Fulbright Canada: Immersive Healer

In 2022, Fulbright Canada launched the Post-COVID Challenge to recognize innovative solutions addressing the social, cultural, and economic aftermath of the pandemic. Among the selected finalists was Immersive Healer, a virtual reality project conceived and directed by Kaiwen Yang, founder of Skape Innovations.

Developed as a digital cultural center, Immersive Healer reconstructs Vancouver’s historic Hogan’s Alley — once a thriving Black community erased by urban renewal — as an interactive virtual environment. The project enables visitors to walk through reconstructed spaces, hear recorded stories, and engage with the neighborhood’s living heritage.

Presented at the Fulbright finals in Ottawa, the work was celebrated for its union of technology and empathy — demonstrating how immersive design can function as both a tool of preservation and a medium of reconciliation.

Since the Challenge, Immersive Healer has become a model for applying extended-reality storytelling to cultural resilience.

It continues to inform Skape Innovations’ broader inquiry into how spatial computing can archive memory, foster belonging, and renew connection between people and place.

For a closer look at the project and its development, please explore the presentation below. It offers a visual and narrative context to the profound impacts of the Immersive Healer.