Any individual between the ages of 14 to 18 (High School age-category) and 19+ (University or older age-category) may form a team to compete on this competition. Teams may have no less than two individuals, and no more than 6 per team, and a team may have individual team members from anywhere in the world (see Team Composition Rules below).

Each team will design and produce an immersive and experiential environment within Virtual Reality - using their choice of one of many publicly available and free (or nominally priced) production Metaverse software platforms. Many of these platform development environments are not any more difficult than developing a Powerpoint presentation or creating, editing, and publishing a social media video.... thus not requiring a technical coding competency for teams to participate ("a 'non-coding coding' of the next generation of the internet"). These platforms may be accessed via the desktop, mobile device, and/or a VR headset. (Teams that can't afford a VR headset - approximately $350 USD - may apply for financial assistance - see more below).

All of the information and training that a team needs to design and create (non-coding coding) in these VR / Metaverse platforms is available publicly for free in many formats on-line (e.g., YouTube "how-to" tutorials, etc.). Note: no coding technical skills or previous training is required, as part of the objective of this competition is to motivate individuals to participate and start. to learn how to "code" this next/new generation of the internet.

Each team that participates will need to Register on this site, and will have from March 2022 to March 2023 to design their VR experiences for one of the 17 SDGs of their choice. For example, if you create a team and your team selects SDG # 14 - "Life Below Water", you and your team will have up to 12 months to design, develop, and ultimately tell a story using virtual reality and metaverse capabilities - immersive, experiential, interactive, social, gamification - to bring the opportunities and issues/challenges of the SDG "to-life" in a VR environment.

The criteria used to evaluate a team's experience will be based on how well the Team's experience - for their selected SDG met the following metrics:

• Creativity & Imagination - Considering in the Metaverse you can design and build whatever you imagine, your team's experience will be evaluated on how creative you are in your expression for the SDG in Virtual Reality. For example, rather than create a simulated class-room in VR to build awareness around your SDG (not too creative.... a traditional approach), you could create an imaginary world in which to bring your audience through an entire story and journey. (Caution: Too much "wow factor" for the sake of "awe" could be an overkill, thus use your imagination but don't over-do the theatrics to where it actually is counter-productive in terms of the educational objectives of the experience). This video may help you better understand this concept: https://youtu.be/OhOU3xkjNEA

• Use and effectiveness of “Immersive and experiential” engagement techniques and elements- In these VR environments you may incorporate various techniques to ensure your user-experience for your audience is "sticky" and engaging. For example, you could make the experience into a game (i.e., Gamification / Game-Theory) by including aspect of a "Treasure Hunt" or "Game Show", etc. Also, you have the ability to introduce educational elements but with aspects of engaging entertainment - called "Edu-Tainment" (e.g., Rather than showing a chart with data and statistics around your SDG, you could animate (aka, "puppeteer") objects in VR, like creating theater, in which to bring-to-life the statistics and data on the charts. Also, there are "design thinking" techniques that are helpful to leverage, thus putting yourself in the shoes of your audience/participants, and thinking through their emotional journey through your experience; this leverages aspects of "persona profiling", "journey-mapping", and story-telling. Many of these concepts you can learn about through self-taught videos on-line. Lastly, there are emerging elements to the Metaverse, such as "NFTs" (Non-Fungible Tokens), Decentralized Architectures, Avatars, etc. that may also be creatively incorporated into the experience that differentiate the experience from others in unique and relevant/useful ways. On our periodic "All-Teams Community Calls", the Exponential Destiny team will share with you what they have learned as it pertains to these concepts.

• Educational effectiveness for SDGs – As noted above, too much "Wow" factor could be counter-productive and even distracting, so make sure your experience has a good balance of education and entertainment ("edu-tainment"), as your final experience will be evaluated on how accurately does it represent and “bring to life” the challenges and opportunities for the SDG, and how effective is the experience for teaching and educating a participant/audience about your SDG.

• Overall effectiveness as a tool for building interest and empathy for the SDG(s) - In general, overall we are looking for experiences in VR/Metaverse that are most effective for appealing to the emotional and intellectual side of "the public" in getting the average person exposed, interested, and an appreciation/understanding for the real issues and challenges - as well as opportunities - of the SDG.

