Karen Stritzinger is a creative technologist and founder of a software company based in North Carolina, USA. Through virtual reality and immersive media, she crafts stories that connect technology with environmental and social themes. In 2020, she adopted two Jindo-mix rescue dogs from Jeju Island—an experience that sparked her interest in the island and its people. Inspired by Jeju’s nature and the ways living beings adapt to climate change, she began developing a game rooted in these ideas and eventually came to the island to conduct research in person. She is currently developing a virtual reality game titled Waves of Jeju: Haenyeo School. To ensure authenticity, she enrolled in the real-life Hansupul Haenyeo School to learn freediving alongside local women divers, and is working with an indie game studio in Seoul to design characters and environments. A portion of the game’s profits will go toward preserving Haenyeo culture and restoring marine ecosystems. Her work is rooted in cultural respect, local connection, and hope for the future. She walks the line between tradition and technology, using both as tools to tell stories that matter.