Agenda

Description

As Marty Neumeier so aptly describes, a brand is the “gut feeling” people have about your product/service. How do you ensure that your brand in the metaverse doesn’t give indigestion to your customer’s avatar?

The first step is re-examining your core brand assets so that they travel well. Whether or not you have technical teams engineering your immersive presence, brands with traditional agencies, brand managers and creative staff need to make sure the building blocks of brand are reevaluated, taking a new look at their brand strategy, customer profiles, success metrics, mission, vision, values, naming conventions, even color palette. The art and practice of building brands hasn’t changed, but there are new questions your guidelines need to answer.

Cynthia and Justin will walk you through what they believe are the first 10 Essential Questions, and how to uncover what your specific brand needs to evaluate.

Speakers

Justin Breton

Brand Experiences & Strategic Partnerships , Walmart

Cynthia Maller

Head of 3D Creative Technology , Walmart

Description

How hologram telecommunication delivers the parts that every other technology leaves out — the parts that make us human.

Speakers

David Nussbaum

Founder , Proto

Description

Immersive mediums are playing an increasingly important role in architecture by facilitating design reviews, communicating complex building data, and guiding both off-site manufacturing and on-site construction. Join the conversation with SHoP Architects, the design firm behind projects such as the new YouTube and Uber headquarters in California, and Assembly OSM, a venture-backed architectural manufacturing startup.

Adam Chernick from SHoP and Christopher Morse from AOSM are excited to be co-speaking with Thiasa Yamamura of Sony Electronics about their Spatial Reality Display (SRD) system.

SHoP and AOSM have been at the forefront of pushing the use of immersive tools within the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry. They have worked closely with Sony in order to push what is possible with immersive technology including the SRD. They will show some of the applied research efforts currently underway at their companies and will speak to their collaboration with Sony.

Speakers

Thaisa Yamamura

Head of Business Development , Sony

Adam Chernick

Director | Interactive Visualization , SHoP Architects

Christopher Morse

XR Developer , Assembly OSM

Description

Discover how Red 6 has executed the development of the first multi-player video game in the sky and lead to the creation of the most advanced training platform to date.

Red 6’s technology leverages an environment where a persistent ubiquitous layer of connected data and metadata interact seamlessly with the real-world. Decisions made within the metaverse now, for the first time, have live, physical consequences for the trainee, resulting in a more immersive experience.

Daniel Robinson, Founder and CEO of Red 6, will share how this technology is advancing the readiness of our nation’s armed forces and how Red 6’s technology is the genesis of the Military Metaverse.

Speakers

Daniel Robinson

Founder and CEO , RED 6

Description

Join us for some of the latest behind-the-scenes research in Google Advanced Technology and Projects Group. We introduce a new full-body interaction technique that uses miniaturized radar technology and advanced machine learning for the detection and recognition of spatial relations, as they naturally occur around devices (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-eh2K4HCzI). By continuously sensing spatial behaviors and movements, ambient computing devices can anticipate our intent, and participate in our everyday life in a more considerate and respectful way: they can reduce the need for direct interactions, or automate some actions in the background, so that the user doesn’t have to attend to them at all –ultimately freeing us from unnecessary tasks.

Speakers

Lauren Bedal

Design Lead , Google

Eiji Hayashi

Staff Research Engineer , Google

Description

Join us as startups pitch to our panel of judges for a chance to be named AWE's "Startup to Watch" for 2022. The winner will be announced at the Auggie Awards ceremony.

Judges for the Start-Up Pitch competition are Dave Haynes, Tipatat Chennavasin, Pearly Chen, and Kristina Serafim.

Speakers

Jenny Xu

CEO , Talofa Games

Timothy Porter

CTO , Mod Tech Labs Inc.

Pearly Chen

VP Business Dev. , HTC Vive

Alex Porter

CEO , Mod Tech Labs Inc.

Alex Westner

Founder / CEO , Xander

Kristina Serafim

Managing Director , Verizon Ventures

Yolanda Barton

Founder , Revere XR

Dave Haynes

Partner , FOV Ventures

Jonathan Nowak Delgado

CEO and Co-Founder , Spree Interactive

Aldo Petruzzelli

CEO/Co-founder , Aequilibrium

Noah Robinson

Founder & CEO , Innerworld

Tipatat Chennavasin

General Partner , The Venture Reality Fund

Description

Though the metaverse may be a novel channel accelerated by a global pandemic, its ethos is not. Fans build brands because there’s no greater loyalty than real love. Virtual worlds offer real benefits for engagement. From digitally twining real locations to building bespoke new worlds—(meta)worlds matter more than ever before.

