Since it was founded, HP has prioritized global citizenship and today corporate social responsibility remains central to the brand’s ethos. With the larger goal of being the most sustainable and just tech company, HP created Generation Impact, a docu-series that features inspiring stories of young innovators using technology to impact their communities and create a more equitable world.
HP’s core CSR objectives, which include taking action to combat climate change, accelerate digital equity and protect human rights, are each featured in the individual films in the series. The first film, The Coder, follows Jay Jay, who at age 13 built a mobile app to help kids stay connected to incarcerated parents. Jay Jay now teaches coding to teens and is determined to create opportunities for people of color in tech fields. The Inventor tells the story of a young inventor who turned his high school science fair project into the lightest and most affordable 3-D printed prosthetic limb, giving new capabilities to hundreds of young people with limb differences. In The Scientist, we meet Emily Tianshi, a young woman striving to raise awareness and create solutions for the global water crisis. Using a $20 microscope, Legos and household items, she developed a prototype to harvest atmospheric moisture, as a way to help produce water in areas of severe drought.
These are true stories of drive, hope and ingenuity, made with the objective of highlighting diverse subjects, from very different backgrounds, all devoted to making a difference using cutting-edge technology.
In order for the Generation Impact series to reach its target audience and inspire others to embrace technology, HP worked with agency Passion Point Collective to identify and implement the following strategies:
Align with HP’s PATH and HP Life programs, which offer investment in local initiatives, tech sector training and address challenges for underserved communities.
Partner with Hearst Media to feature each of the episodes on Seventeen.com, as part of its Voices of Change series, with editorial, paid media and social amplification.
Screen the films at international film festivals, with a focus on those for documentary, shorts, BIPOC filmmakers and themes relevant to the individual films.
Pitch film/entertainment media for an exclusive trailer premiere and news features on the individual films.
Partner with nonprofits Girl Rising and The Female Quotient to produce panel discussions and social media supporting the films.
Distribute the films on HP’s own content site The Garage, the brand’s YouTube channel and a video-on-demand platform.
Work with a social/digital team to create custom assets and collaborate with tech influencers.
Generation Impact has 498K views on YouTube and is also available to view on HP content site The Garage, Seventeen and Indieflix, a VOD platform for purpose-based content.
Exclusive premieres of the episode trailers ran on comingsoon.net.
The films earned placement in 23 media outlets, including Wired, AdAge, Good Day New York, WebMD and ABC News.
Editorial features about the three subjects ran on the Seventeen home page. Seventeen also ran video ads across multiple Hearst platforms, day-in-the-life TikTok videos and promotion on social media channels.
A paid partnership with The Weather Channel for Earth Day featured The Scientist in a broadcast interview segment and on its content site.
HP collaborated with 28 influencers focused on STEM, the environment and girl-empowerment.
To date, the films have been accepted to 25 international film festivals.
Virtual panel discussions with the film subjects and filmmakers took place in partnership with Girl Rising and The Female Quotient, at The Cannes Lions and for Earth Day.
Subject Emily Tianshi served as a mentor for HP’s Girls Save The World global competition, in partnership with MIT.
Jay Jay Patton and her dad appeared on The Ellen Show after the film’s release, and received funding on the show for their STEM education program.
Jay Jay’s coding school provided training to HP Life participants.
