Agenda

Description

In today's world technology is ubiquitous. COVID-19 has taught us that we can live and operate in a virtual world. We as a society rely on technology more than ever, from doing our jobs to running our homes to education. The future of tomorrow will bring more immersive technologies to everyday use for younger and younger audiences. This talk is meant to spark concerns and curiosity from the technical and non-technical audience about children's safety and well-being in the XR ecosystems aka the Metaverse.

We’ll explore hypothetical scenarios and ask difficult questions to ensure we’re protecting the next generation to the best of our ability. Malicious use of these technologies can lead to psychological, physical, reputational, social, and economic harm and put children at risk. In this session, XRSI founder Kavya Pearlman and advisory board member Kai Frazier explore the potential opportunities and risks in XR systems, understand how to mitigate them and how to better protect children and young people as we move fast into the Metaverse. This session will approach the topic from multiple different directions. An introduction to the Metaverse, and child safety specific challenges, concerns, constraints overlap and the types of threats children experience and may experience in the future. This includes discussion on issues of privacy and trust in the context of child safety and well-being. Finally, framing how the industry can respond to these challenges: what research and development are needed in order to move from research prototypes and early demonstrators to a secure, reliable, and trustworthy Metaverse that can play a more significant role in everyday life.

Speakers

Kavya Pearlman

Founder & CEO , XR Safety Initiative

Kai Frazier

Founder & CEO , Curated x Kai

Description

In the backdrop of the Metaverse, how does the real world fit in, what does open, interoperable, and ethical look like, and what is the role of the Web ? We explore some potential guiding principles for the real world Spatial Web and early steps to realization through standards activities and the Open Spatial Computing Platform (OSCP). Along the way, we highlight areas that present strong opportunities for academic research, standards, and open source contributions.

Speakers

Ali Hantal

Founder , XR Masters

Ali Hantal

CEO , XR Masters

James Jackson

Director of Technology , Open AR Cloud

Jan-Erik Vinje

Managing Director , Open AR Cloud

Description

Panel discussion with XR platform leaders to compare and contrast what form factors and scenarios will entice main stream consumers to engage in XR. Evaluate VR versus AR in terms of what consumers will actually enjoy and see value in. Do we really need 360VR or is location triggered AR a better use case?

Speakers

Lisa Watts

CEO , OneTwenty1

Matt Miesnieks

CEO , LivingCities

Wilson Tang

CEO and Chief Designer , Yumebau

Darrell Kong

Principle of Business Development , Cradle Mountain Advisors

Description

Though many companies investing billions into metaverse technology are competitors, they share a common interest in creating a shared digital universe. To enable an open future where assets are able to move freely and work consistently across the entire digital universe, the metaverse needs standards that combat fragmentation and preserve openness.

Hundreds of industry leaders are working to enable the transition from the development of 3D assets to metaverse assets and explore the roles open standards and open source software will play in the creation of portable, interoperable metaverse scenes and objects.

Join leaders from The Khronos Group, Academy Software Foundation, and the Worldwide Web Consortium as they discuss how companies, creators, and standards developers can work together to make sure the tools required for an open metaverse are not just available, but ubiquitous and robust.

Speakers

Neil Trevett

President , Khronos Group

Aysegul Yonet

Software Engineer , Microsoft - Mixed Reality Development

Suzan Oslin

Director of Spatial Experiences , UXXR Design

David Morin

Industry Relations at Epic Games; Ex. Dir. at Academy Software Foundation , Epic Games - Unreal Engine

Description

Discover how Red 6 has executed the development of the first multi-player video game in the sky and lead to the creation of the most advanced training platform to date.

Red 6’s technology leverages an environment where a persistent ubiquitous layer of connected data and metadata interact seamlessly with the real-world. Decisions made within the metaverse now, for the first time, have live, physical consequences for the trainee, resulting in a more immersive experience.

