Abrehet Gebreyohannes, like thousands of villagers in arid Ethiopia, treks up to 6 hours every day through difficult terrain to collect (typically dirty) water for her family. charity: water is working to change this. For their 2018 charity: ball, TRADEMARK and BODEGA teamed up with the challenge of using technology to engage donors to fund clean water projects in Ethiopia. The ambitious vision started with the simple concept of time.

To communicate the concept, our team used specially designed 360-degree camera rigs to document Abrehet’s journey, surrounding attendees on a bespoke 276×20-foot circular LED “halo” screen in the San Francisco Armory. As the evening progressed, Abrehet’s daily journey unfolded in real-time, step by laborious step.

Each guest had an iPad with a custom app connected to a back-end server that tracked and tallied donations— representing both money as well as villagers’ time— graphically on the halo screen. The experience exceeded expectations, raising over $7M, a charity: water record. That was enough to fund more than 500 clean water projects, and give back 28.4 million hours.