Roamancing
Culture Travels Podcast / Roamancing
Stareable, Vidme, Seeka TV
Fearless, EVRGRN Channel, STIRR
Hi! I am the Founder and Creative Head of Ahimsa Media, Roamancing, and StoryToGo. My specialty is in creating cross-platform media and interactive and immersive storyworlds. In fact, I’ve been doing this before there were terms for this form of storytelling, which led me to create of one of the earlier digital / transmedia storytelling companies.
Over the years, I have written for TV, magazines, books, the web and the education sector. I’ve worked as a creative producer for TV and theatre, directed, and starred in my own TV Show. Ultimately the adventures I had telling stories and speaking around the world, lead me to create our digital travel and culture magazine, Roamancing. Our goal with Roamancing is to uncover the love and beauty around this world of ours, and increase cultural understanding. In this bent, my team and I have been developing internationally award winning documentaries, web series and podcasts that do just that.
Recently I completed a Master of Educational Technology with a storytelling focus. Through that process, I:
I won awards, received grants, and spoke around the world on the work I did on sustainable funding models, accessibility, and XR storytelling; in addition to becoming a grantee, Ambassador, and long-term member of the Interledger Foundation community.
As a part of our accessibility work, we began creating an audio version of our articles on Roamancing and StoryToGo, that we are releasing through the podcasts Roamancing Reads and StoryToGo Reads, as well as embedding into our articles, allowing visitors to listen to the articles, read by the article’s author. In addition to these podcasts, our other ongoing podcasts include Culture Travels, in which we learn something new each episode from the culture of our guests (this includes everything from cooking to handicrafts to music to history to languages …etc), the Sustainable Funding Series, Exploring Extended Reality (XR) and Encounters in EdTech. Additional I produced and hosted Web Monetized (a podcast for the Interledger Foundation at MozFest), produced Anne Webster’s award winning My Ukrainian Heritage podcast, produced the Live from the Interledger Summit 2023 Podcast, and have in the past been a regular on an international cooking podcast called the Social Cooking Club (in which 5 of us originating from 5 different countries cook together from afar, chatting about food and culture) and on The Creative Farm (a contemporary media podcast). Our work in making podcasting accessible to others, through open educational course materials has won us an innovation award from CNIE.
With my Masters now completed, my Director and Cinematographer Kelly Conlin and I are gearing up to shoot more seasons of our internationally award winning web series and nature documentary Naturally Ours. We have been developing an accompanying website for that series with parks guides and educational resources for use in the classroom. You can visit that site, which is a work in progress, here: https://roamancing.com/naturallyours
Secondarily to this series, we are working on an Eco-Friendly Campervan Build to act as a studio on wheels for us, when we are filming in remote locations, as well as a Roadtripping and Wellness Retreat vehicle for my cat and I, of which we plan to share adventure from. As we are intending to set up our Eco-Friendly Campervan Build as either an all electric or a hybrid campervan, we are planning to film a web series and / or documentary on this process and the subsequent roadtripping adventures, as there are a lot of questions around the feasibility of this in roadtripping communities.
We are also working on the development of an augmented reality natural and cultural history storytelling project, which will allow visitors to a place to travel through time, to learn from those who have been there before them, via their smartphones and tablets. With this we have begun with stories of Japanese Canadian in World War II, designed to create ghostly memories in AR in places of historical significance to Japanese Canadians in World War II. Using similar technology, we are also working on some movement and mindfulness pieces in VR for managing chronic pain and general health and wellness. Currently I am partaking in the Mosaic Accelerator to grow this side of our storytelling and business.
Lastly, as an experimenter, tinkerer, and pioneer of newer technologies and newer digital platforms, I am an earlier adopter in the travel space in many such newer platforms, such as Mastodon, BlueSky and Castopod.
It is with our documentaries, web series, podcast and augmented reality storytelling in mind, that I am attending the 2024 TMAC Conference. We would love to talk to people about the possibilities of:
I should also note, that while I see myself as a child of Canada (which the campervan will allow me to do more slow travel across the country), I have two homes in Canada where I am when not traveling – in BC’s lower mainland (my official home) and Southern Ontario (when I am spending time with my mom).
Looking forward to seeing you in St John’s to catch up over good food and beverages, and enjoy nerdy musings on bridging stories and technology to bring adventure, travel, and culture to life, transcending time and space!
Heading on a car camping trip, leaving from Gander, post the post trips, if anyone has suggestions of adventures. Presently thinking of heading in the direction of Gros Morne.