Daniel Robinson, Founder and CEO of Red 6, will share how this technology is advancing the readiness of our nation’s armed forces and how Red 6’s technology is the genesis of the Military Metaverse.

Speakers

Daniel Robinson

Founder and CEO , RED 6

Description

Join us as startups pitch to our panel of judges for a chance to be named AWE's "Startup to Watch" for 2022. The winner will be announced at the Auggie Awards ceremony.

Judges for the Start-Up Pitch competition are Dave Haynes, Tipatat Chennavasin, Pearly Chen, and Kristina Serafim.

Speakers

Chaitanya Ravi

RLab Contact , SentioVR

Amber Hawkes

Co-Founder , Here LA

Ariella Lehrer

President , Legacy Games

Quentin Turner

Founder, CTO , Intrinsic XR

Pearly Chen

VP Business Dev. , HTC Vive

Giovanni Fantoni Modena Fantoni Fantoni

CCO , Vitruvian

David A. Smith

CTO, Founder , Croquet

Tipatat Chennavasin

General Partner , The Venture Reality Fund

Dave Haynes

Partner , FOV Ventures

Kristina Serafim

Managing Director , Verizon Ventures

Ofer Baharav

CEO , Villa

Alex Coulombe

CEO , Heavenue / Agile Lens

Sherry Chang

CEO , Neural Lab

Dominique Wu

Founder , XReality Academy

Description

The Metaverse is coming and it will impact all our lives before the current decade is out. As an industry pioneer who began working in AR and VR over thirty years ago, I have a broad perspective on where the field has been and where it's going. And right now, I am both excited and concerned. Excited because the momentum has finally hit critical mass. Concerned because of the very real prospect that large corporations could bring the destabilizing features of social media into the Metaverse. To address this, I have been calling for sensible regulation of metaverse platforms to help ensure the technology rolls out in a positive way. This talk will address this important issue by answering three key questions: (1) What will the metaverse really be like when widely deployed? (2) What are the most significant risks consumers will face? and (3) What are the most helpful and sensible forms of regulation to avoid the metaverse becoming a destabilizing force like social media?

Speakers

Louis Rosenberg

CEO and Chief Scientist , Unanimous AI

Description

Where are we in the course of spatial computing’s lifecycle? Where are AR and VR having an impact today… and where aren’t they? What's the fate of Apple's market entrance? And will Meta's big metaverse bet pay off? We’ll tackle these and other burning questions with a multidisciplinary panel of industry thought leaders, innovators, and heavy hitters.

Speakers

Catherine D. Henry

SVP Growth, Metaverse & Innovation Strategy , Media.Monks

Ted Schilowitz

Futurist , Paramount

Mike Boland

Chief Analyst , ARtillery Intelligence

Charlie Fink

Consultant, Columnist, Author, Adjunct , Forbes

Alvin Graylin

Global VP of Corporate Development , HTC

Description

Guests Benny Arbel along with Helen Freeman will cover how education is the only area of our lives that the digital revolution has not significantly improved. The experience gap between children's education and consumer life is massive and still growing. How Inception along with leading educational publishers like Oxford University Press is overcoming those barriers. Why XR is a key to ushering in the long-awaited digitization of children's education.

Speakers

Benny Arbel

Founder and CEO , InceptionXR

Helen Freeman

Director of Oxford Children's Books , Oxford University Press Inc

Description

As designers and developers build AR and VR hardware, applications and content, how can they make sure they are inclusively designed so that everyone - including those who identify as people with disabilities - can access, enjoy and benefit from them? How can AR and VR designers and developers leverage inclusive design and development practices to consider many aspects of human diversity such as ability, language, culture, gender, and age? What are some of the broader benefits of designing more accessible AR and VR such as broader usability for people with temporary impairments or people in different environments and use cases. In this session, panelists will explore these and other topics related to XR Accessibility as well as share a variety of practical community XR accessibility design and development resources.

