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okay oh here we go wait a minute all right there we go we are on the last day of conference in our last presentation before closing it is only fitting that
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the person to end our academic program on this year of legacy be Jon Lester Jon Lester has worked with 3d virtual worlds and educational communities since the
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1990s creating online patient support groups for people dealing with neurological disorders developing immersive simulation courses for
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students at Harvard and building the spoke virtual world and VR educational applications for universities and businesses [Music]
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using platforms like unity and open simulator to create multi-user educational experiences for both be our base and desktop applications he also worked at linden lab known as pathfinder
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linden where he founded linden labs Boston office and led the development of the education and healthcare markets in second life while evangelizing the
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innovative use of virtual worlds in scientific research artistic expression and immersive learning he currently
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leads virtual excuse me I'm sorry about that um he currently leads virtual rehabs global technology strategic direction as their CTO working to reduce
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recidivism and REE incarceration rates [Music] through VR based immersive learning and rehabilitation programs he also serves
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on the board of directors of virtual ability incorporated and nonprofit organizations helping people with disabilities by building online communities of support using multi-user
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3d online virtual world technologies [Music]
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John originally studied at MIT and work in the neurology service at Massachusetts General Hospital for he researched neurodegenerative diseases while developing online learning and
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collaborative tools for physicians and patients to improve quality of life and facilitate knowledge sharing Jon Snow sonic science background combined with his community development in 3d virtual
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world experience gives him a unique perspective on how 3d virtual world in VR technology the best match to the human brains natural way of learning and perceiving
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the world around it everyone please help me welcome our special guest in keynote Jon Lester better known to many as pathfinder John Floyd yours okay can
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everyone hear me okay check one check two if people can hear me this is good yeah you know the voice aspect of the voice weird things happen with voice
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stuff happens it's okay we're all here we're all here again I won't be hearing you guys in voice but if you have any
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questions you can type them in chat or option i'll try to keep an eye on the the in world chat while I'm going through my slides yes today I'm a I'm a penguin because I just thought it would
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be fun and you know part of showing up yeah in a multi-user virtual world is actually having something kind of interesting to to see in world I loved this this little penguin out so I can
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throw fish at you guys let's see can you catch those oh now they're stopping okay I can litter the stage fish I can throw these fish at you I can fly yes amberjack I can also i can also call my
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cousins I can call a bunch of cousins here too they're very enthusiastic they really like me so they they will even clap and follow me around I just love I
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love this I mean this is part of the beauty of these types of environments that were in right so that we can actually have engagement with each other and engagement with the spaces in here
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and and things in the spaces and these little critters are following me around you should have been here earlier I rest I rest like 60 of them on the stage and the stage which is full of penguins
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clapping and coming after me and yeah they're just like i said i'll send them all away right now see i think they all fly up in the air like say penguins go home
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and then goodbye there they go oh there we go the fish will go away eventually too i'll stop Jasmine around here a minute and and you know yeah this is the
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title of my talk is is leaking for my camera over here cuz I like to see this the crowd here to thank you everybody for coming out here title my talk is beyond escapism virtual worlds for
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liberal populations and and and social good so let's just just dive in here and I wanted to I want to tell some stories to you don't have to look at my bio because we already saw a lot of stuff
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types to you about all the background information but these slides are going to these slides are available online and at the end of the slide deck I'll have a URL where you can get all these slides that's why i put my bio on there so you
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just have all the info there as well as the title of my talk but but you know since this is we're talking about legacy I I was looking through old images and I was like you know when did I start really doing some fun stuff with with
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online virtual worlds and people communicating using the Internet in the web and I found this picture this is a this is a picture of a sign that somebody it's still up there in if you
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go to Massachusetts General Hospital and you go to one of the physician meeting areas this thing is still up on the wall and it was something that I when I was working there it was it was put up in 1993 and it was me basically saying
