FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY – July 19, 2022 –  The WebXR Summit Series returns on Thursday, July 21st, for its fourth Edition, the WebXR Education Summit hosted by Dr. Karen Alexander. This 9-hour virtual event will have 22 sessions with featuring over 50 experts in immersive learning, representing top schools and companies that are building curricula and educational technology for the era of the Metaverse. 

Education is a key use for immersive technology, drawing investment from enterprise and academia to create next generation experiences that accelerate learning. This summit will convene practitioners who are innovating with new technologies to shape education for today’s world and tomorrow’s future. As our culture and society change, often as a result of technological advances, education must keep pace, and the speakers at this summit are helping to lead the way. This moment presents a key opportunity to develop new tools, methods, contexts, and concepts that will expand how we learn and deliver educational content more effectively. 

Decades of research have determined that immersive technology delivers improved outcomes. That core value is the foundation of this burgeoning industry. Market research reports unanimously predict rapid growth in the educational technology sector. This movement is creating vast opportunities for those investing in learning innovation across all sectors. Availability of lower cost equipment, new software, and high speed internet connections have put the infrastructure in place. Now it’s time to focus on building.

Since the term “Metaverse” became popularized, much discussion has been focused on “what” the Metaverse is. The 2022 WebXR Summit Series is focused on “the how” of building the Metaverse. By convening the pioneers who are already working on it, it aims to inspire the many people it will take to fulfill its promise. 

The WebXR Education Summit is a 9-hour virtual event with a long list of distinguished educators and entrepreneurs who will share their insights on what needs to happen next. Faculty from 17 renowned colleges and universities including Arizona State, Harvard, Stanford, and specialists from enterprise companies implementing solutions including Siemens, Schell Games, and Victory XR will be taking part. Robust discussions on topics ranging from research, administration, assessment, accessibility compliance, gamification, immersive teaching tools, and liberal arts to mitigating the next digital divide, which will provide the audience broad context to understand the coming disruption to traditional education modalities. 

The WebXR Education Town Hall will precede the summit on Thursday, July 14th with a two-hour public Zoom call to hear directly from the community. Anyone interested in immersive education is invited to participate by asking questions and sharing their experiences. This will help inform the discussion at the summit. Last year, the WebXR Summit Series had town halls before each of its three events, the Developer, Business, and Design Summits. 

Dr. Alexander’s experience spans partnering with community organizations to empower children and youth to create with XR tools, guiding higher-ed institutions through the process of XR adoption, advising ed tech and XR startups. She is a co-founder of XR Women, a worldwide network of professionals that meet weekly in virtual worlds and where a distinguished list of XR industry speakers has appeared. She has worked with some of the most influential thought leaders in spatial computing and is a member of the Immersive Learning Research Network’s State of XR and Immersive Learning Expert Panel. Prior to her work in XR, Dr. Alexander was Dean of Junior and Senior Year programs at the women’s college at Rutgers University and Senior Editor of Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society.

The WebXR Summit Series is co-hosted by Julie Smithson and features case-study interviews by Special Correspondent Sophia Moshasha, also co-founders of XR Women. Together, they also host The Polys – WebXR Awards and Virtual Red Carpet. A staple of the WebXR Summits and The Polys, created by Ben Erwin, are live community watch parties in multiple worlds across the “Meta-Multiverse,” on the Altspace, ENGAGE, Hubs, Frame, and VR Land platforms. Recently, Moshasha and Smithson led a cast of 17, including Dr Alexander, in “MetaTr@versal – A Day in the Life,” a play about humanity in the Metaverse with themes of standards and interoperability, written and directed by Ben Erwin with Terry xR. Schussler, at the Augmented World Expo. 

Sophia Moshasha will host the WebXR Brand Summit on September 15th, for discussions of immersive advertising and marketing. The 2022 Summit Series will conclude with the WebXR Production Summit hosted by Daniel Dyboski-Bryant on October 13th to discuss technical solutions to producing immersive experiences.

For update event roster visit https://webxr.events/event/webxr-education-summit/ 

Register for the WebXR Education Summit https://bit.ly/WebXREdSummitTix 

Register for the WebXR Education Town Hall https://bit.ly/WebXREducationSummitTownHall 

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/WebXRSummitSeries 

Twitter @WebXRAwards

Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/webxrawards 

The WebXR Summit Series and The Polys – WebXR Awards are sponsored in part by Futurewei Technologies. 