Speakers

Pia Zaragoza

UX Mentor at Springboard and White House Presidential Innovation Fellow , Springboard

Bill Curtis-Davidson

Co-Director, Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT) , PEAT

Dylan Fox

Head of Community and Outreach , XR Access

Stephanie Montgomery

Senior VP of Research and Best Practices , XR Association

Nirav Desai

CEO , Moonbeam

Description

As companies scramble to define what "hybrid work" looks like for their workforce, the first real use cases of photorealistic-quality, real-time holograms are helping organizations bridge a vital engagement gap in team collaboration. Allowing participants to interact in ways previously only possible in-person, this 3D technology also enables content sharing of both physical objects and 3D files, which allows users to simultaneously interact with the presenter and the content without being forced to focus on one experience at the detriment of the other.

This session will describe the first real world examples of how this innovative technology is being used by companies today. You will hear about a leading medical device manufacturer using 3D holograms in training scenarios for surgeons, as well as McLaren Racing, which is using it as a powerful tool for their design engineers, drivers and crews - rather than flying a technician to the racing team or explaining procedures through flat images, they can now immediately show an engine component from every angle, convey sizing, and instruct on assembly and usage as if they were in person – all while saving countless hours in travel time.

Speakers

Elizabeth Bieniek

Internal Startup Founder , Cisco

Description

The joke used to be that "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." In the metaverse, nobody knows who you are.

How do we evolve to the next stage of identity? What does it mean to be human? What do our names mean? How much do we want to look like ourselves, versus look like avatars? Today, we face a new paradigm of online identity. It presents many questions on how we develop for this world.

These are questions to engage the audience in an examination on not only what it means to be human, but how do we evolve to that next stage of identity.

Speakers

Cix Liv

Founder , REK

Description

Using Resolve's VR software, Meta’s data center design and construction teams use Quest 2 for cross functional collaborative feedback sessions of the General Contractor's Master Construction Model. This enables data center end users, like facilities operations, culinary, and security teams, to provide valuable feedback early in the design and construction process. This type of virtual collaboration has saved Meta substantial time and money by identifying issues before construction and optimizing for a safer, more efficient, and sustainable final data center build.

Speakers

Len Klein

Data Center Mechanical Engineer , Meta

Angel Say

CEO & Cofounder , Resolve

Matt Hooper

Technical Program Developer , Meta

Steven Shimmin

Program Manager Business Operations , Meta

Taylor Gilmore

Senior Integrated Construction Manager , Mortenson

Description

The NVIDIA CloudXR SDK empowers developers to deliver highly complex applications and 3D data to low-powered VR & AR devices. We discuss what NVIDIA CloudXR is, how to get started integrating the SDK into your applications, and the benefits customers have shared during their development. We learn from Bentley Systems as they discuss how NVIDIA CloudXR introduces new ways of work while preserving and elevating existing AEC/O workflows for design and building.

Speakers

William Cannady

Technical Product Manager, XR , NVIDIA

Description

The potential of virtual worlds are limitless, but working with VR content has its challenges, especially when it comes to recording or recreating a virtual experience. Unlike the real world, capturing an immersive scene isn’t as easy as taking a video on your phone or hitting the record button on your computer. Learn how NVIDIA VR Capture and Replay enables developers and users to accurately capture and replay VR sessions for performance testing, scene troubleshooting and more. What started as an internal project to allow for VR performance testing across NVIDIA GPUs is now available as an early access SDK.

Speakers

Peter Pang

Senior Product Manager , NVIDIA

Description

Story is the most powerful agent for change that we have as a society, and the potential for impact becomes even more evident as we witness the intersection of art and technology.

Join creators, producers, and thought leaders for an engaging conversation around how they approach a project with an impactful mindset. What are the best practices for this type of creation, distribution, and production? How can content and stories made within the XR industry continue or expand these trends?