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please access our world wide web server I had just I'd started you know one of the first websites at Mass General and put up information about you can see it was about you know up-to-date info on
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neurology and maps and many CVS and information about staff and research labs and so forth and hyperlinks to other medical institutions and databases of interest and what's funny to me about
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this is how how wrong I got it you know I was I was wrong in my mind you know I look back at this and I laugh because this is you know what 24 years ago and I
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was all excited about being able to connect to information the you know the internet would be this way of connecting people to just information and really what has most amazed me over the years is how it's really about connecting
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people to people right it's about creating about people being able to share what they've created with other people no one in here nowhere nowhere on this sign does it say anything about you can talk to other people and ultimately
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what I ended up doing at Mass General is I started working with online patient support communities and I I gotten way more interested in that like oh my oh my goodness I can use the web to help bring people together and these communities
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form and they do amazing things that I never even imagined so for me I love this image because it's just again I was very wrong doc in 1993 but I I learned
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pretty quick I learned you know that it was all about using technology to connect people to each other and was really in my mind it was really about the technology being able to improve
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people's quality of life and to increase social good you know working at Mass General my focus was on working with patients and caregivers and and and people with disabilities and supportive
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communities and it was just amazing what happened and how I saw these dramatic improvements in quality of life which is
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which is um just kind of sad right now in terms of the industry focus on all of these on all of these sorry switching
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screen share all these technologies we talked about virtual worlds and and and the industry is a really focused on escapism this is a this is a image from it's from someone who is drawing a
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picture of their with how they envisioned you know the interior of that guy's van on the story ready player one you know and it's about escapism you know and it's about immersing yourself
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in entertainment and and it's unfortunate because sometimes the the industry around VR and virtual world's you know kind of the kind of pitch it is it was a transcendent experience and it really isn't
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transcendence what they're talking about is is really withdrawal you know and it's fine for periods of time it's fine to escape once in a while everyone likes to do it but but that's not them that's
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not the real magic thing that these platforms provide it's not the magic thing it's way beyond escapism and and
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what I like to think about in terms of beyond escapism and virtual worlds are these three magical circles you could call them they're kind of like verticals they're kind of like pillars I don't know but I think of them as circles and
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I like them as to think of them as circles because there are intersections between them and the three amazing circles in virtual worlds areas of magic
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are art in my mind art education and what i like to call augmentation and i'll explain what I mean by these three you know by art it's pretty obvious there's amazing stuff that happens in virtual environments when artists get
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ahold of the tools because the artists are always the people who take tools for creating anything and go I could use this tool in a totally different way you know oh here's a brush that someone
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invented instead of painting by I'll maybe I'll flick the brush and there you have you know you know you have Pollock inventing is style of art you know and something totally new so it's amazing to see what happens in the circle of art in
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virtual worlds because that's where people use the tools in ways that the creators never expected education is the other area that I'm that I'm just very just fascinating to be because again you
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know when you're provided with these amazing new tools you can the educators are the ones who figure out how to use them to create a immersive learning experiences so it so there's amazing innovation that happens there and in
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terms of augmentation by augmentation that's really where you know you talk about how technologies like virtual worlds can be used to help people with disabilities and I didn't want it I don't like to think
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in terms of you know disabled people I'd rather I think about it as technology that somehow augmenting people right letting people do something they can't do in the physical world you know maybe
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like walk on a beach because they are in a wheelchair or maybe you know have a have the ability to connect with lots of people around the world and and and share experiences but they're actually home them in the physical world or or
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you know a wide range of ways of augmenting people so I like to think of augmentation as its own magic circle of the virtual worlds being used to help people do things that they can't do on