WebXR Education Summit Agenda and Roster

(Times listed are Eastern Daylight Time)

11:00 am | Welcome to the WebXR Education Summit

Summits creator Ben Erwin welcomes the audience, looks ahead to the great lineup of speakers on immersive education, and introduces host Dr. Karen Alexander.

• Ben Erwin – Creator, The Polys – WebXR Awards, WebXR Summit Series and MetaTr@versal @powersimple

11:05 am | Opening Remarks

Dr. Karen Alexander set the context and scope of presentations on Immersive Education and addresses the role of WebXR as an enabler for accelerated development of accessible XR programs.

• Karen Alexander – Host, WebXR Education Summit @XRconnectED

11:15 am | Morning Fireside Chat

Interview

• Karen Alexander – Host, WebXR Education Summit @XRconnectED

• Mina Johnson – Associate Professor, Arizona State University

11:45 am | The Metaversity Project

The Metaversity project led by Victory XR is a program of 10 Universities building digital twins in the Metaverse; West Virginia University, Morehouse College, Online California State University-Dominguez Hills, Florida A&M University, University of Kansas School of Nursing, University of Maryland Global Campus, SDSU Global Campus, New Mexico State University, Alabama A&M University College of Business and Public Affairs, and Southwestern Oregon Community College. Steve Grubbs shares with us the details of this pioneering initiative in an effort to inspire other schools to expand into immersive education.

Presentation

• Steve Grubbs – CEO, Victory XR @SteveGrubbsVXR

12:00 pm | State of Immersive Learning with XR

The Immersive Learning Research Network annually convenes a panel of experts to produce the State of XR and Immersive Learning Report. Leaders of this initiative discuss highlights of the 2022 report in progress.

Panel

• Karen Alexander – Host, WebXR Education Summit @XRconnectED

• Jonathon Richter – President and CEO, Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN) @wainbrave

• Chris Dede – Professor, Harvard University @chrs_dede

• Maya Georgieva – Sr. Director, Innovation Center, The New School @mayaig

12:30 pm | Empowering Teachers with XR Tools

In this practice-focused panel, leading XR educators discuss the most effective tools available for use in the classroom and how teachers can employ them in lessons.

Panel

• Paula McDowell – Assistant Professor & Acting Department Head, U Saskatchewan @paulamacdowell

• Kai Frazier – Founder & CEO, Kai XR @__Ka1

• Steven Bambury – Founder, VirtualiTeach @steve_bambury

• Corinne Brenner – Director of Learning, Killer Snails @KillerSnails1

1:00 pm | Transforming Education in Africa

The African continent is rich in opportunities to build new educational models from the ground up and to prepare its young and growing population for a future in which XR is a primary computing platform. Experts from the continent will talk about their initiatives and key considerations.

Panel

• Arome Ibrahim – Co-Founder / 360VR Developer, Experis Immersive @aromeibrahim_

• Grace Kebirungi – Technical Project Coordinator, Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) @GraceKebirungi2

• Walid Kilonzi – Virtual Reality Producer, Fallohide @Walid_Kilonzi

• Isiaq Gbadamosi – Co-Founder, Head of Growth, SwiftXR @IsiaqGbadamosi

• Job Oyebisi – CEO, Co-Founder, StanLab @joboyebisi

1:30 pm | Championing the Arts & Humanities in Tech-Enabled Education

XR education is not all about STEM. In fact, the affordances of XR make it highly effective for teaching arts and humanities. Experienced educators talk about how they have adopted XR to teach these subjects.

Panel

• Carlos J. Ochoa Fernandez – Founder, One Digital Consulting @CarlosJOchoaFer

• Nyambura M. Waruingi – Founder & Creative Director, AKOIA & Company @nyambura_mw

• Lucia Binotti – Professor, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill @lbinotti

• Michael McDonald – Project Manager – Custom Programs, SDA Bocconi Learning Lab @goldlotusco

2:00 pm | Assessing Learning for the Age of XR

New learning tools require new means of assessment. And XR permits the collection of data that encompasses much more than was previously possible.

Presentation

• Jennifer Rogers – Executive Officer, Learning Technology Standards Committee, IEEE @PeopleXLR8r

2:15 pm | Enabling Different Abilities with XR Content

Immersive learning can unlock potential for Special Education and people with different abilities, such as autism or those with mobility and cognitive impairments. The panel of experts explore success stories of how XR empowers those left behind in traditional education.

