New Series of Co-Design Sessions in Partnership with Meta and Joan Ganz Cooney Center
GIANT Partners With Meta in collaboration with Joan Ganz Cooney Center from Sesame Workshop!
The GIANT Room, an innovation hub for children and their families, is excited to announce they will be partnering with Meta and Joan Ganz Cooney Center from Sesame Workshop to bring kids’ voices and their well-being at the center of a guide that is being created for VR/AR developers. This guide will be co-designed with children and their families to support developers in designing metaverses and game experiences that are safe, engaging, and useful for kids. Families with youth ages 10-14 are invited to apply.
As a token of appreciation for your time, families will receive $210 for joining all three sessions.
Participation entails joining three free workshops focused on co-designing and prototyping a new guide with the Meta’s design team. Participating youth are required to join all three sessions and their parents are asked to join the final session. Youths who join will have a chance to learn and practice the art of giving and receiving feedback and then to join a prototyping exercise with industry innovators and researchers. These workshops will be scheduled on May 1st and May 2nd from 4pm to 6pm, and then May 3rd from 11am to 1pm. All sessions will be held in person at The GIANT Room in the financial district in New York City.
The GIANT Room believes the most engaging and effective learning experiences are the ones that are designed with children’s point of view in mind, and even better, those that are designed with children and their families involved in the design process. “As part of our mission, we thrive to amplify children’s voices and bring their ideas into the design process of products that are being designed for them,” Dr. Jamalian, The GIANT Room’s CEO explains, “this will benefit children who participate in these sessions, by engaging in design thinking, teamworking, and building prototypes with designers in the field, and also children who will use these products once in the market.”
Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented, virtual, and mixed reality to help build the next evolution in social and gaming technology. Some of these experiences are being designed for youths and so it is extremely important for children and their parents to be part of the decision making on what should and should not be designed for them, while having their well-being and safety in mind.
Named after Sesame Street’s visionary co-founder, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center is an independent research and innovation lab within Sesame Workshop dedicated to shaping a positive digital future for children. The Center conducts cutting-edge research on emerging technologies, partners with industry leaders, academics, and educators to translate insights into action, and works closely with policymakers and investors to drive meaningful conversations and decisions. By actively involving children and young people in co-designing the tools that they use, the Center ensures that innovations enhance both learning and well-being—ultimately empowering children to thrive in the digital world.
This program is completely free for children and their families to participate. We are accepting a limited number of children in New York City to participate in the program. Families with children ages 10-14 are invited to apply. As a token of appreciation for your time, families will receive $210 for joining all three sessions.
Location: The GIANT Room at 25 Broadway, 12th floor, New York, NY, 10004
Dates and Times: May 1st and May 2nd from 4pm to 6pm, and May 3rd from 11am to 1 pm.