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their own and it's been and and the real magic I think happens at these intersections where you have maybe something thats related to education but also augmenting people and also artistic
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expression so think about think about the most amazing things you've seen in virtual worlds and most likely it's at some kind of intersection between these three in my opinion right some amazing
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learning experience that is also though maybe helping people with different disabilities to express themselves and artistic expression all wrapped up in it so it's it's it's kind of hard for me to talk about it because there aren't I
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don't think there are adequate words yet to describe all this stuff but I did the best I could with these three circles so so in terms of you know examples of
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things that are happening beyond escapism in this space and the the first one I love to talk about is is a virtual ability where I think you can see the sign over to my parents sign over here
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oh there it is over there I'm throwing fish at it really exists I don't have a pointer I have fish to point at the sign over here virtual ability is you know
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involved in this amazing conference here and there's also a an area I can't remember which region it's in maybe someone could say it in in local chat but they have a little dance area for
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virtual ability in this little display over there but virtual ability is this amazing nonprofit organization that I'm privileged to to have been and still am involved with to this day and it's a
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nonprofit organization that helps people a wide range of disabilities providing supportive environments for them and and and creative environment operations is
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here in second life but they do a lot more than just you know create places for people to get together and do stuff they do amazing community events and they they also do amazing projects with
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research organizations and government organizations and they do consulting as well so they do amazing things and again this is a really this is at that intersection in my opinion between art education and augmentation virtual
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ability is right at that triumvirate intersection you know where you just see amazing beautiful builds amazing artistic expression in the space amazing opportunities to help people with disabilities through augmentation of
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their creative minds and also the education as well and one project involved in around education and research that that they that they had recently did but I love to I'd love to
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talk about because I'm on the board of directors for for them and I do what I can to help them you know think of new ways of helping more people but this is
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something that they did working with the working with with with people suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder and strokes so they basically created this and when you get a chance watch the
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video you'll be able to click on it when you look at the slides online after my talk I want to play any video now or anything but but watch the video they created something they built it actually an open simulator to so there so it's not just things happening in second life
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in this example it was it made sense to build something an open simulator because needed to be a very closed and controlled environment but they built this whole quest based system to basically have collisions be able to
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walk people through learning and immersive learning exercises and how come you know guide them through a very very defined experience in a learning
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experience and it was just amazing watch the video the video itself to they did just an amazing job putting to the putting the video together but but this is you know this involves a more this involves education sin loves helping
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people who are dealing with strokes and traumatic brain injury and PTSD to to be able to function better in the physical world so here people who are they need to be augmented in terms of being able
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to practice how to re-enter daily life and do things in daily life and this environment the support space really really helped them with that just
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amazing I wanted to mention to virtual rehab which is a small startup company that I'm involved with and there the goal is immersive learning to help
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inmates basically reenter society and succeed in the world and it's the goal is to reduce you know recidivism maining re-incarceration being you know committing more crimes or being not being able to function in the physical
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world would be able to integrate back into society successfully to be able to succeed at life right and and and this is a case where you know I do a lot of work with with virtual worlds on the
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desktop on 2d screens and this is a case where I'm always thinking about the best tool for the the goals and and in this in this case immersive learning using VR was the right tool for the right job
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because we're working on developing simulations like mechanic simulations like teaching people how to check their oil in a collar and these are these are these are systems that are being
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deployed you know within within prison systems within you know the prison so you you have a you know you have a system that's just it's like going to a classroom and said you put on an hmd you