Panel

• Muhsinah Morris – Director of Morehouse in the Metaverse, Morehouse College https://www.twitter.com/drmuhsinah

• Jasmine Clark – Digital Scholarship Librarian, Temple University @lellyjz

• Anna Xygkou – PhD Researcher, University of Kent @anna_ksigou

2:45 pm | ADA Compliance for Immersive Education

Government funding for education comes with a mandate for accessibility. Failure to account for the needs of the differently abled could potentially expose institutions to lawsuits. Roland Dubois, a leading educator on WebXR and accessibility shares what you need to know to make sure your program serves the needs of everyone in compliance with governmental regulation.

Presentation

• Roland Dubois – Adjunct Faculty for XR, UX/UI, School of Visual Arts @rolanddubois

3:00 pm | Equity in Teaching Next Gen XR Developers

Presentation

• Rebecca DuPont  Associate Professor of Multimedia Communications, Community College of Allegheny County @Hoshiharetsu

3:15 pm | Administering XR Programs

As metaversities spring up and XR is increasingly adopted for education, policies, processes, and even organizational structures need to adapt to meet the opportunities and address new challenges. Here we examine actionable steps in constructing successful XR programs.

Panel

• Karen Alexander – Host, WebXR Education Summit @XRconnectED

• Jeremy Nelson – Director of XR Initiative, University of Michigan @jernel_Umich

• Emily Sherwood – Director, Digital Scholarship & Studio X, Studio X, University of Rochester @emilygwynne

• Heather Haseley – Co-Executive Director, Learning Futures, Arizona State University @hhaseley

3:30 pm | Gamification and Instructional Design for Immersive Learning

Design is key for all learning, and immersive learning is no exception. And gamification represents one strategy that can provide structure and enhance engagement in learning. This session explores immersive learning design strategies and why they matter.

Panel

• Heather Dodds – Senior XR Immersive Learning Researcher, Heather Elizabeth Dodds PhD Consulting @Heatherlovessci

• Aleshia Hayes – Assistant Professor of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas @AleshiaProf

• Brooke Morrill – Sr. Director of Education, Schell Games

• Stylianos Mystakidis – Learning Innovator, University of Patras @stylianosm2

4:00 pm | XR in Medical Education

Medical training is one of the most important use cases in XR, because it allows practitioners to learn in 3D, and practice without the stakes of operating on live patients or cadavers. Also, operating medical machines through immersive learning programs is more effective and economical than traditional 2D Models. Hear from leading experts in immersive medical education.

Panel

• Shawna Pandya – Vice President of Immersive Medicine, Luxsonic Technologies Inc. @shawnapandya

• Christi Fenison – XR Instructional Media Producer, UNC School of Medicine IT; XR World Builder -Cause + Christi; @christifenison

• William P. Levin, MD – Assoc Professor or Radiation Oncology & Medical Director of Global Network Operations, Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System

4:30 pm | Bringing Immersive Education to Underserved Communities

“The Digital Divide” hasn’t been solved yet to provide equitable access to the internet, let alone immersive education. This panel will explore what it will take to accelerate the equitable delivery of Immersive Education to the underprivileged communities so that teachers and students have the access, exposure, and opportunity to take advantage of the best of today’s tools.

Panel

• Clayton Banks – CEO, Silicon Harlem @embertime

• Shannon Putman – PhD Researcher, University of Louisville @shannon1_putman

• Angelina Dayton – Tech Policy Fellow, The Aspen Institute @AngelinaDayton

5:00 pm | Building Community Among XR Educators

Co-founders of Educators in VR Lorelle von Fossen and Daniel Dyboski-Bryant have extensive experience bringing people together in VR to share their knowledge and experience of  XR education. Here they will discuss what they have gleaned from the hundreds of events they’ve produced.

Panel

• Daniel Dyboski-Bryant – Executive Director, Virtual World Society http://twitter.com/educatorsvr

• Lorelle Van Fossen – Director, Educators in VR http://twitter.com/educatorsvr

• Emilie Joly – CEO, Zoe Immersive @ZoeImmersive

5:30 pm | Afternoon Fireside Chat

• Karen Alexander – Host, WebXR Education Summit @XRconnectED

6:00 pm | Teaching in Virtual Campuses and Classrooms

When the rules of time and physics don’t apply, you can teach anywhere at any moment in history and take the students with you. We’ll hear from teachers who are also world builders on what they’ve learned while teaching in VR.

Panel

• Keith Chan – Professor of Anthropology, MiraCosta College @chekeichan

• Michael Avis – Faculty Facilitator & Educational Technology Coach | Founder & President, George Brown College | Tapvigo

• Andrew Wright – Creator, The EDUmetaverse @EduMetaverse

6:30 pm | Adaptive Transformation

Summit co-host Julie Smithson will synthesize what we learned today, and talk about building digital mindsets in organizations. There is enormous potential to transform the world of work with XR. That starts with how people learn to do their jobs, upskill for further opportunities.

