Industry Day

Experience creation and innovation at MDM Industry Day: Connections.

When: August 8, 2024
Time: Drop by between 3:00 - 6:00 pm
Where: Rogers Communications Centre, The Catalyst (80 Gould Street (2nd Floor) Toronto, ON M5B 2M7)

Our graduation project, in collaboration with the Aga Khan Museum, explores constellations in Islamic religious culture. Utilizing laser cutting and augmented reality (AR) technology, we create an immersive experience that aligns with the museum's theme of "Light." Our project aims to showcase the intricate forms of constellations through light projections, highlighting their historical and cultural significance in Islamic art and science. The laser-cut constellations, illuminated through our displays, captivate and educate the audience. AR technology further enhances engagement by allowing visitors to interact dynamically with the constellations, exploring detailed information, historical context, and associated stories. This approach bridges traditional exhibits and modern digital experiences, making learning more entertaining. By combining traditional craftsmanship with modern technology, we emphasize the contributions of Islamic scholars to astronomy, symbolizing enlightenment, knowledge, and discovery. Our exhibit, designed to be accessible to a wide range of audiences, fosters exploration and curiosity, encouraging a deeper appreciation of Islamic heritage. In summary, our project fuses art, science, and technology, bringing the constellations of Islamic religious culture to life in an informative and engaging manner, inspiring learners and showcasing the timeless beauty of these celestial patterns

The Echo Wave Project, in partnership with the City of Toronto’s Future Makers initiative, aims to showcase and advance the city’s creative contributions to the future of creative storytelling and media arts. Through this collaboration, our team addresses the crucial issue of mental health in Toronto by employing innovative and creative approaches.

Our project centers on an immersive art installation that utilizes human-centred technology to reshape mental wellness awareness. By leveraging EEG technology, we visualize mental reflections as abstract art, thereby enhancing dialogue and presenting unique artistic interpretations of mental health.

Participants' experience begins with a documentary-style video that introduces the project and its immersive qualities, emphasizing empathy, diversity, and inclusivity within the context of mental health. This introduction sets the stage for direct interaction with EEG brain scanning technology, enabling individuals to engage deeply with their mental states and fostering introspection and emotional connection. The experience culminates in an artistic visualization where digital representations of mental reflections stimulate thought and creativity.

Through The Echo Wave Project, we strive to inspire positive mental health practices and foster meaningful community engagement, enhancing the dialogue around mental wellness in Toronto.

Today’s ever-evolving digital landscape has allowed for social media to be utilized in business and higher educational settings. TikTok in 2023 has 1.1 billion monthly active users and Instagram in 2021 has 2 billion monthly active users (Statistica 2023d; Shewale 2023). The majority (69.1%) of TikTok users are individuals between the ages of 18-35 years old (Statistica 2023). These platforms have been used to create a strong sense of community and belonging and an inclusive and supportive campus environment; hence, enhancing students’ satisfaction and retention (Rutter, Roper, and Lettice, 2016). This study aims to understand the current social media strategies and goals for universities to enhance their student retention.

The project, "The Canadian English Dictionary," aims to create a comprehensive online resource for native and fluent English-speaking adults in Canada. This initiative seeks to modernize Canada's linguistic resources, promote Canadianisms, and establish a strong online presence for the Canadian English Dictionary, making it the go-to source for the Canadian English language. The website will offer spellings, definitions, pronunciations, examples, intuitive navigation, and interactive features such as commenting and bookmarking. It will also pursue monetization opportunities like selling linguistic merchandise and word adoption initiatives. The project is dedicated to incorporating Canadianisms and user-friendly features, ultimately empowering users to explore the richness of Canadian English and aligning with CED's mission as a premier linguistic resource.

The age-based digital divide significantly limits older adults, a growing portion of the population, from participating in digital culture. Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to help bridge this divide through intuitive and engaging digital experiences that blend the digital and physical worlds. However, there is limited research on the design and usability requirements of this unique user group. Through a systematic literature review, this paper identifies usability considerations from existing studies and presents a thematic analysis working towards a design framework. This paper aims to inform the development of future AR applications and services, ultimately helping to bridge the digital divide.

Our project details the process of developing an interactive museum experience for the Aga Khan that promotes further exploration of artifacts, namely the ceramics in the Bellerive room. To address the museum’s need for a family-friendly, movable exhibit in this multipurpose room, a multimedia experience was developed and prototyped. Through a combination of engaging digital learning modules and tactile puzzle recreations of select ceramics, museum visitors will be able to explore Aga Khan’s Bellerive Room collection and gain a deeper understanding of Islamic ceramic arts over the years. This solution can be implemented in other exhibits with fragile artifacts to increase accessibility or act as companion learning modules for existing exhibits. By marrying historical inquiry with technological advancement, the hope is for this multimedia approach to ignite curiosity, spark dialogue, and foster a renewed appreciation for the enduring legacy of ceramic artistry.

