2019 Games for Change Festival

The journey home from prison often presents obstacle after obstacle for women, from seeking housing and employment to keeping up with parole demands. For some, stressful situations--like being in crowded spaces or losing custody over a child--can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms that result in individuals getting sent back to prison. In this panel, we discuss the emotional and psychological challenges of reentry; the potential for immersive technologies to prepare women for these situations; our process of co-creating a VR curriculum with a women’s prison; and ethical considerations for designing with “captive users” who are too often silenced and exploited.

For years, experts have been predicting that immersive technologies like AR and VR are on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream market. But despite the dazzling experiences that users may encounter when they first try a VR headset, industry reports suggest there continue to be signs of instability in the hardware marketplace, and that consumer demand hasn’t been as strong as anticipated. Perhaps the classroom is where AR and VR will really shine.
 
Children are enthusiastic about AR and VR, and teachers have expressed greater engagement around lessons that incorporate immersive media. But is it safe? How are these technologies being deployed in the classroom – are teachers receiving the training and support they need to implement successful lessons? What happens when the novelty wears off? And as AR and VR continue to gain traction in the education marketplace, how can we ensure equitable access to these learning experiences for all students?

Let’s face it: producing XR can be expensive. Whether it’s 360 video or interactive mixed reality, quality experiences require healthy budgets. But as these media mature, how and where are creators generating funds to produce their work? This panel brings together top decision-makers to explore the processes they have used and encountered to get experiences the funding they need.

Atlas V and Archer’s Mark, the creative forces behind award-winning VR experiences Vestige and Notes on Blindness, discuss how the use of personal non-fiction narratives in VR can help audiences re-engage with challenging emotional, social and cognitive issues through the use of new technology. Now partnering with Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security, the team will explore how these techniques can be used to reenergize the public debate on the threats posed by nuclear weapons in the twenty-first century.

Join us for the conclusion of our XR Brain Jam. Games for Change will feature some of the best XR prototypes built during the two-day Jam immediately preceeding the XR4C Summit! Participating teams of XR developers and STEM researchers will showcase their experiences and give insights into the development process.

Virtual and Augmented Reality are paving the way for unprecedented artistic expression, allowing for a new relationship to emerge between artist and audience. This panel turns to practicing artists to discuss their processes for taking art from idea to showcase in the real world, methods of discovery and experimentation, and their visions for the role XR will play in the future of art.