Just a reminder that online registration has opened for HTC’s Virtual Vive Ecosystem Conference (V²EC), which will be held on the ENGAGE social VR platform on Thursday, March 19th, starting at 1:30 a.m. GMT. The conference will be bilingual (English/Chinese) and registration is free.
Here is the link to the online registration for the conference. Follow the hashtag #V2EC2020 on Twitter for more information.
Both the VRScout and Road to VR news websites are reporting that VR headset maker HTC will be holding its Vive Ecosystem Conference (VEC) on virtual reality instead of an in-person event, as a response to the global coronavirus pandemic.
According to today’s VR Scout report by Bobby Carlton:
Just recently, the Educators in VR International Summit showcased how VR could be used to bring people together for a week-long educational event. The event had an incredible turnout and showcased VR’s ability to connect people from all over the world for education and collaborative opportunities.
Alvin Wang, President of HTC China, was one of the presenters during the summit; after which he walked away seeing the advantages of virtual conferences. In a recent Tweet, Wang announced that HTC will be hosting the world’s first fully virtual industry conference on March 19th through the platform Engage.
Those attending V2EC2020 will enjoy a 6DOF VR experience accessible via WebVR, tablet, or smartphone. Like a real-world conference, HTC will have a line-up of speakers, team-building experiences, and amazing networking opportunities with zero carbon, zero travel, and zero risk of Coronavirus.
In an interview with VRScout, Wang said, “The CoronaVirus has dramatically impacted the people and business in China for the last two months and is forcing the country and now, the rest of the world to rethink how we live our lives and conduct business.” Wang continues, “Essentially all physical events and travel in the country have been canceled since January, so doing a fully VR event makes perfect sense.”
The so called Virtual Vive Ecosystem Conference (stylized as V²EC) is slated to take place on March 19th in ENGAGE, the education & training-focused social VR platform created by Immersive VR Education, the same minds behind VR experiences Apollo 11 VR and Titanic VR.
The news was announced by HTC Vive China President Alvin Wang Graylin in a tweet, stating that virtual attendees can follow along either via 6DOF VR headset or livestream via monitor.
Online registration for the V²EC conference opens on March 10th via the ENGAGE website. Neither website reported whether there was a registration fee, however.
Just a reminder that the Educators in VR 2020 International Summit opens today, and will be running events pretty much around-the-clock for its global audience until it wraps up at noon Pacific Time on Saturday, February 22nd. The conference opens at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time today. Among the speakers on the first day are virtual reality pioneer Tom Furness, as well as Alvin Wang Graylin of HTC China.
The complete schedule is at the link above. Many of the events will take place in AltspaceVR, but events will also take place on four other social VR platforms: ENGAGE, rumii, Mozilla Hubs, and Somnium Space. The entire conference is free and open to the public. You do not need a virtual reality headset to attend! The conference events will also be livestreamed to YouTube at this URL.
I will be one of the speakers on the final morning of the Summit, giving two talks: one as a librarian (Social VR and Libraries: A Look Back and a Look Forward) and one as a blogger (Four Lessons Learned as a Social VR Blogger). Here’s a link to the event on the ENGAGE website.
I had my first technical and speech run-through in ENGAGE’s beautiful virtual recreation of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford yesterday:
See you there! I plan to attend as many presentations as possible, before I give my own talks on Saturday. This will be a conference you will not want to miss!
This morning, I decided to submit an application to be a speaker about applications of social VR to libraries at the upcoming Educators in VR 2020 International Summit, which will run from February 17th to 22nd, 2020. Wish me luck! I’m crossing my fingers that my proposed talk will be accepted!
Instead of a physical real-world location, the entire conference will take place on various social VR platforms, including:
AltspaceVR is actually a pretty good choice as a platform for this conference, since it is pretty much accessible to almost everybody, including flatscreen PC users (although I still object to the cartoony avatars from a purely aesthetic standpoint 😉 …).
Here’s a brief description of the summit, taken from their website:
The 2020 Educators in VR International Summit is a free, open-to-the public, virtual event lasting 6 days (over 80 round-the-clock hours) with a diverse range of speakers and presentations covering:
• The Basics of VR/AR/XR/MR
• Research into Spatial Technologies in Education
• Corporate Uses for Training and Education
• Language Arts Training, Education, and as a Classroom
• Coaching and Personal Development
• Medical and Science
• Computer Science and Math
• Student Maker/Creator Projects, Collaborations, and Apps
• Virtual Applications and Hardware for the ClassroomAnd so much more. We have topics under consideration covering the use of social media with virtual reality, education in religion and virtual worlds, world building, VR/AR app development, social and educational VR platforms, and open discussions with some of the world’s foremost experts in education and integrating extended reality.
The Educators in VR group that is putting on this event is an open, international, cross-platform community of educators, researchers, and trainers exploring and collaborating with and in virtual and augmented reality. They host weekly meetups in AltspaceVR on Tuesdays. They also have an active Discord server (here’s the invite link to join if you are interested). They’re also on Facebook and Twitter.
Even if I am not accepted as a speaker or panelist at the summit, I do plan to attend as much as I can of this event! The best part is, I don’t have to spend any money on conference fees, or buy a plane ticket to fly anywhere! (Trying to fit my tired, old, fat ass into economy airline seating for several hours at a stretch is no longer my idea of a fun time.)
If you wish to submit a proposal yourself to present at the conference, here is the link (the deadline is December 30th, 2019). The summit is also looking for volunteers; here is the link to apply if you want to help out.