New speakers added to our VR/AR Global Summit lineup from Niantic Labs, Magic Leap, DreamCraft, Amazon, MasterCard, WXR Venture Fund, and others

Among the panels, workshops, and product launches, this year’s VR/AR Global Summit will feature world-class events bringing together some of the influential names in the VR/AR industry. Join founders, thought leaders, and investors to discuss topics like education, enterprise, healthcare, hardware, software, retail, and blockchain in the field of immersive technology and spatial computing.

This year, we’re excited to have speakers joining us from Niantic Labs Inc, Magic Leap, 6D.ai, Amazon, Mastercard, WXR Venture Fund, World Bank Group, HoloMe, EndeavorVR, PATIO Interactive, VRstudios, Norm Li, and more!

Get your tickets to the VR/AR Global Summit here, and we’ll see you in Vancouver on November 1 & 2nd, 2019! #VRARGS

CATHY HACKL - Magic Leap

Cathy Hackl is an Emmy-nominated communicator turned virtual reality & augmented reality global speaker, producer, and futurist. Linkedin recently named her the #4 Top Voice in Technology globally on the platform in 2018. She's a Lead Futurist at You Are Here Immersive Labs, one of the Southeast's most prominent XR labs. She's the author of Marketing New Realities: An Introduction to VR & AR Marketing, Branding & Communications.

Hackl was named by IZEA and Onalytica as a leading augmented reality and virtual reality influencer and also by NBC News as one of the top women working in virtual reality. Hackl was also selected as a 2017 Oculus Launch Pad Fellow, a program designed to support promising diverse VR content creators and help them bring their unique ideas to market. She's the founder of Latinos in VR/AR and has spoken about VR and social media in more than 10 countries.

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ROSS FINMAN - Niantic Labs

Ross Finman was previously Co-founder and CEO of Escher Reality, acquired by Niantic Labs early 2018. He is a current Forbes 30 under 30 and previously spent a decade working in computer vision at MIT and CMU. He has worked at NASA and SpaceX, after growing up on a llama farm.

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GALIT ARIEL - TechnoFuturist

Galit is a TechnoFuturist and an immersive space explorer. She is passionate about a future that will integrate technology into our everyday lives, but not control it. As a TED speaker and a thought leader in Augmented Reality, she explores the wild and imaginative side of immersive technologies, but also their impact on our cultures, behaviors and ethical issues related to them.

Her book ‘Augmenting Alice – The Future of Identity, Experience and Reality’ offers a context and futurescape to Augmented Reality applications, considering its impact on our public, personal and intimate space, that ultimately alters the way we experience reality and our sense of self. Galit’s goal is to bridge the gap between digital, physical, and mental spaces to create tools & platforms that help people experience these worlds in new ways.

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CHARLIE FINK - XR Consultant, Author & Columnist

Charlie Fink is a former Disney, AOL and AG Interactive executive who writes a popular column about XR for Forbes, He is a consultant to some of the leading companies in the space. As a 28 year old junior executive at Disney, Fink famously came up with the idea for The Lion King. In the 90s, he was EVP & COO of VR pioneer Virtual World Entertainment. Variety calls him “XR’s explainer-in-chief.”

Fink is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books Charlie Fink's Metaverse (2018) and Convergence, How The World Will Be Painted With Data (2019). He teaches XR at Chapman University Film School in Orange, CA.

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MATT MIESNIEKS - 6D.ai

Matt is renowned as one of the AR industry's thought leaders through his influential blog posts. 6D.ai is his 3rd AR startup, he also helped found SuperVentures (investing in AR), built AR system prototypes at Samsung, and had a long commercial and technical career in mobile software infrastructure before jumping into AR software infrastructure back in 2009.

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6D is an AR platform for developers. Using the 3D mesh generated by the 6D Reality Platform, developers can build world-scale apps where assets are persistent, responsive to occlusion, and synced between multiple users more efficiently.

