Winning Presentation @ Deloitte. x Kode With Klossy AI Sustainability Challenge, 2025
Programming: Xcode, Swift, SwiftData. Assets/Visuals: Procreate for iPad.
As all great things do, my project began with a pun.
Ailuro is Greek for cat, and the first two letters spell AI: AI-LURO!
When we discuss AI, a medley of intrigue, mystery, curiosity, and fear emerges. This medley also emerges when we (I) discuss cats. In the words of the machine itself, AI is like a cat – quick to adapt and always surrounded by a tinge of abstraction, of mystery.
Ailuro seeks to remedy both ailurophobia and “AI”-phobia, by educating the user on AI’s direct and indirect impact on our environment in a playful, cat-planet-projective manner.
The user can visualize the positives and negatives of AI on the environment in the Planet AI-LURO Game. AI-LURO is like Earth, but run by cats. Specifically, these cats and the AI “cats” run a clean energy “paw”-ffice together.
Planet AI-LURO represents a window into the cats of Planet AI-LURO’s daily lives, while the Informational views mimic apps or sites they would use or create with. I decided on a feline and planetary theme to encourage the user to view the matter more objectively – we are better at judging from a third-person than a first-person perspective.
I wove the educational content into an engaging, playful storyline by presenting the information as social media "posts”, embedding easter eggs of the same cat characters throughout the views.
The “KitKot (TikTok)” page features a “Com-meow-nts” section where the user can view more nuanced takes on the topic presented in the “Video” frame, while “The Meow Yorker” is a mock online article written by my second-favorite cat character, Bob Purrson. The social media theme was inspired by how I learned the most about AI’s footprint from dynamic discussions on online forums, which inspired me to highlight both the pros and cons of AI on our planet.
Ailuro de-abstracts the relationship between AI and the environment by recontextualizing it with a fantasy cat planet, as the first step in achieving sustainability with AI is by raising awareness!