Panel

• Julie Smithson – Co-Founder, MetaVRse Inc. @juliesmithso

7:00 pm | Findings on the Effectiveness of XR for Education

The evidence for the effectiveness of XR in learning is more than anecdotal. These researchers represent the cutting edge of those whose work can show us what really works.

Panel

• Karen Alexander – Host, WebXR Education Summit @XRconnectED

• Cassondra Eng – Researcher, Stanford University

• Eleni Mangina – VP, International Science, University College Dublin @elenimangina

7:30 pm | Enterprise Case Study: Siemens Healthineers

International medical appliance manufacturer Siemens Healthineers are remaking their employee education program using MetaVRse Engine. Sophia meets with Jennifer Crawford to talk about how the scalability of WebXR enables rapid expansion with measurable results.

Interview

• Sophia Moshasha – Special Correspondent, WebXR Summit Series @SophiaMosh

• Jennifer Crawford – Global Head of Education Designers, Siemens Healthineers

7:45 pm | Classroom Case Study – The Magic of Flight

The Magic of Flight swept its categories at the Poly Awards including Education Experience of the Year. Sophia Moshasha interviews John Collins, who has more than 30 years experience in STEM education, on the difference that immersive makes.

Interview

• Sophia Moshasha – Special Correspondent, WebXR Summit Series @SophiaMosh

• John Collins – The Paper Airplane Guy, @pprairplnguy

The Polys WebXR Awards Show Returns To Break More Ground

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY – February 11, 2022; The Polys – WebXR Awards returns Saturday, February 12, 2022 to celebrate the pioneers of the Immersive Web. The Virtual Red Carpet with Sophia Moshasha begins at 2pm Eastern followed by the ceremony, hosted by Julie Smithson. WebXR is the next evolution of the web, allowing accessibility to immersive content and world from any 2D or XR device. This awards show will celebrate pioneers and projects building on this new medium. The Polys – WebXR Awards breaks new ground as the first awards show to:

• Broadcast the show to and from watch parties in virtual worlds
• Demonstrate LIVE inter-platform traversing without breaking immersion from VR Land to the XR Women Museum in Frame
• Have a live halftime show presented by OnboardXR with live singing and mocap dance in WebXR featuring Unwired Dance Theater’s Clemence Debaig, Brendan Bradley, Michael Morran, Maurice Soque Jr., and Christina Karpodini.
• An After Party in Meta Horizons with a bespoke world created and hosted by Paige Danzinger.

With the innovations this show brings to blend live & virtual production in the metaverse, The Polys has made its name as “the next Emmys” for this new, emerging medium as Emmy winner and Polys’ nominee, Thomas Wallner, describes in this year’s trailer.

This year, The Polys is adding six new awards for a total of seventeen. The new categories are World, Video Experience, Augmented Reality Experience, Creator of the Year, Software of the Year, and the R.O.X. Award – Return on Experience, and a new Community Honor. Winners will be presented with their NFT trophies by an all-star lineup of personalities from the community. 

In order to qualify, nominated experiences must be stereoscopic immersive content that runs on the WebXR Device API. Visit The Polys website to experience nominated projects.

Special honorees include:

• Lifetime Achievement Award – Brandon Jones, for his contributions to the WebXR Stack.
• Ombudsperson of the Year – Avi Bar-Zeev for his philosophical contributions to the shaping of the Metaverse, presented by last year’s recipient, Kent Bye.
• The first Community Honor – Trevor Flowers for his work supporting the W3C Community Group, editor of the Immersive Web Weekly newsletter, and host of the WebXR Developer Summit.

Register for the event here!

The WebXR Summit Series returns in 2022 with three all-new shows: the WebXR Education Summit hosted by Karen Alexander on July 21^st, the WebXR Brand Summit hosted by Sophia Moshasha on September 15^th, and the WebXR Production Summit hosted by Steve Lewis on October 13^th. Futurewei Technologies, sponsors of the 2021 WebXR Summit Series, returns as the lead sponsor for this year’s Polys and Summit Series.