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put on a head-mounted display and you have this immersive experience and in this case it's a really fantastic right tool for the right job because there's nothing like basically using two handheld devices to you know VR in a sort of room based VR
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simulation manipulate things under the hood of a car and you know pull out the you can see on the right there pulling out the dipstick and checking the oil and the other wonderful thing was it
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allowed us to create these experiential learning environments whether it's basically these like quest based systems where you have to find the oil to replace the oil that is needed in the car and you have to go to the store and
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you have to experience daily life in terms of going to the store interacting with the cashier and finding things in you know the way stores are laid out these are all things that for prisoners they they don't they don't have any experience like that for years when
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they're incarcerated and it's a real challenge for them in their reentering society to to deal with that so I thought you know this is a really good example of the right tool for the right job you know vr is a really good tool to
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create these types of simulations both you know kind of vocational training simulations and social simulations I think amazing amazing possibilities there well beyond escapism right this is
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about a life simulation basically so it's when you're in the physical world when you're released from prison you know what to expect it's and really at
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the end of the day I think about this a lot you know when people talk about brand new shiny of anything you know here's a new shiny piece of technology I am at my heart a technologist but
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someone who's completely people focused you know and and understanding how people interact with each other and and how they interact with the world and share knowledge and support and at the
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end of the day whatever you're talking about whatever technology you're talking about it is not amazing if you have to explain to me why it is amazing and it's amazing to me how many how much
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technology is people explaining why this thing is amazing right it's really if you have to explain why your thing is
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incredible then your thing is not incredible hey you you have to it should be obvious just by seeing it kind of kind of like you know
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it's and Buddhism you know this book the wordless flower sermon you just see the flower you see the lotus flower and you just you can you can undo just understand it and that's why I always
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talk a lot about stories and examples because that's how you can understand if something is really really amazing and yeah like general Harran you just said if you have to explain the joke it's not
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funny and a lot of tech it's amazing how much tech is explaining the joke you know general i'm actually i think i'm going to use that quote in the future because that's a really good it's a
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really good way of summing it up so on that note i'm going to talk a little bit about some stories that tell more than
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just a story and gentle be familiar with these because i talked about these at a presentation i gave with virtual ability before but i think they're wonderful stories and they're not specific about about second life or anything that or
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anything in general other than just experiences that I have had stories around experiences that I've had that illustrate the power of beyond escapism for virtual worlds and and virtual
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worlds aren't just 3d things involving putting goggles on your head there are things like second life there are 3d worlds I mean immersive online virtual worlds are also you know chat rooms
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they're also you know other technologies that have come and gone in the past things like active worlds things like the palace which I'm going to mention and and so forth and so on but I think these are for beautiful little stories
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because I like to tell stories again they help illustrate the that magic intersection between augmentation arts and education so the first one I want to
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talk about is is the club I started when I was at Mass General I was managing a created and managed some real time chat rooms because i was i was really interested in virtual
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worlds for patients and caregivers and i started creating chat rooms to help people who were dealing with different neurological conditions come together and share experiences and and i knew i wasn't smart enough to understand
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exactly what they needed but i thought if i could get them together and give them the tools to talk to each other that they would come up with amazing ideas that maybe I could help them you know help them grow on their own once they got together and were able to share
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support and information and it's and of course like anything else you know when you start doing this you know stuff starts happening and you don't know about it and it's just happening it's life it's wonderful it's like things to start growing and happening and at one
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point somebody told me they said hey John have you heard about in your multiple sclerosis chat room there's a club club club Avonex and I'm like really club a Vedek sounds like it's
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weird what do they do they come in together in this club in this chat room and just partying that sounds really weird and and then I suddenly hit me I realized avonex is a drug that is
