Rosedale, Second Life CEO to keynote education conference

Press release: VWBPE 2014 Kick-Off “Connections”

March 12 — The four-day Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference starts on April 9, and will feature keynotes by Philip Rosedale, CEO of High Fidelity, founder of Linden Lab and creator of Second Life, and Ebbe Altberg, the new CEO of Second Life.

The conference will also feature other speakers as well as panels, workshops, sim demonstrations, poster presentations, and more.  The conference will cover a wide range of subjects concerning virtual worlds and their use for education, virtual reality, smart games, arts and science, and the future of technology.

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This year, the conference will span two grids — Second Life and OpenSim’s OSgrid. The theme of this year’s conference is Connections.

Over the coming days, each VWBPE conference keynote speaker and their respective presentations will be featured on the conference website, along with information on featured panels, exciting social activities, and networking events that will set extraordinary discussions in motion.  Additionally, this open and free conference would not be possible without the generous contributions of VWBPE sponsors.

The completed conference schedule should be out within the next two weeks, but presenters will receive individual assignments within the next few days.  The conference schedule overview is here.

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Here are the 2014 Keynote and Featured speakers for this year’s conference.

Opening Keynote:     Closing the Gap: Virtual Reality & Education
Presenter:         Philip Rosedale, CEO High Fidelity
Date/Time:        Wednesday April 9th, at 1:00pm PDT
Location:        Second Life – VWBPE Central Auditorium

Featured Keynote:    Connections in an Open Place
Presenter:        Justin Clark-Casey, President OpenSimulator umbrella Overte Foundation
Date/Time:        Thursday April 10th, at 7:00am PDT
Location:        OSGrid – VWBPE Gateway

Featured Keynote:     The Coming 3D Future Shock
Presenter:         Maria Korolov, Editor in Chief – Hypergrid Business
Date/Time:        Thursday April 10th, at 10:05am PDT
Location:        OSGrid – VWBPE Gateway

Featured Keynote:    Using Virtual Worlds and Gamification to Enhance Learning
Presenter:        Andrew Hughes, CEO Designing Digitally
Date/Time:        Friday April 11th, at 7:00am PDT
Location:        Second Life – VWBPE Central Auditorium

Featured Keynote:    TBA
Presenter:        Ebbe Altberg, CEO Linden Lab
Date/Time:        Friday April 11th, at 1:00pm PDT
Location:        Second Life – VWBPE Central Auditorium

Featured Keynote:    Design Implications of Game-Based Analyses
Presenter:        David Gibson, Associate Professor at Curtin University in Perth, Australia
Date/Time:        Saturday April 12th, at 7:00am PDT
Location:        Second Life – VWBPE Central Auditorium

Closing Keynote:    “There’s always room for a virtual zipline”, and other lessons from SciEthics Interactive
Presenter:        Dr. Larysa Nadolny, Assistant Professor, Iowa State University
Date/Time:        Saturday April 12th, at 1:00pm PDT
Location:        Second Life – VWBPE Central Auditorium

Those wishing to attend can still register at Eventbrite.