About the Team

The team behind the WebXR Summit series, producers Karen Alexander, Steve Lewis, and Linda Ricci, along with Polys hosts Julie Smithson and Sophia Moshasha and creator Ben Erwin. They produced 10 WebXR events in 2021 to include the first Polys show and movie premiere party, the WebXR Developer Summit hosted by Trevor Flowers, the WebXR Business Summit hosted by Samantha Mathews and the WebXR Design Summit hosted by Kent Bye. 

The team also collaborates on other projects, including the annual VR Charity Golf Tournament Ready Player Golf with Richard Ward, Chris Madsen, Sophia Moshasha and Ben Erwin. Julie Smithson, Sophia Moshasha, and Karen Alexander are co-founders of XR Women, which produced 50 weekly events in their first year. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

XR Pioneers and Leaders Pack All-Star WebXR Business Summit

New York, NY – Tuesday, September 7, 2021– The XR Industry is rallying around WebXR for an all-day free virtual event, the WebXR Business Summit on September 14th, for  decision-makers to elevate their game onto the Immersive Web. The team that produced The Polys – WebXR Awards and the WebXR Developer Summit is back with a program hosted by Samantha Mathews, CEO/CTO of LOCI, featuring a roster of pioneers and business leaders to discuss the next evolution of the Internet.

WebXR delivers Virtual and Augmented Reality experiences on the open web, making it easy for developers to deploy spatial websites to new immersive stereoscopic 3D headsets, while still supporting billions of 2D mobile and desktop browsers. The WebXR Business Summit will focus on the opportunities and economics of this new medium. Mobile devices, social media, and video transformed the web over the past decade, serving billions of people and creating trillions in wealth, and immersive content is what’s next. 

The WebXR Business Summit features luminaries in the space from around the world, including Alban Denoyel, CEO of Sketchfab, which was recently acquired by Epic Games, maker of Unreal Engine and the popular game Fortnite. CEO Artur Sychov of Somnium Space will present live from his WebXR platform, which is establishing a creator economy around NFTs and virtual real-estate. Gabriel Baker, Poly Award Winner for Developer of the Year and Product Manager for Virbela’s FRAME platform, will talk about virtual events for the education, government, and private sectors in a feature interview with Sophia Moshasha. The panels are moderated by and stacked with prominent industry figures including Tony Parisi of Unity Technologies; Alan Smithson of MetaVRse; Timmu Tõke, CEO of popular avatar platform Ready Player Me; Jamie Burke of Outlier Ventures; and Tom Emrich of 8th Wall.  The day will be co-hosted by Julie Smithson, MetaVRse co-founder, XR Women Global Chair, and host of The Polys – WebXR Awards. For a the full agenda and list of speakers participating at the event visit https://webxr.events/event/webxr-business-summit/ 

Now that Apple has declared that support for the W3C’s Device API specification is in development and integrated into  its to-be-released browser engine WebKit, there is a push to make the specification a standard. Dr. June Wang, SVP at Futurewei Technologies Inc., the event’s lead sponsor, will host a panel called “Building Consensus Around Industry Standards” that features Neil Trevett, President of The Khronos Group, which created the WebGL, GTLF, and OpenXR standards used by WebXR. Another panel will discuss the business implications of initiatives to make the Metaverse interoperable. Special edition extended interviews with W3C’s Dominique Hazaël-Massieux and Neil Trevett will take a deeper dive into the standards topic help provide additional context for the summits.

The 2021 WebXR Summit Series will conclude on October 12th with the WebXR Design Summit, hosted by Kent Bye of the Voices of VR podcast, which will onboard creatives into the spatial and experiential medium. The Summits are streamed live on YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and can be enjoyed as a community through a “Meta-Multiverse” of watch parties in VR Platforms including Frame, VRLand, AltSpaceVR, and ENGAGE. The WebXR Summit Series is sponsored by Futurewei Technologies Inc., and advocates for Open Source, Standardization, and Collaboration within the XR Ecosystem. 

The Polys – WebXR Awards and WebXR Summit Series is produced by Point Cloud Productions: Karen Alexander, Steve Lewis, Sophia Moshasha, Linda Ricci and Julie Smithson and created by Ben Erwin. The 2nd Polys – WebXR Awards ceremony will be held on February 12, 2022, with host Julie Smithson and Virtual Red Carpet host Sophia Moshasha. 

Contact: Sophia Moshasha
sophia@thevrara.com 

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The Polys WebXR Awards and WebXR Summit Series website
https://webxr.events

Twitter
https://twitter.com/webxrawards

Special Edition Interview Dominique Hazaël-Massieux with Sophia Mosahasha
Released September 6, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEZ5LZbCEaU

WebXR Summit Series Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq_VVt886pw