Background

Vida Kit is a digital character created by the University of Sheffield in partnership with Human Studio and Dead Earnest Theatre.

The aim of this project is to develop a digital character with a compelling backstory and narrative that stimulates active listening, empathy, rapport, influence, and eventually behavioural changes toward climate change at the national and international scale.

According to research conducted by academics at Sheffield University Management School, people engage with climate change actions when they have concerns about climate change. However, raising concerns too strongly can negatively affect public behaviours (specifically vulnerable groups). Therefore, solutions should be applied to effectively stimulate the behavioural changes with care. One of the solutions is communication through influencers and recently the UK government successfully recruited influencers to promote their Test and Trace program.

This project proposes a creative solution to nudge the public gently and with care through an engaging, fun, and entertaining approach. For example, Vida has a grumpy cat called Hank who plays games to not let Vida behave responsibly (see below examples). Since May, Vida and Hank received remarkable attention worldwide  and near 56,000 people liked one of the posts.

University of Sheffield is the first university to create a virtual character, called Vida, whose ambition is to promote prosocial causes. This project has a synergy with The Natural Environment Research Council Discipline Hopping for Environmental Solutions in which we’ve developed a bespoke green game in partnership with a game company (P&P).