Polycular GmbH

𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱-𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁: 𝗘𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗙𝗮𝗸𝗲 🎉 🎉 Escape Fake, developed by Austrian studio Polycular GmbH in collaboration with Waag Futurelab (NL) and dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (DE), has been named winner of the European Digital Skills Award 2025 in the Education category by the European Commission. Congratulations! Selected from over 250 submissions across Europe, Escape Fake was recognized for its outstanding contribution to media literacy and digital education. The jury highlighted its innovative combination of augmented reality storytelling, interactive game-based learning, and a comprehensive educational toolkit that equips young people with critical digital competences. The award was presented during the EU Skills Days in November. Available in seven languages and downloaded more than 130,000 times, Escape Fake is already used by educators and facilitators across Europe to teach critical thinking and media literacy in an engaging, immersive way. Together with its partners, the team actively involves young people in co-creating new game chapters and educational tools. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 🚀: A new chapter launching in spring 2026 will explore youth identity and social media polarization, deepening Escape Fake’s mission to strengthen democratic resilience through digital education. 𝗔𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁, Escape Fake is now taking the next step: Working with tailored expert support, investor access, and a strong impact network to scale its educational reach and long-term sustainability. Photo credit: © EU Jobs and Skills Platform 

Escape Fake is excited to invite you to a special series of “Play & Talk” sessions at this year’s Ars Electronica Festival in Linz! 📅 When: Wednesday, 3 September (14:00–15:30) Saturday, 6 September (14:00–15:30) Sunday, 7 September (14:00–15:30) 📍 Where: Escape Fake booth, Ars Electronica Festival in the Create Your World section (Post City, Ground floor) During these sessions, visitors can test a variety of physical and digital games prototyped by students and teachers as part of #EscapeFake’s co-design programme, and join in conversations about what it means to create new media literacy tools. We’ll be joined by teachers and students from HTL Salzburg, who will share their first-hand experiences of designing educational games: 🤭 Oops Online: a card game where players rank the severity of online mishappenings;  🔏 Digital Privacy Stories: a guess card game to unpack how data was used in mysterious circumstances; 🤖 Killbots: a shooter game where players must distinguish between bots and humans;  🧑💻 Hacker: a web game where players are challenged to guess users’ passwords;   💬 Filter Bubbles: a playful experience where players create online content that becomes increasingly polarizing, pitting cat fans against dog fans, and Spiderman against Superman 😁; 💻 Truth Seeker: a web game challenging how to infiltrate disinformation groups.  👉 Don’t miss this chance to play, reflect, and talk with the next generation of media literacy innovators! Program link in the comment 👇 #medialiteracy #escapefake #codesign

In 2021, we started working on Crew Together — an immersive experience designed to help teams thrive, whether they are co-located, remote or hybrid. After over seven years creating custom experiences to tackle HR challenges like onboarding, culture-building, and employee engagement, we began to notice a pattern. Across industries and company sizes, the same pain points kept coming up. To validate these insights, we also conducted interviews with senior HR leaders and coaches in organizational development. Here’s what we learned — and why we decided to build Crew Together. #teamdevelopment #teamtraining #collaboration #immersivelearning #XR

Try Crew Together XR live in Stuttgart! We’re excited to showcase this immersive team experience at FMX (7.5.) and XR Expo (8.5.) this week. Crew Together XR is an immersive multiplayer experience that boosts team collaboration, communication, and growth. Each mission introduces different challenges and includes a guided reflection, enabling teams to strengthen collaboration skills and develop deeper trust and empathy in an engaging, impactful format. Thanks to the invitation from Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg you can experience Crew Together XR in action at the shared EMIL-XR exhibition space. Stop by, try the demo, and get a glimpse into the future of collaborative learning in XR. More on Crew Together XR: https://crewtogether.io FMX: https://fmx.de XR Expo: https://xrexpo.tech/