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something that people with MS it's a drug that is that requires a self self-injection you can see on the screen there's you know you're injecting some was injecting himself in their side
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Avonex and it's not a great experience when you're giving yourself this injection and some people especially people who are kind of leery of needles terrifying especially if you're somebody
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who's maybe also having to do this by themselves imagine being by yourself having to do this with no one to kind of be there for you so what happened completely on their own the people who
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were using this multiple sclerosis chatroom that I've set up decided what we're going to do is we're going to adjust our schedules and these were people around the world and they adjusted their schedules so that at the
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same time every week because this is like a once a week thing that they were doing at the same time every week they would all log into the chat room and they would all inject at the same time they would go three two one let's do it and they would
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be there in real time to support each other right before the injection and right after the injection so if someone had a tough time people would be in the chat room talking them through it all and this this this blew me away this was
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you know this was using web-based simple chat rooms this was 1994 and again they coordinated this all on them all on their own and they called themselves club avonex you know and they they actually had set up like a web page at
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one point on some you know someone set up on their own website a little page talking about hey join us in club avonex and they they they made it a fun experience a supportive experience we need a social effect all on their own
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they augmented their ability to reach out across time zones and actually be able to support themselves during this experience so I just think the club is a
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wonderful amazing story and of course you know that that kind of thing happens now all the time and environments like second life in terms of people coordinating amazing things you know and across the world and different different time zones y'all kind of some people are
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up late some people are up early but I just thought that this was a wonderful this is a wonderful example of that self emergent you know intersection between this case really between education and
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you know people improving their quality of life augmenting themselves yeah the club I'm going to summarize the lessons I think from these stories at the end
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too so I'm not just going to be rambling too much hopefully the guy from NYC so this is a this is a I had another online
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community where was the focus was on Parkinson's disease and people dealing with Parkinson's disease would share information and support and and Parkinson's is one of those situations
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where you're diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and immediately ever you know understandably you want to know all about it and you want to know more than just what your physician is giving you in terms of information you want to know other people we're dealing with this
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condition over years and years and how you know how how uh what do you know how do you deal with that and just emotionally over time and in one of these environments there was a guy is
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his user name was Mike NYC and Mike NYC would never talk at all about who he really was he would just be like i'm mike i'm from NYC that's all you need to know the only other thing he shared with
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everyone was the fact that he was young onset Parkinson's diagnosis so he was very young diagnosed with Parkinson's disease which is terrifying to people who are young because it's most often
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thought of as it as a parkings is a set of something as you know an older person's condition potentially not a younger person's condition and so Mike was very at you know very very private
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about his his who he was what he was doing in real life and he he you know he said he came onto the chat room and he's basically said you know I just been diagnosed I'm freaking out I don't know anyone else is dealing with young onset Parkinson's disease let alone
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Parkinson's disease period and help me out here and and the community really came together and and talk to him for you know whenever he was online and over
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time Mike actually then started giving back to the community started being there for other people because people would come into the chat room it was a similar thing it's like hi I'm new to this environment I was just diagnosed holy cow I am freaking out help me you
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know what should I do is this normal is this side effect of the drug normal is it normal for me to feel this way and and he started really giving back to people and in about a about a year or
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two went by and at one point Mike said I'm ready to tell you guys who I really am I just want to share it with you just so you know I just feel like I want to tell you who I am and and he said I'm he
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said I'm Michael J Fox and of course everyone in the room said you know oh yes sure and I'm Robert Redford and yeah and I'm yeah good joke Mike you're funny you know that's that's hilarious and he
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said no I'm really Michael J Fox and and I just wanted to thank you guys and I just want to tell you that you know I'm inspired by all these early experiences and I'm going to dedicate my life to you know building some kind of a foundation that I want to build to help