Consumers want exclusive, one-of-a-kind experiences, and now that those experiences exist in completely new virtual formats. But like any other channel, these worlds live and die with content. Although virtual content exists within a three-dimensional world, it has to offer the same level of immediacy, interactivity and engagement that drives traffic to 2D sites. Hungry brands are now beginning to realize what AAA game studios have known for years: there’s a ton of opportunity on the table, and we’re just getting started.

Right now, savvy companies are creating fully realized digital environments for brands, products and IP—driving actual value to stakeholders and customers. While imagination is the only limit to what virtual worlds can accomplish, success starts with purpose. If the metaverse is marketing, then brands have an enormous opportunity to connect with fans like never before.

In this panel, meta-worldbuilders Josh Rush (CEO / Surreal Events), Craig Laliberte (Sr. Business Development Lead / Epic Games) and Greg Mize (VP, Marketing & Innovation / Atlanta Braves) discuss how the Braves became the first MLB team to join the metaverse with Digital Truist Park. They also explore how brands can amplify reach, sales and engagement in the metaverse by putting fans first. Batter up!

Speakers

Greg Mize

VP of Marketing & Innovation , Atlanta Braves

Josh Rush

Co-Founder & CEO , SURREAL Events

Craig Laliberte

Sr. Business Development Manager , Epic Games - Unreal Engine

Description

Glimpse the future of "Simulation Metaverse ". Siemens Technology (Siemens central R&D department) develops a prototype to enable the real time collaboration of multiple experts during the post-processing stage and improve the knowledge flow among the different disciplines from CAD designers, to simulation and testing experts by bringing all the project relevant data (simulations, experimental data, reports etc) in one common environment , where all the team members can access and meet virtually in order to exchange or retrieve information . This prototype comes with cross-platform capabilities (PC, VR, Tablet, AR) to allow people to enter the session independently from the end device. Moreover, with the implementation of modern and novel UI leveraging techniques from the gaming industry we lower the entry barriers from novice users. During this session we will provide some key insights of our developments, the faced challenges and how we tackled them as well as we will give for the first time a demonstration of our first prototype using two different use cases from the industrial field.

Speakers

Theodoros Papadopoulos

Business Developer , Siemens AG

Description

In today’s ever-evolving retail landscape, personalization is essential to engage customers and build brand loyalty. In this session, you’ll learn why AI + AR technology and solutions such as virtual try-on are transforming the retail space and enabling personalization in powerful new ways. Learn how top brands have leveraged AI + AR across their omnichannel shopping journey to provide every customer with personalized recommendations.

Speakers

Paul Liu

AVP, Product Marketing, Strategic Partnerships , Perfect Corp.

Description

The excitement around Digital People or Virtual Beings has created a buzz around how people will interact in the future. For this excitement to turn into reality, advancements in CGI and AI-based animation will scale this to millions of users and use cases. Discover why so many global brands are leveraging this technology to better connect with customers, increase engagement and brand loyalty, gain a competitive advantage, and provide the most engaging experiences in the digital and hybrid worlds.

Speakers

Description

Headset-based AR/VR offers an immersive dive into these new digital worlds, but to many it still feels cumbersome and unfamiliar. As a result, mass adoption is still relatively slow.
3D Lightfield displays offer a naturally immersive, “window-like” 3D look into the Metaverse while leaving users’ faces unencumbered. They can be readily deployed on familiar terminals, from smartphones / tablets to laptops or automotive displays.
Better still, this method ensures compatibility with much of the existing digital content ecosystem, hence democratizing access to the Metaverse and potentially accelerating its deployment.
In this talk, I will review our efforts at Leia to commercialize Lightfield-based mobile devices and our take on how to steadily ramp consumer adoption of the Metaverse.

Speakers

David Fattal

CTO , Leia Inc

Description

How to make remote collaboration and self-solve AR experiences accessible in Customer Support and Field Service scenarios, along with the importance of seamless integration into your organization’s existing service management platforms, such as ServiceNow, to drive scale, reduce technical sprawl, and increase value via post event visibility, audits, and AI insights to deliver improved business outcomes.

Speakers

Lance Anderson

VP Industrial Solutions , CareAR - A Xerox Company

Description

As designers and developers build AR and VR hardware, applications and content, how can they make sure they are inclusively designed so that everyone - including those who identify as people with disabilities - can access, enjoy and benefit from them? How can AR and VR designers and developers leverage inclusive design and development practices to consider many aspects of human diversity such as ability, language, culture, gender, and age? What are some of the broader benefits of designing more accessible AR and VR such as broader usability for people with temporary impairments or people in different environments and use cases. In this session, panelists will explore these and other topics related to XR Accessibility as well as share a variety of practical community XR accessibility design and development resources.