• NOT A COMPETITION TO SOLVE THE SDG - It should be noted that this competition is not looking for teams to build VR experiences that help Solve the SDG. Although it is acceptable and appropriate to share some potential solutions and progress associated with the SDG, the judging will not specifically be focused on whether the experience described a good approach for solving the SDG. Judging is more focused on education, awareness, and ability of the experience to "inspire action", versus an evaluation of specific solutions (that perhaps could be the next competition!).

• Team's Ability to Do More with Less - The judging and evaluation will take into consideration how effective of an experience a team was able to design and create without spending an extraordinary amount of resources. In other words, this competition is not necessarily a "Beauty Contest" to see who can spend the most amount of money to develop the best quality graphics or digital animation. Considering part of the objective of this competition is to demonstrate how VR and the Metaverse may be a powerful tool for schools to use in education and learning, and not all schools have unlimited resources, it is important to show demonstrate how - even with a low budget - a team may create extremely effective educational experiences. (A bit of "working smarter not harder" mentality). Teams will NOT at all be penalized for using expensive digital objects, graphics, and designs in order to make their environment look more realistic and polished, however the judging will focus more on the real "edu-tainment" merits of the experience vs. the cosmetics.

• Composition and diversity of the team - Judging will also be influenced by the composition of the team, as a good experience is one that caters to a wide and diverse audience, thus a diverse team is often important so that an infusion of various ideas and perspectives may be included. (See Team Guidelines below).

• All students from High Schools (ages 14-18 years old) and Colleges (19+) may participate by selecting one SDG (of the 17) in which to focus.

• A team may only have a submission for one SDG for their age-group, and may not submit for multiple SDGs

• An individual team member may participate on multiple teams

• Each team may have no less than 2 members and no more than 6 members

• Team members may organize from any location and do not all have to be from the same geography or school, as “virtual” collaboration is encouraged in VR

• Multiple teams from a single – or same - School may participate (inter and intra-school friendly rivalry and competition within the broader competition is encouraged)

• Each team is highly encouraged to have at least a 70% / 30% male-to-female or female-to-male member composition. For example, a team of 6 individuals will need to be one of the following; 2 men and 4 women / 4 men and 2 women / 3 men and 3 women.

• Judging "bonus" preference is given for teams which demonstrate "inclusivity" (i.e., at least one member of the team from a lower-income and under-resourced community and/or social-program focused on providing educational and workforce development skills to individuals. Basically, each team is encouraged to have at least one team member who is brought into this opportunity who may not normally have access to exposure to this type of skills development initiative. Judges will take this "bonus points" team composition aspect into consideration as a criteria when making a final decision between competing team's experiences, particularly when Judges are evaluating two teams that meet all of the criteria equally, as this "inclusivity" aspect may be the "tie-breaker" assuming all other aspects equal.

• Each team may have an “Advisor”; a teacher, school administrator, someone in the VR Metaverse field, etc. in addition to the 2-6 core team members.

• For teams that can demonstrate an economical need for funding of VR headsets and/or internet access fees (i.e., low-income/under-resourced communities), a request for funding proposal (simple form) may be submitted, and sponsor funding may be available for those teams that qualify. In addition, any team may seek local sponsorship and funding for covering their own costs as part of their own fund-raising initiative. Starting in the March 2022 timeframe, for those teams that apply and qualify for low-income and economic-need who do not have the resources to purchase a Virtual Reality headset (e.g., Oculus Quest 2 at $350 USD), these teams may potentially be eligible for funds (subject to availability - see Sponsor Guidelines) to purchase a VR headset. (See "Submission Form for VR Headset Financial Support"). Note: Our goal is to fund teams that qualify, and thus will require Sponsor funding for the SDG in which the team is competing. If sponsor funds are secured, it will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis for qualifying teams only. In the Competition Guidelines for each SDG we will post clearly if there are funds available or not for this purpose, so competing teams know before applying.

• Each team will have from March 2022 to March 2023 to develop their team submissions using any VR platform of their choice (many top-production platforms are free of charge - Engage, Spatial, Gatherings, etc.). Any software charges that may exist for Metaverse platforms is the full responsibility of the teams.