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do research and Parkinson's disease and I want to just you know dedicate my life to giving back to finding a cure for this and no one believed from of course oh yeah okay fine and he said no really he said if anyone's in New York City
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come to use filming a camera that the name of his shows like I'm filming my show come to you know tell me your names here and in private 121 chat tell me your real knife name or don't just tell me the name you want to be known as and
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I'll put you on the guest list and I'll get you some seats up in the front when we're doing the filming you know in New York for the show next week and sure enough you know there were like a couple people who happen to be living in New
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York toward in this community and said okay her just show up just for fun yeah okay and and they actually it was him he actually got to meet him and and so anyway what was special about this in
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terms of stories is the power of these environments to augment you bye-bye augment everyone by giving you a billet e2b not anonymous but pseudo anonymous right to be able to share as much or as
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little as you want to and it's different for everybody but the power of that is I think a wonderful example told by this
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story and his friendships you develop a lot of these people you know eat the friendships lasted for many years after that it's really really amazing this
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story I want to mention about the faces this is a I started using a platform called the palace I don't know if anyone here remembers this is you know way back in the early 2000s late 90s now the gang
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called the pow it was game but no quotation marks game it was a multi-user chat environment where you basically was kind of like paper cutouts you know it was kind of not really 3d it was really just to D but people would log on and
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the big thing was people love to use different phases like your avatar most people would have it be these smiley faces and they would change the face would change you can see there's a face pic er down there you basically
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change your face to match your mood and people were really really into that and and i found one group of people got really really into that and and and and this people are saying yeah there's this
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group it's really taken off in the palace job you should check it out because again people would use these technologies and spaces that i set up you know they were just do what they were going to do and i would often find out about it after they were doing it
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which is wonderful it was just to see these things of all and someone said yeah there's this mobius group I don't there I was what am I Mobius are you reading obvious and it turned out that
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the group that had really taken off in using this platform was a group of people dealing with Moebius syndrome which is a it's a neurological disorder that affects the cranial nerves especially particularly the cranial
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nerves involved in moving your face so people with Moebius syndrome in the physical world they can't smile they can't really brown they can't really varying levels of it of course but they
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can't it's a weakness and paralysis of facial muscles and they they can't express emotions on their faces in the physical world and when they had discovered this platform that gave you a
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lot of power over you know being able to have a virtual face they they just flocked to it and started adding all of their own custom emoticons and just taking off and they were like you know
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hey then I started getting ping my name and like hey John can you expand the ability for us to do stuff with facial emoticons and I'm like oh heck yeah tweak the technology to to to help you
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guys add more to them and you know so they you know they Bailey today it started out in using the chat rooms and then they had really taken off in the palace and you know with with the ability for the palace to give them
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avatars with very malleable faces it was it was just like it took flight so an amazing story of in this case the augmentation is being able to smile or frown or kind of
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you know smirk and it's amazing to see augmentation like this with the technology improving people's quality of life amazingly so the last story I want
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to mention is I caught the safe the safe and the scary this is this is picture second life this is Brigadoon Island this was a an island that I set up
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before I was working at linden lab i was using second life since 2002 i was in beta but in 2004 i had started a space in second life called Brigadoon island
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was actually an outreach that i was trying to do in terms of exploring new technologies and i created it as a space for people dealing with Asperger's syndrome to come and practice their
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socialization skills i thought it might be really interesting as a place for them to practice socializing in a 3d space because it's very difficult for people it's a spectrum disorder autism
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spectrum disorder but it's there's a spectrum too and it's very difficult for many people dealing with Asperger's syndrome to to go into public places and interact with people in public places
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and so I thought this would be kind of interesting so I set up the space and they it just it just took off for them and what was amazing to me was that they they create they they created always two very distinct types of places they