Speakers

Pia Zaragoza

UX Mentor at Springboard and White House Presidential Innovation Fellow , Springboard

Bill Curtis-Davidson

Co-Director, Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT) , PEAT

Stephanie Montgomery

Senior VP of Research and Best Practices , XR Association

Dylan Fox

Head of Community and Outreach , XR Access

Nirav Desai

CEO , Moonbeam

Description

A wonderfully exciting opportunity is upon us to utilize the tools of virtual reality to change the current educational paradigm. Daniel and Angelina will be asking each other questions regarding the critical considerations of mass adoption of virtual reality within teaching and learning.
Dr Angelina Dayton, senior Virtual Reality Research Scientist at Virtual World Society has put over 30,000 first time users into a headset. Daniel Dyboski-Bryant' organisation - Educators in VR - has delivered over 3,000 virtual workshops, talks and sessions.

Speakers

Angelina Dayton

Executive Director , Virtual World Society

Daniel Dyboski-Bryant

Founder , Virtual World Society

Description

The power of XR for training is now well established – endless projects have shown that it can reduce training time and risk, increase knowledge retention, improve trainee throughput, and much more. The ROI is clear and enterprise organizations are increasingly looking to bring this technology into their core learning strategies.

But it’s not easy. There are still a number of barriers – some of which can only be solved by key players, but others which can be addressed by a different approach across the industry. Enterprise customers need cost-effectiveness, choice and flexibility to scale – so how do we provide this? And if content is king, how do XR creators and technology companies work together to create an environment with more options, fewer barriers and better solutions? There is a better way.

Speakers

Justin Parry

COO , Immerse.io

Description

LiFi is a technology that delivers highspeed data wirelessly to XR devices using light waves. Connect wirelessly to your devices where radio frequencies are not permitted due to security or safety reasons. Signify (formally Philips) is connecting XR devices with stable speeds of 250 Mbps, with ultra-low latency that is stable, safe and secure. This technology is being deployed in hospitals, military, oil and gas, mining and manufacturing. Find out how LiFi will enable wireless XR with even higher data throughput for superior performance.

Speakers

Description

Most research works featuring AR and Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) systems are not taking advantage of the opportunities to integrate the two planes of data. In this project, we propose a prototype which combines an existing AR headset HoloLens 2 with a Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) system and we perform several tasks to validate this concept. In the first experiment, we reduced the distraction of the user by including information about the current attentional state, stress and cognitive load. In the second prototype we propose a system based on covert visuospatial attention (CVSA) – the process of focusing attention on different regions of the visual field without overt eye movements. In the experiment we did not rely on any stimulus-driven responses. Fourteen participants were able to test both systems over the course of two days.

Speakers

Nataliya Kosmyna

Research Scientist , MIT

Description

Do you want to be a pioneer in the Metaverse? Do you want to learn the fundamental principles to create a successful Metaverse strategy that ensures your company stays competitive and achieves maximum customer engagement? By attending this presentation from thought leaders Barton Goldenberg and Tim Bajarin, you will learn an 8-step methodology for doing business in the Metaverse.

Goldenberg and Bajarin will share Metaverse case study videos as well as technical and business ‘action items’ you can immediately apply to ensure your company prospers doing business in the Metaverse. This is one presentation you will not want to miss!

Speakers

Tim Bajarin

President , Creative Strategies

Barton Goldenberg

President , ISM Inc.

Description

What should the Metaverse look like? How do maximalist and minimalist approaches affect XR? Is either inherently better? Do we want technology that is minimally invasive, or do we want to live in our best fantastical art worlds? Watch best friends with wildly opposing design philosophies duke it out.

On the side of maximalism, we have Jerome Morrison, a creative technologist at Meow Wolf, known for its larger than life maximalist psychedelic art installations.

On the side of minimalism, we have Lauren Cason. Lauren is the co-founder of RefractAR and is known for her minimalist design approach in her XR work. She was previously an artist on Monument Valley 2 and a prototyper at Apple.

Speakers

Jerome Morrison

Product Manager , MEOW WOLF

Lauren Cason

Cofounder/Creative Director , RefractAR

Description

With customer buying preferences shifting to virtual with high regard for convenience, comfort, and hygiene, enterprises across the globe must be ready to keep up with the pace of immersive transformation. Join us as we uncover the Metaverse playbook for the enterprise of the future, delving into how they can provide immersive experiences and an omnichannel connected journey to their customers while building a robust recommendation and retargeting engine for personalization. We’ll go deep into the following 4 critical aspects of leveraging Metaverse to drive immersive transformation:

• Invest in building high-quality 3D assets for your products.
• Create an immersive, scalable, and compatible product experience for all smartphones, utilizing those assets.
• Integrate the immersive experience with omnichannel touchpoints and the sales pipeline(LMS & CRM) for a connected customer journey
• Rely on the right set of metrics to track and drive continuous innovation in customer experience and build a better marketing funnel.

We’ll also share our own experience from working with large enterprises, solving for their entire workflow and the disruptions & differentiation they witnessed.

Speakers

Prashant Sinha

Co-Founder & CRO , Metadome