• Teams may use any hardware of their choice. One recommended and preferred headset is the Oculus Quest 2 (rebranded, "Meta-Quest 2"), and retails for approximately $350 USD. https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/ , also there are refurbished options for this and other VR headsets.

It should be noted that many of the Judging and Evaluation Criteria listed above are more on the SUBJECTIVE vs. OBJECTIVE side of the scale. For example, an experience in VR that builds "Empathy" for one person, may be quite different than an experience for another person. There is not necessarily a "right vs. wrong" answer to how an experience should be developed and designed in all cases. (i.e., You ever watch a movie or play with a friend and you loved it and they didn't like it at all?). Thus, with full-transparency, teams can expect that the criteria above - although effective as general guidelines - will inherently be susceptible to subjective interpretation of the "Judges" used to evaluate the experiences. An experience may "feel" more compelling to one judge vs. another, without necessarily always an explicit and concrete explanation or score. This is the fun aspect of the Metaverse and Virtual Reality, and this competition will be an experiment into finding the often unexplainable "It Factor" that exists when you find a new artist, performer, or singer. Sometimes "art is in the eye of the beholder", and we are sure there will be some elements of that influencing the judging and evaluation process within this competition.

To put structure and control around the Evaluation and Judging, this Prize competition will follow a transparent, formal, and methodical process and timeline (spanning the launch on June 1st 2022 to the final awards on May 2023):

As described previously, small teams of 2 to 6 individuals in two age categories (age-group 14 to 18, and age-group 19+) will choose one of several new (low cost to free) Metaverse design and creation platforms to "bring to life" an SDG of their choice. There will be 17 finalists per age group - the top team from each of the 17 SDGS, of which one team per age group will be awarded the "Best Overall Experience of Show" top prize and honors, announced and awarded at a United Nations WSIS Summit (tentatively scheduled and Geneva, Switzerland in May-June 2023).

There will be a total prize purse amount for the #1 overall top-honors prize across all 17 SDG experiences created by competing teams - split between #1 top ranked team in the 14-18 age group and the 19+ age group. There is also potential prize purse amounts for the top performing team WITHIN each of the 17 SDGs per age-group (depends on obtaining prize Sponsors for each individual SDG).

Actual prize purse amounts (cash awards) will be updated in real-time as Sponsors apply and are accepted. Sponsors may be a company or individual who elects to contribute to the prize competition (non-profit donation) as an official sponsor. Sponsors need to apply and are only accepted if the organization or individual has an historical affinity to – and support for – one or more SDGs.

For each qualified Sponsor, their funding options are as follows:

• Sponsorship Option 1: Funding the overall grand-prize purse (cash award) going to the team awarded the "#1Overall Best Experience of Show" across all 17 SDGs. As described above, this is split between the two age-group category top ranked teams (14-18 and 19+).

• Sponsorship Option 2: Funding the prize purse (cash award) for the top-finalist team for ONE PARTICULAR SDG of the 17 SDGs. As described above, each SDG will be a competition within the competition, whereby a top finalist team will be identified from all of the teams competing within a particular SDG (Evaluation and Judging process described above). This SDG specific prize sponsorship funding will also be split between the two age-group category top ranked teams (14-18 and 19+).

A sponsor is required to contribute funding to the Option 1 "Overall Grand Prize" listed above, and has the additional option to also choose one or more SDG-Specific funding sponsor allocations - Option 2.

At the time of the official "Metaverse for SDGs Global Prize Competition" launch and announcement on February 28th 2022, there will be a select few "Premier Sponsors" who have committed funding for Option 1 above, as well as a select number of SDG-Specific sponsors (Option 2). This "current prize purse amount" will be published on the Prize web-site (www.SDGmetaversePrize.org) for the "Overall Best Experience of Show" (age groups 14-18 and 19+). In addition, any sponsor funding secured for a particular SDG will also be listed under the specific SDG prize registration section.

The Prize purse (cash) funding award amounts are an evolving (upward) denomination, considering Sponsors may apply to be a sponsor anytime between February 2022 and the final award ceremony in May 2023. The Exponential Destiny team will be actively engaging with Sponsors during this timeframe, with the anticipation (not a guarantee) that additional sponsors will want to support this initiative, beyond the original "Premier Sponsors" who applied and committed prior to the launch.

