Serious Virtual Worlds ‘07

Today I have attended the first day of the Serious Virtual Worlds ‘07, the First European Conference on the Professional Applications on Virtual Worlds (13-14 September 2007) held at Coventry TechnoCentre. The theme for this first Serious Virtual Worlds conference is ‘The Reality of the Virtual World' and takes a close look at how virtual worlds are now being used for serious professional purposes. Many organisations are now actively researching and deploying virtual worlds. Serious Virtual Worlds is a good introduction to the serious uses of virtual worlds. This was driven by the extraordinary success of virtual worlds such as ‘Second Life’ (see screenshot below) as virtual social spaces for play leads to the question ‘What is the potential for the serious uses of these worlds?’

The theme of the first day is ‘Introducing Virtual Worlds’. A number of presentations and conversations introducing virtual worlds and the 3D web from Cisco, Linden Labs, TruSim, Forterra, Giunti Labs, Pixel Learning, Caspian, Ambient Performance and Daden, closing with the launch of the Serious Games Institute’s ‘Second Life’ Island with a Cocktail Reception followed by the Conference Dinner. The theme of the second day, is ‘Serious Virtual Worlds: Action & Potential’ including live virtual world presentations and conversations from Digital Earth, Reuters, Stamford Medical School, TruSim, PA Consulting, IBM, Forterra, NPL, Logicom, and AVM.

More information:

http://www.seriousvirtualworlds.net/