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MARTINA WELKHOFF - WXR Venture Fund

Martina Welkhoff is an entrepreneur and early-stage investor. She’s a General Partner at the WXR Fund, a venture fund focused on women-led spatial computing companies, and a Venture Partner at Jump Canon, a San Francisco fund focused on underrepresented founders in emerging tech. She is on the advisory board of the Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinking at the University of Washington, and for over five years was the President of Seattle Women in Tech as well as previously serving on the board of Seattle Angel.

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JIMMY VAINSTEIN - World Bank Group

Jimmy Vainstein leads the Interactive Media Program of the World Bank Group in Washington, DC. His efforts brought the deployment of immersive tools across the development organization in order to virtually transport stakeholders and audiences to areas of focus and connect them with issues affecting people living in poverty and engage.

His initiative of implementing Augmented and Virtual Reality throughout the organization has found a place in enhancing communications efforts, support field operations and decision making for true impact. Jimmy has a Bachelor in Economics and a Master’s of Science from the School of Media Sciences from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

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LEO CHAN - AR/VR Tech Leader at AWS

Leo Chan is the Worldwide AR/VR Tech Leader at AWS. He leads technical, creative and design communities to show the AR/VR possibilities at the intersection of immersive 3D computer graphics, machine learning and globally distributed content. He thrives in the dialog created when Art calls and Technology answers. He is a 3D graphics pioneer, coding seminal industry tools such as Maya and Houdini, and a production proven leader, leading teams at Electronic Arts and Pixar.

HEIDI BUCK - Naval Information Warfare Center, Pacific

Heidi Buck joined the Naval Information Warfare Center, Pacific (NIWC PAC) in 2002 after receiving her Master’s Degree from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in Electrical Engineering with a focus in Signal and Image Processing. She spent 13 years of her career at NIWC PAC working on computer vision systems to support the warfighter, focused primarily on automatic target recognition systems. In 2008 she received a Navy’s Top Scientist and Engineer Award for her work in these fields.

AMY PECK - EndeavorVR

Amy Peck is the founder of EndeavorVR, a global VR/AR strategy & consulting firm. Amy travels the world speaking about and evangelizing Enterprise VR/AR. She also is the Co-chair of the VRARA Enterprise Committee. Her own personal mission is to see VR/AR fundamentally improve every aspect of our lives with the goal of making this technology accessible and transformative for everyone.

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JANOSCH AMSTUTZ - HoloMe

Janosch Amstutz believes HoloMe could be the biggest advance in communications since Skype. The award-winning company which he founded and runs, has developed a high-definition augmented reality platform that brings humans into your space through your smartphone.

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HoloMe is a self-serve platform that puts real humans into AR for brands to increase conversion and engagement. Harnessing the true sense of size, scale, and detail that our technology provides, viewers are captivated with a uniquely immersive visual experience.

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NORM LI - Norm Li

Norm Li is the founder of Canada's leading architectural visual content studio by the same name. Since 2002, he and his team have collaborated with designers and developers to communicate their vision to the public. They create engaging visual content that take the story of a space to the next level. Norm works to constantly push the boundaries of his team; they are Always Better in all that they do. Best known for their renderings, they also provide animation, virtual reality, and photography services. If it involves design + visual communication, Norm and his gang can figure it out.

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AMY LAMEYER - WXR Venture Fund

Amy LaMeyer is Managing Partner at the WXR Fund investing in early stage companies with female leadership that are transforming business and human interaction using spatial computing (VR/AR) and AI. Amy is also on the board of ARVR Academy which promotes diversity in emerging technologies through education. She is the author of ‘Sound and AR’ in the book “Convergence: how the world will be painted with data”. She created EnteringVR.net to assist others to learn about the potential of AR/VR across industries. Amy has over 18 years of experience in a high growth technology industry in corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, engineering and finance.

