The VR/AR Global Summit is a virtual conference about virtual and augmented reality and I’ve been attending a number of talks for the last 3 days on the online app and YouTube live. The talks that resonated most were ‘Remote Collaboration & Virtual Conferences, The End of Distance, and The Future of Work’ presented by Charlie Fink; ‘The Future is for eVRyone!’ presented by Ollie Rankin and interviews with the VRARGS Futurists and Amy Abernethy discussing the importance of ‘Perspective Taking in VR’.
In his talk Charlie Fink presented the XR Directory, a volume of work undertaken by himself and his students to evaluate the companies in XR offering remote colloration and virtual conference tools. Success was determined by the transparency of the technology, the balance between agency and presence to create the right level of engagment, and the ability to create desirable spaces in terms of worldbuilding. Completely on trend given the current Covid-19 situation and a neat analysis of bringing to fruition tools that might facilitate the underlying summit statement that this is a ‘killer moment for VR’.
Ollie Rankin argued for a more inclusive approach to VR in terms of accessiblity, sustainability and diversity by using the once in a generation opportunity presented by Covid 19 to rethink both the way VR is being developed and by whom to create a new future that steers away from bias and inequality. He suggested that honesty and transparency; surrounding yourself by people different to you; taking only what you need and do no harm would be a good approach and concluded that VR, as new industry, was uniquely placed to implement these ways of working from the outset to build a future for everyone.
The VR Futurist Behice Ece Ilhan shared some thoughts on how brands should be thinking of and reaching consumers of the future by understanding that the ecosystems of reality are changing as more and more people are onboarding into the digital. This change has taken place over several decades: initially with print, then relationships to social media and final frontier of digitalising experiences in VR/AR. The impact will be new and unique demands on brand storytelling. In her talks, Amy Abernethy defined Perspective Taking as ‘the active contemplation of others’ psychological experiences’ and expressed the importance of this consideration in the way that we talk to each other in VR.