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created places that were very safe for them and they also deliberately created scary places in terms of challenging places for them you know I remember one one man created a restaurant that was
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kind of a model of a restaurant in the physical world that like he think he had been to it a couple times but it was just just couldn't deal with it it was just kind of terrifying experience for him but he keep from memory recreated in
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the environment here and and was using it as a place to practice a simulation as a place for him to practice being comfortable and meeting with other people in this
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space and but was most special about it was not just that it was you know they were it was a wonderful example of of people doing that Asperger's syndrome and autism to practice and engage in
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improving their quality of life by learning to gain confidence and they there was a very positive correlation there there were people you know who were reporting back and saying I have gained confidence in the physical world due to my practicing and these
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simulations that I've worked on in in Brigadoon Island and again they were these are being built by them I didn't build any of them I basically said here are the tools you can build your own spaces and build spaces for other people
00:37:39
in the community and and but was most special about this too was the fact that one of the people involved was the Sojourner who got very inspired to go on and help build more communities that
00:37:53
evolved into things like like virtual ability right so it wasn't just a one-off thing it was something that took on and has a life of its own today so
00:38:08
really you know what are the what are the lessons from these stories around augmentation and education you know and artistic expression as well I think one
00:38:22
is that I think there's real magic that happens in any kind of multi-user and malleable environment and you know it can be a space like Second Life where you can co-create whatever you want to
00:38:34
create and it's full of people but it can also be in you know text based chat rooms it can be in you know weird little things like the palace which is like playing with electronic paper dolls on a
00:38:47
flat picture you know and that's because point number two is that people will squeeze amazing emotional bandwidth out of whatever they can get their hands on now you just have to get people together
00:39:00
and get them using the tools that give them some malleability some control over over shaping not about you it's about shaping a place you know and that could be you know
00:39:14
creating customized content in this space and whatever but they squeeze amazing emotional bandwidth out of this and so you have conversations that happen that are not just dry sharing of textual information it's just it's it's
00:39:27
an amazing sharing of emotional support and that is a really very powerful thing you know when you're talking about going beyond escapism these are environments where people laugh and cry and have the full emotional range of experiences
00:39:41
shared between them that and also happened in the physical world and and I think the other other lesson that's really amazing is that people will use these tools to create not just comforting things but challenging things
00:39:54
I see this all the time like I was describing Brigadoon but people people have opportunities not just to create fun little places that are kind of comforting but you see people creating things that are challenging you know
00:40:06
challenging to create challenging to experience you know people people like to use these environments to to improve their quality of life by helping them
00:40:19
face their fears you know what's the what's the saying the you know inside the cave that is most scary to you is where the most important treasure is right you know so it's a so people these
00:40:32
are opportunities to to to face people to to face you know to face their fears face things that are challenging to them and another lesson that was very
00:40:46
powerful i think is some again this idea of encouraging masks and discouraging visibility when people have the ability to control how much they share about their own you know their real-life
00:40:58
identity or whatever it's just yeah i see it continually as a very very positive thing and masks aren't just about hiding masks are about highlighting certain aspects of your personality right about bringing to the
00:41:12
surface of facet of yourself that you want to really share with other people now a mask again is a mask isn't just about what it covers up its but it's about what it highlights what it brings to the surface and
00:41:25
you know when in these virtual environments these virtual worlds people talk about about you know wearing avatars and like oh it's totally different from me in the physical world
00:41:37
and it's a very powerful force for good in my experience what you do want to discourage though is invisibility you want to discourage you know people being completely that maybe anonymity is not
00:41:52
their best term but I guess what I'm trying to say is you know people not being no persistence to their identity I mean you could be totally anonymous but as long as you're the same anonymous person like your anonymous person up you
00:42:03
know numbered 513 as long as there's a consistency so you then you can avoid you know you can avoid you know a more negative aspects of you know people who just want to cause trouble and keep hiding themselves behind multiple
00:42:16
identities so whatever it can be done to discourage complete invisibility and no persistence to identity I think that's a that's a good thing to do but probably the most important thing in my
00:42:31
experience when you're looking at virtual worlds and helping them grow to beyond the scape ism beyond just entertainment put into you know really helping people especially helping people
00:42:44
improve their quality of life and helping people learn is to to build tools and cultivate not just the communities within these spaces but
00:42:54
cultivate their ability and dreams to to build new communities because like what happened with with Sojourner and and you know people involved in virtual ability