This project examines whether gamification principles are universally effective in educational and training contexts. By analyzing core mechanisms—narrative immersion, interactive challenges, and tailored rewards—this research evaluates their efficacy and adaptability. Three distinct games were developed: "Undone," a social impact game for children; "CareQuest," a training game for healthcare professionals; and "Game Splash," teaching the public how to build a game. These serve as case studies to assess gamification's universality and effectiveness. This research highlights the transformative potential of educational gamification, offering a framework for designing engaging and impactful learning experiences.

We are Sportmeet, two master's students of digital media enrolled in the MDM program at Toronto Metropolitan University, embarking on an innovative MRP project to develop Sportmeet. Our mission is to revolutionize recreational sports networking using digital media, including graphic design, gamification, and AI simulation, ultimately enhancing the way individuals connect and engage in sports activities.

The phenomenon of remote working, particularly among digital nomads, presents a dynamic landscape of communication and collaboration strategies that challenge traditional organizational paradigms. This theoretical paper explores the interconnections in remote working through a comprehensive review and refinement of existing theoretical concepts and frameworks. By examining the unique lifestyles of digital nomads, the study highlights how they navigate remote communication and collaboration complexities. It also investigates the impact of digital infrastructure on productivity and professional relationships. Through rigorous analysis, the paper provides insights that expand current theories and address their limitations.

There is no more widely implemented application of machine learning than that of recommender systems. Every “related product” on Amazon, every movie “you might like” on Netflix, and all of the “songs for you” on Spotify are the suggestions of these systems; complex algorithms that pull from diverse collections of information about you, the user, with one goal: to keep you engaged with a platform. But recently there has been a shift, a recognition that these systems exist in complex ecosystems where simply recommending the highest predicted result is no longer what’s best for the system as a whole. This thesis focuses on a small part of what has become a large question in a huge domain; How do we consider fairness and responsibility when making recommendations? Through a systematic review, we hope to show where recent work has taken this discussion and identify gaps that still exist in the literature.

Envisioning Tomorrow: The Interactive Smart City Model is designed to ignite inspiration and empower individuals to shape a sustainable future for  Toronto in 2050. This transformative exhibit equips citizens from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and contribute unique ideas that foster a harmonious coexistence of community and cutting-edge technology. 

Using immersive storytelling and building an interactive "blocks of change" table, our exhibit motivates, educates and inspires, encouraging them to actively participate as agents of change. Powered by a live Generative AI pipeline, the exhibit showcases striking visual outputs, showcasing the distinctiveness of each individual and their potential to influence the city's future. Utilizing Python, AI prompt engineering, and Generative AI, this custom tool is designed for use by policymakers, creatives, architects, and responsible citizens.

We are BAYBES, a group of Master of Digital Media students enrolled in the MDM program at Toronto Metropolitan University. We have embarked on an innovative MRP project in collaboration with the Baycrest Academy for Research & Education. Our mission is to boost Baycrest’s Long Term Care (LTC) training with digital media, including graphic design, gamification, and AI simulation, ultimately contributing to the advancement of clinical education in long-term care.

The advent of the internet and the ubiquity of technology have brought forth an extension of culture. As art follows this extension and assumes digital forms, significance of the physical attributes inherent in traditional art are obscured. From this obscurity, a question emerges: can digital art possess tangibility? Do humans desire that it does? This research project explores the values associated with the tangible aspects of art and examines how these values translate into the digital art landscape.

Central to this project is the concept of Dust Armour: the attempt to imbue digital art with tangibility. This concept is realised through an expansion of established and contemporary media literature, complemented by a multimedia showcase of artworks and designs integral in theme, and culminates in the Frame. As a self-contained hardware system for displaying audiovisual interactive art, the Frame acts as an example of the bridge between technological intrigue and the preservation of valued attributes found within traditional art.

This thesis explores how scent can enhance immersive experiences in educational settings by triggering emotional memories and improving recall. By using specific scents, educators can evoke emotions and strengthen memory, offering innovative approaches to teaching and learning. The research provides valuable insights and practical applications for creating more effective and engaging educational environments.

The project, “Kaleidoscope.TO,” introduces an interactive city-wide scavenger hunt experience that aims to revolutionize the exploration of Toronto’s key markets by utilizing AR, interactive web and video, and QR code technology. Targeted toward Gen Z, this scavenger hunt seeks to highlight new perspectives and change the way tourism is viewed through the inclusion of innovative technology.