "for real." We haven't been able to together as a whole team for the second year in a row. Some team members have never seen each other outside the computer screen since they started working at VUI.agency. How did we VUIs feel about that?