The Summer Institute at Wallenberg Hall - Developing Applications and Platforms for Open Virtual Worlds

Developing Applications and Platforms for Open Virtual Worlds *

This workshop will gather key insights from people behind the new open source Sirikata (www.sirikata.com) platform coming out of Stanford as well as thought leaders on the content side of this equation. This is an opportunity for people who wants to get a sense of where the space is headed and what possibilities might grow out of this large scale collaboration around building a next generation platform.

With the proliferation of Twitter and an interesting demo of Google Wave we are seeing that the traditionally asynchronous world wide web is moving towards real time capabilities. Meanwhile the virtual world space is on the down slide of another hype cycle that has forced the space to reinvent itself. A promise of virtual worlds is to continue the trend towards real time and thus empowering decentralized teams to strengthen online collaboration.

To enable this the days of the walled garden spaces needs to come to an end. Virtual worlds have traditionally been betting against the web rather than put the focus on integration into the browser environment where we already spend our online existences. This workshop will explore the challenges involved in making 3D collaborative first class web citizens along side the written word, images and video.

Extending the web with real time capability in 3D spaces holds the potential to open up a new space for innovation online across a number of sectors ranging from research, education and far into industry. In this engagement driven medium we are going to see the need for a range of skills delivering experiences ranging from serious work to plain old fun.

Date: July 31, 2009

Organizers:

Henrik Bennetsen, Henry Lowood

Who Should Participate:
Developers and users of virtual worlds, especially open platforms

Agenda:
The workshop will explore these and other challenges:

How can open platforms be designed in a way as to enable to finding of one of more killer apps in this space?
What types of innovation might a world where everyone can deploy their own virtual world bring?
In what ways might open 3D collaborative environments drive the radical decentralization we know form the web onwards?
What does the ability to do more online mean for work in modern organizations?
How may the participatory culture that has shot up on the web expand with these new possibilities?

Workshop Fees:
The cost includes all materials; breakfast, and coffee breaks. Participants will visit campus eateries in groups for lunch.

Register Now: please go to the registration page and use the code OPEN

Or use the code provided to you.

**Registration is required**
Open	$895
Media X	$795
Group - 3 or more	$795
Academic, Non-profit	$575
Student (valid ID req.)	$195
The CTO Forum	$300

Individual enrollment: $895.00 USD per person
Team enrollment (3 or more persons): $795.00 USD per person

Registration and Refund Policies:
If there are insufficient registrations received before June 30, 2009, we reserve the right to cancel the workshops and refund your registration fees in full. We will NOT be liable for the cost of travel or hotel reservations. Please contact information for advice on the possibility of cancellation.

Registrations that are cancelled by the registrant before June 30, 2009 will be liable for a $100 processing fee. Registrations canceled on or after July 1, 2009 and before July 14 will be liable to pay a 50% cancellation fee. Registrations canceled on or after July 15, 2009 are liable for the full cost of the workshop. If a replacement participant is sent in your place, the cancellation fees will be reduced to the $100 processing fee to cover the costs of the change.

STAP funds may be used for this workshop.

*Preliminary description. Subject to change.