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For every tree drawing submitted on Earth Day, the digital platform Piccles will plant an actual tree. (Courtesy Piccles)
Piccles, a digital platform that allows participants to submit computer-created drawings to a shared online gallery, has taken off this year with planners and with event participants who’ve used it to express themselves creatively during digital meetings and special events. When the Office of Human Rights in Montgomery County, Maryland, used Piccles during its Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute and Celebration in January, for example, the platform collected 3,000 drawings in 10 minutes. And when National Association of REALTORS (NAR) used the platform at its all-digital meeting last fall, a session featuring Piccles turned out to be one of the conference’s top-rated sessions, said Heidi Henning, NAR’s vice president for meetings and events.
The drawings generated by event participants live on in videos and other graphics, but for Earth Day, Piccles founder, Montreal-based entrepreneur Chris Bent, is offering a way to give the drawings even more life. Through the end of April 22, Bent has invited everyone to use the app to draw a tree — and for every tree drawing submitted, Piccles will plant an actual tree. (Draw your own tree here.)
Bent launched the tree-planting initiative on social media both to celebrate Earth Day and to test his hunch that Piccles could serve as an engaging vehicle to bring people together, not just to share themselves, but to join together to support social causes, he said.
“A whole world of opportunity opens up by creating digital experiences with a real-world impact,” Bent told Convene. “By merging the digital and physical, we have the opportunity to enhance both, and connect people to causes in new and unique ways.”
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