The global investment into the metaverse doubled to $120 billion in 2022. Central to this is the rise of virtual influencers who are fast dominating the face of digital. Of the 200+ virtual influencers on Instagram, not a single one represented the disability community. Sadly, much of what society considers to be "flaws" are removed. These "ideal" virtual humans reinforce unrealistic beauty standards, and lead to the reduced visibility of disabilities in the digital realm.

As a charity dedicated to enriching the lives of people with Down Syndrome, Down Syndrome International saw that increasingly more of their beneficiary's time was spent in the digital realm, yet there was very little visibility of people with disabilities or Down Syndrome there. DSI saw an opportunity to drive awareness and relevance with young people globally, and change the digital landscape to make it inclusive for the next generation.

Down Syndrome International subverted the popular trend of virtual influencers, and made history with a virtual influencer who was designed intentionally with a disability.

Introducing Kami - the world's first virtual influencer with Down Syndrome. Kami is a virtual human who is designed with the look, characteristics and behaviours of real young women with Down Syndrome. Kami's mission is to make the virtual world more inclusive, and represent the Down Syndrome community authentically in the virtual spaces they've never previously been visible.

Kami reinforced the message that people with Down Syndrome have every right to exist in the real world and the virtual, and that everyone should be able to be represented as themselves.

To ensure Kami was authentic to the group of people she represented, every part of her was co-created by a group of 100 real young women with Down Syndrome from 16 different countries. DSI teamed up with leading virtual modelling agency The Diigitals to build Kami from scratch and bring the women's vision to life.

Kami needed to represent all women with Down Syndrome globally. So to create Kami’s face, 100 young women sent in their headshots to be merged together using machine learning to create an “average face”. This 2D face became the base to build Kami’s 3D character in a program called Daz3D, uniting aspects of every woman's face into one single form. Next, details like freckles, eyelashes and skin texture were painstakingly added in 3D.

The collective of young women designed Kami’s hairstyle (pigtails), hair color (purple), and her make-up and wardrobe using sketches and reference images.

It was imperative that Kami’s body was reflective of the typical proportions of Down Syndrome including a shorter stature, smaller hands, and heavier mid-section. She was modelled after a real young woman with Down Syndrome, the project's Executive Producer Ellie Goldstein. Ellie's measurements were used to build Kami's body shape in Daz3D. Kami's head was then combined with her body, completing Kami as a 3D avatar.

Kami's movement, poses and facial expressions are all authentic. Every image begins with photographing a real body double with Down Syndrome. Kami's avatar is then tracked and matched to the exact pose and facial expression of the young woman, allowing their personality to shine through.

The project pioneered a new method of designing and running virtual humans whereby the virtual human is created and managed by a collective of people they represent. Kami is currently the only virtual human using this inclusive technique.