Speakers

Michaela Ternasky-Holland

Creative Strategist & Impact Producer , Games for Change

Lauren Ruffin

Co-Founder , Crux

Victor Agulhon

CEO , TARGO

Caitlin Robinson

Head of Product Marketing and Business Development , Scatter

Robert Hernandez

Professor/Founder , USC JOVRNALISM

Description

Though the metaverse may be a novel channel accelerated by a global pandemic, its ethos is not. Fans build brands because there’s no greater loyalty than real love. Virtual worlds offer real benefits for engagement. From digitally twining real locations to building bespoke new worlds—(meta)worlds matter more than ever before.

Consumers want exclusive, one-of-a-kind experiences, and now that those experiences exist in completely new virtual formats. But like any other channel, these worlds live and die with content. Although virtual content exists within a three-dimensional world, it has to offer the same level of immediacy, interactivity and engagement that drives traffic to 2D sites. Hungry brands are now beginning to realize what AAA game studios have known for years: there’s a ton of opportunity on the table, and we’re just getting started.

Right now, savvy companies are creating fully realized digital environments for brands, products and IP—driving actual value to stakeholders and customers. While imagination is the only limit to what virtual worlds can accomplish, success starts with purpose. If the metaverse is marketing, then brands have an enormous opportunity to connect with fans like never before.

In this panel, meta-worldbuilders Josh Rush (CEO / Surreal Events), Craig Laliberte (Sr. Business Development Lead / Epic Games) and Greg Mize (VP, Marketing & Innovation / Atlanta Braves) discuss how the Braves became the first MLB team to join the metaverse with Digital Truist Park. They also explore how brands can amplify reach, sales and engagement in the metaverse by putting fans first. Batter up!

Speakers

Greg Mize

VP of Marketing & Innovation , Atlanta Braves

Josh Rush

Co-Founder & CEO , SURREAL Events

Craig Laliberte

Sr. Business Development Manager , Epic Games - Unreal Engine

Description

The University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center is one of the largest and most technologically advanced centers of its kind in the world. While this esteemed institution is well-known for its work in the areas of immunotherapy, precision surgery, and proton therapy it is quickly gaining a reputation for work being done in the field of medical virtual reality. This technology is now being utilized to help manage the stress and anxiety experienced by patients and caregivers alike. It is quickly finding a place in the areas of patient education, as well as the education the medical trainees. Researchers and clinicians at PENN continue to explore and develop XR applications for the benefit of patients, medical trainees, and caregivers.

Speakers

William Levin

Physician , University of Pennsylvania

Description

Whether hands free mobile displays or in situ data overlay, head-mounted augmented reality offers much to improve productivity and reduce human error in space. Unfortunately, existing solutions for tracking and holographic overlay alignment tend to rely on, or at least assume, earth gravity. Nothing inherent to a microgravity environment would make AR tracking impossible but several factors need to be taken into account. First, the high-frequency camera pose estimation uses SLAM, which relies on data from IMU sensors, which, by default accommodate the acceleration of gravity in their base measurements. Second, most holographic alignment strategies assume a consistent down direction. This session will explore strategies to mitigate these limitations.

Speakers

Logan Smith

Chief Technology Officer , Argyle.build

Description

Smart glasses in a normal form factor will significantly change our everyday lives. tooz envisioned this more than a decade ago when the tooz journey began in the corporate research labs of ZEISS Germany. Starting with the first curved waveguide, tooz developed several generations of optical engines and provided a continuous stream of patented inventions to the smart glass industry. 5 years ago, Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile joined the journey as a 50% shareholder and enabled the development of full smart glasses solutions based on tooz’ waveguides. At AWE 2022, tooz will launch its next breakthrough innovation on its mission to lead this market: tooz ESSNZ Berlin is the first market-ready smart glasses reference design with vision correction that will change the daily interaction of consumers with data, media and ecosystem interfaces. The underlying tooz technology is highly customizable, scalable, and marketable – Not in the future, but already today.

Speakers

Kai Ströder

CEO & Managing Director , tooz technologies GmbH