Cashing In on Virtual Worlds:
Entrepreneurial Insights for the Healthcare Industry

Thursday, August 19, 2010, 1:00 - 5:00PM

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DESCRIPTION

Virtual environment platforms for the enterprise have gone through a peak of inflated expectations and appear to be in a trough of disillusionment. Numerous pilot programs have been technically successful and have shown efficacy in training, collaboration, and other applications, but they have not been generally adopted in mainstream business operations. However, virtual world technologies are commercially successful in social networking and entertainment, and new businesses using these technologies continue to spring up. What can entrepreneurs in the healthcare arena learn from these commercial successes and fresh ideas?

In this workshop, we will hear from successful virtual world companies, and brainstorm how their lessons learned apply to fledgling healthcare ventures.

In Part I, we will peer across “the chasm” to examine how virtual worlds technology can be harnessed to work as a business. Through both virtual and in-person presentations, we’ll talk with entrepreneurs who are banking on significant returns on their investment.

David Gardner, CEO of VenueGen, will demonstrate how his company is transforming virtual conferencing into a more engaging, productive experience at an affordable price. Brett Durrett, VP Engineering of IMVU, will illustrate how IMVU has leveraged virtual goods and become a profitable market leader in virtual worlds and social networking. Other speakers will also address how they have focused on key capabilities in virtual worlds to address critical needs in their target markets.

In Part II, we will brainstorm how the ideas presented in Part I can apply to applications in healthcare. Areas of interest include telemedicine, home care, treatment compliance, fitness, virtual hospitals, virtual patients, professional training, and education. We will invite developers and healthcare practitioners to talk about their pilot programs that show promise for business. We will also invite entrepreneurs in the audience to present their “elevator pitches,” and receive feedback from the group. In this way, this workshop will conclude the discussion that we began in the “Virtual Medical Environments Workshop” at Media-X on March 8, 2010.

AUDIENCE

Developers, healthcare practitioners, entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate leaders looking for applications of virtual worlds that provide a return on investment.

LOCATION

The workshop will be held at Wallenberg Hall, Stanford University's state-of-the-art facility for experimentation in innovative learning methods.

REGISTRATION

Registration is required. $75, some scholarships available.

ORGANIZERS

Parvati Dev leads a new company, Innovation in Learning Inc., to further develop new online learning environments including CliniSpace™. She believes that virtual hospitals and homes, with virtual patients and families, will become standard in medical education as well as in patient education and medical marketing. This, together with high-resolution video, for immersive face-to-face interaction, will create a future learning environment that will erase geographic barriers and bring local knowledge to serve global needs.

Dr. Dev completed her doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering on computational modeling at Stanford University. She has worked on the research and teaching staff at M.I.T., Boston University, and Stanford, as well as leading product development for three-dimensional imaging at CEMAX, a medical imaging company. From 1990 to 2007, she led the SUMMIT Research Laboratory for Learning Technologies at Stanford University, where her research included studies on simulation and game-based learning.

Laura Kusumoto is an expert on applications of virtual worlds (VW) and a consultant in interactive media development in general, with over 10 years’ experience developing virtual worlds for enterprise collaboration, training, government, and entertainment. Ms. Kusumoto led Forterra Systems, Inc.’s initiatives in healthcare, and pioneered programs to develop a virtual world training system for the US Army. She was CEO of IDO Systems, an early entertainment VW startup that developed a patented method for interactive advertising, Avatizing.

Ms. Kusumoto studied art and computer science and graduated with a master’s degree in Computer Science from Santa Clara University. Her early career as a software engineer was devoted to real-time scientific applications and artificial intelligence (AI). Working in product, program, and operational management for interactive media since the 1990s, she has built teams, processes, and departments to create books, videos, CD-ROMs, animations, web sites, and virtual worlds for companies such as Intuit, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Hewlett-Packard, LEGO, and Disney Interactive.