Curiosity Mobile: Civic Storytelling for a More Relational Democracy | Curiosity Mobile

Quick Project Overview

Status: Fall 2025-June 2026 (Ongoing)

Curiosity Mobile is a national storytelling project exploring how people across the U.S. experience democracy, community, and civic life—on the ground and in everyday places — all leading to TED Democracy in Philadelphia, PA, in June 2026 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States.

The project combines intimate, place-based storytelling with an intentional distribution strategy designed to reach diverse civic, cultural, and media audiences.

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• Context & Background

  At a time when civic life often feels abstracted, polarized, or inaccessible, Curiosity Mobile seeks to re-humanize democracy through lived experience. Rather than centering institutions, the project centers people—capturing curiosity, connection, and meaning-making across difference. The work emphasizes storytelling as civic infrastructure, helping audiences reconnect with democracy as something lived, relational, and shared.

• Collaborators & Partners

  • Curiosity Mobile — Project lead

  • Scott Shigeoka — Lead storyteller and on-camera host

  • TEDxDemocracy (Philadelphia, PA)

  • Visit Philly — Producing Partner

  • Future Caucus — Strategic story partner (Washington, DC)

  • Distribution partners across media, civic, and cultural organizations

• My Role

  As Storytelling & Distribution Strategy Lead and Producer, I support both narrative development and the partnership infrastructure that ensures Curiosity Mobile stories reach the right audiences. I serve as Producer for the Washington, DC storytelling highlight, collaborating closely with Future Caucus to shape the story arc, coordinate pre-production, and support on-the-ground storytelling, while also designing values-aligned distribution systems to amplify reach.

• What We Did

  Storytelling & Production

  • Co-developed the Washington, DC story plan in collaboration with Curiosity Mobile and Future Caucus

  • Created a 60–90 second narrative outline to guide filming and editing

  • Conducted pre-interviews with featured participants to shape story arc and themes

  • Supported on-the-ground storytelling production in Washington, DC

  • Organized and delivered raw footage and narrative outlines to post-production

  Distribution & Partnerships

  • Developed a strategy for content distribution across aligned civic and cultural partners

  • Built systems for partner outreach, onboarding, and relationship stewardship

  • Identified and engaged new distribution partners aligned with Curiosity Mobile’s mission

  • Coordinated collaborative posts and cross-promotion with partners and social media leads

  • Tracked partner shares and distribution reach to inform ongoing strategy

• Outputs

  • Story outlines and production briefs (60–90 sec narratives)

  • Pre-interview notes and storytelling documentation

  • Raw footage packages delivered to post-production

  • Distribution strategy framework and partner tracking system

  • Collaborative content plans with distribution partners

• Tools Used

  • Narrative development and story arc frameworks

  • Partner outreach and relationship management systems

  • Google Docs & Drive for story planning and asset sharing

  • Zoom for pre-interviews and partner coordination

  • Collaborative social media workflows

Impact & Learning

As it relates to work:

• Strengthened the storytelling-to-distribution pipeline, connecting narrative creation with intentional reach

• Demonstrated how civic storytelling can center lived experience and curiosity over institutional abstraction

• Built scalable infrastructure for values-aligned content distribution across civic ecosystems

As it relates to me more personally:

• This project deepened my belief in storytelling as a strategic practice of curiosity, not just a production output. My role centered on narrative strategy—shaping how the story is framed, what questions it invites, and how historic context and lived experience are held together—rather than the mechanics of videography itself.

• Producing the DC storytelling highlight required holding historic consciousness of place, power, and legacy, while approaching the future of U.S. democracy with grounded curiosity and hope. Working at this intersection clarified for me how narrative strategy can support a more relational vision of this country’s future—one that resists polarization, honors complexity, and invites people to remain engaged with democracy as something human, evolving, and shared.