Ollie Ranken
Writer/Director DOWNLOADED
Ollie Rankin is a Kiwi-Canadian creative technology pioneer, award-winning artist and activist.
Two decades at the forefront of the global visual effects industry, from The Lord of the Rings to Alice Through the Looking Glass laid the creative and technical foundations for his work in the emerging field of XR. Ollie has produced music festivals in the metaverse that were seen by millions, created interactive virtual reality films that toured the world and had a hand in ground-breaking technology advancements. He was an early inductee into the Unreal Virtual Production Fellowship, a long-time member of both the Visual Effects Society and VR/AR Association and has been recognized as a top ten thought leader in VR.
But Ollie’s life mission is to leave the world more inclusive, equitable and sustainable than he found it. To that end, Ollie founded the non-profit United Humans to advance Optimalism, an open source economic and political system that uses science to optimize for universally fair and beneficial outcomes.
Ollie on the power of story:
“Long before books and usb drives, stories were the first technology humans invented to store and share information essential to our survival. In prehistoric times, stories taught us things like how to hunt and which berries were safe to eat. Our survival today depends on us learning to be less selfish and greedy; more compassionate and collaborative. Stories are still the best tool for the job.”