00:43:06
and you know there's this when you when things happen right then the people in these communities will go on to build more communities and I think it's the
00:43:19
responsibility of the caretakers of the environment that these people are working into not just help these communities that exist now and grow now to be successful but to encourage them
00:43:34
with you know tools and support to be able to build new communities beyond what exists today because the communities of tomorrow are really weird you know it's
00:43:45
the future or everyone will live so that's I think a very important thing to do so that's that's my talk holy cow look at that I'm on time seven you know
00:43:58
if you have 750 here my time again thinking about the beyond escapism think about these these three areas you know this intersection between art education
00:44:12
and augmentation nopee bad think about examples that you can find in second life and in other virtual worlds and I think think of the lessons learned then
00:44:26
from these these amazing examples of the magic that happens at these intersections thank thank you so much John I hope that everybody can hear me
00:44:40
now hopefully we did start a little bit late so we can probably take a couple of questions for John if anybody wants to
00:44:55
say in a min chat oh good we can hear me I can go ahead and grab them if that's okay just about five more minutes so if anybody has questions for John for pathfinder post them on chat and i'll
00:45:07
try to kind of moderate them as best I can for him cool thank you oh and I'll put in chat my slides to some people can just go there if they want to get him oh thank you John yeah I
00:45:29
know that's usually one of the first questions we get will the slides be available somewhere they already are awesome okay excellent all right there's
00:45:39
your stuff like that that link should work yeah Oh perfect thank you okay oh
00:45:51
wow thank you for I am north well we have some good comments from the audience thank you so much Pat this was wonderful to hear about because I'm
00:46:08
seeing the same sorts of stories of people who use VW's to connect them back and support each other in heat yeah and then somebody else mentions nurses an idea nurse that worked with people
00:46:20
coming out of comas use their cell to help integrate them back oh we have a question here we go Buffy there were so many businesses involved in SL years ago you think they'll ever be enticed to
00:46:31
come back to this or any other virtual world um that's like a question I mean well you know what's happening now is you know everyone's bananas about VR and
00:46:43
well we'll see how that turns out in terms of broad adoption I think there's you know there's amazing powerful niches for curvy are but in general with so many businesses and I i see i see them
00:46:58
coming back when they see very clear return on investment because that's at the end of the day what businesses are all about gone are that is an ER a lot of the early stuff where basic was bite was marketing was basically businesses
00:47:11
wanted to be known to be involved in things like second life because second life was on the cover of Businessweek magazine with an c chung you know as an avatar on there and it was really the early interest around businesses in
00:47:25
second life was purely marketing you know they make if they may have given i'll be honest they may have given lip service about you know we're going to use this platform for or for you know employee education and
00:47:37
outreach to avatars and at the end of the day they were just interested in surfing the press tidal wave of anything that mentioned second life I mean all you had to do is go to any you know journalist anywhere and say like I'm doing something something something
00:47:50
something second life and they're like oh yeah okay great we're going to write about you and and that's free press that's free marketing and companies ears perk up and stuff like that so I think the challenge will be you know they're
00:48:02
never going to come back for marketing purposes anymore because the you know well that's I mean that's why a lot of them are jumping into VR to be honest too they're jumping into VR not because they feel it's actually honestly going to be a positive return on any kind of
00:48:15
investment in learning but they'd rather see it as a positive return on marketing you know because they'll get mentioned in the news so I think I think what it'll have to be shown is it's very clear you know how what's the wow just
00:48:29
improving their bottom line you know I think I think it's more of AI think virtual worlds are becoming yeah dragon says something very powerful there too it's you know there's a driving force for social enterprises and nonprofits and fundraising and I think yeah I mean
00:48:42
I think at the end of the day I think the real power for for virtual worlds is like this slide but still on the screen behind me you know it's this intersection between art education and augmentation and augmentation is where
00:48:55
all of the social you know working with people with disabilities the the social outreach and so forth happens in that space too so thank you so much John that
00:49:10
was that was really inspiring I enjoyed your story so much and it seems like everybody in the audience enjoyed them as well a lot of accolades really very much appreciate that you joined us for a 10th anniversary for a legacy year it
00:49:23
made it very very memorable and special is special for all of us thank you all for coming thank you John and hopefully you'll stay around for our closing we're almost closing 10th anniversary VW BP
00:49:35
thank you nice thanks everybody I'm gonna res all my friends on stage here now Oh they've fallen in the water oh no go on with all the water here
00:49:51
there you go hey guys let's pack the stage how many can I fit here let's see some of them are falling in the water
00:50:04
their temper as they should go away eventually party time keep coming I won't go overboard Paulina i won't i
00:50:19
won't won't risk a thousand of them just doing it manually here hey guys send them amongst the audience well I think they they follow me okay I'm going
00:50:39
to stop to detach my hide here yeah they're following me I don't think though whoa guys the crowd me they fly
00:50:53
no they don't fly oh why look at this this is not this is not good oh boy all right I want to crash I don't want to
00:51:07
crash things for people so i'm going to send them home ready 3 2 1 go home goodbye fly fly way there we go
End of transcript