There is no limit on the number of individual sponsors (person or organization) that may apply and support this competition, either at the Overall Grand Prize level (Option 1) and/or for an individual SDG.

Our original objective was to secure sponsor funding for the prize purse (cash) for the "#1Overall Best Experience of Show" across all 17 SDGs (split between the two age-category teams). This objective was accomplished, prior to the launch on February 28th thanks to our Premier Sponsors.

Now our objective is to continue to raise funding for Prize purse awards for both Option 1 (overall across all 17 SDGs) and Option 2 (SDG-specific prize purses). As sponsors are identified and approved we will update the community of competing teams (and those interested in competing) on the web-site in real-time.

In addition, we will likely also use crowd-funding mechanisms, like GoFundMe, to attract additional sponsors/funding from smaller donor contributions.

The vast majority of a sponsors funding will be allocated as prize award (cash) for competing teams (as described above). However, there is a portion of the sponsor funding that will be used to cover the following additional costs and objectives:

• A pool of funding will be collected and reserved for competing teams to apply for economic assistance in affording a VR Headset. This will be very selective based on an application process, and only awarded to schools that are able to demonstrate they do not have the resources or local sponsor support to afford a VR headset, and that is a barrier limiting their ability to participate in the competition. The approval of applications will be based on a first-come-fist-serve basis, and only if funds are available.

• Potential travel costs for competing teams in the finals - As described previously, the 34 teams that are selected in Round 2 as the top finalist across the 17 SDGs in the two age-categories may be asked to come to Bucharest Romania in-person in order to demonstrate their experiences and also be present for the overall awards ceremony. If it is determined that this process will be done in-person (vs. 100% virtually), and thus travel is required (airfare, hotel, food, etc.) to the UN-ITU-PP summit in October in Bucharest Romania, an expense budget will be covered by using a portion of the Sponsor funding donations. Part of this determination will be based on the total prize accrual that is committed from all collective sponsors by March 2023.

• And finally, there are operational expenses for Exponential Destiny in which a portion of sponsor funding will need to be allocated. Specifically;

  • Operating team travel costs for the Exponential Destiny team members who are administering and operating the competition. This specifically includes less than 10 individuals traveling for the February 28th summit (Geneva, Switzerland) announcement and the May 2023 Geneva final evaluations, judging, and awards.

  • Prize Platform Fees - There is a cost incurred by Exponential Destiny charged by the prize competition platform being used to administer the prize, potential use of a prize platform HeroX, as well as other services they charge for running the competition on their platform.

  • Lastly, there is a portion of funding that will be used to compensate the Exponential Destiny team resources that contribute to the operations of the prize. The only individuals from Exponential Destiny that will be compensated are those young leaders and mentors on the team who come from low-income and under-resourced communities, as this compensation is part of their job responsibility after being upskilled/reskilled. In the spirit of full transparency; ALL of these personnel/resource payments - of fair market value - and any other allocations of Sponsor funding contributions will be outlined and itemized in detail and made public on the prize web-site during and at the conclusion of the competition. Note: Marcus Shingles - the Exponential Destiny co-founder and CEO is contributing his time 100% pro-bono and will not receive any personal compensation for his time and effort, nor will any other UN-ITU or other resource not mentioned. The first priority and objective is to funnel as much prize (cash) from sponsors directly to the competing teams as competition award, while covering out-of-pocket basic, reasonable, and required expenses of the Exponential Destiny team, and fair and reasonable compensation for the young leaders of Exponential Destiny for their time.

Any creation that a competing team produces in virtual reality for the purposes of this competition will remain the sole intellectual property of that team. Exponential Destiny will only use a team's experience with permission and for the purposes of this competition. Per the prize competition team agreement, each finalist team from Round 2 agrees to share their SDG Metaverse virtual experiences with the public for educational and awareness building purposes until the end December 31st 2023. Upon the conclusion of the competition and after the December 31st 2023 "Open House" sharing time-period, Exponential Destiny hopes and will encourage each finalist team to share their SDG education and learning experience that they produced with the world for free, open, and without restriction as a continued means to build awareness and empathy around the United Nations SDGs - an SDG Metaverse - however that decision will ultimately be left to the team that created the experience and thus is the owner of the IP.