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The WXR Fund invests in two of the greatest opportunities of our time: the next wave of computing and female entrepreneurs. WXR invests in early stage companies that are transforming businesses and human interaction by leveraging spatial computing and artificial intelligence. We partner with women leaders and their teams who are changing the way products are built and companies are run.

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MARCO DEMIROZ - The Venture Reality Fund

Marco is the co-founder and a general partner of The Venture Reality Fund, leading early stage venture fund focusing on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), Immersive and Spatial (“XR”) Computing. He has extensive experience in executive roles with leading technology companies and in global investments. Previously he was a Managing Director with Evolution Media Capital (“Evolution”), an investment fund under TPG Capital and associated with the Creative Artists Agency (“CAA”).

Marco actively advises numerous media and technology startups in AI and XR sectors and has been collaborating with the Women in XR (“WXR”) Fund to ensure balanced gender representation. Prior to joining Evolution, he was president and chief executive officer of the leading mobile game studio, PlayFirst, which he sold to Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU) in 2014. Marco currently serves on the Boards of the Fund’s portfolio companies Apprentice.io, Phiar, and Virtualitics.

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CHANEL SUMMERS - VRstudios Inc.

Chanel Summers joined VRstudios in 2017 as its first Vice President of Creative Development, in which capacity she is responsible for delivering the kind of breakthrough content experiences the industry has come to expect from the leading provider of VR-enabled attractions for location-based entertainment operators.

A pioneer in the field of interactive audio, Chanel has been a respected game producer and designer, Microsoft’s first audio technical evangelist, and a member of the original Xbox team, having helped to design and support the audio system for that groundbreaking console and creating the first ever support team for content creators.

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KYLE ROCHE - Amazon Sumerian

Kyle Roche is the General Manager of Amazon Sumerian. Kyle was the founder of 2lemetry which was acquired by Amazon in 2015 and became AWS IoT. He is a regular speaker at industry events for IoT, AR, and VR. He has authored numerous technical publications on subjects ranging from cloud computing to augmented reality.

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ANISIUBA UCHE - Quadron VR

Anisiuba Uche is a 3d generalist, with over five years experience creating contents for the animation, game, visual effects and VR industry in Nigeria. Uche believes in the fusing the arts with technology to create mind blowing experiences. 3d animation, AR, VR and mobile gaming are but a few ways he expresses his love for the arts and technology.

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Quadrons Studios Nigeria's leading digital content company launches its premium virtual reality Service, QVES. Take advantage of the power of VR to train your team on critical skills in a risk-free environment. Save big on training and make absolutely sure that the right habits are built.

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TRAVIS MAY - Mastercard

As Director of Learning Technology & Innovation at Mastercard, Travis May is leading the conceptualization and application of Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR) concepts in entirely new ways for the company.

Focusing on fully immersive, real world business interactions, Travis is truly globalizing Mastercard’s interactions among employees, rapidly scaling the technology programs and giving employees on opposite sides of the world the opportunity to learn from each other, collaborate, and role play in innovative ways that is revolutionizing the way Mastercard approaches training and business development.

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TERRY SANDERSON - DreamCraft

Terry Sanderson is a Producer with 20+ years’ experience and knowledge in interactive entertainment software development currently producing state of the art VR attractions for global theme park clients with DreamCraft Attractions in Victoria, B.C. Dreamcraft utilizes motion base robotics, haptics, embodiment, and agency to deeply immerse guests into tightly structured narratives and environments in both VR and AR.

A graduate of one of the first full-time 3D Animation courses at the Vancouver Film School, Terry has a history in the Vancouver game development scene with high profile companies such as Electronic Arts, Blue Castle Games, and Capcom working on hit console titles such as the SSX series, MVP Baseball, and Dead Rising.

KRYSTIAN GUEVARA - DreamCraft

Krystian Guevara discovered his passion for creativity at a very early age. He spent much of his youth having adventures taking place in worlds of his own making, and quickly identified art as an outlet that allowed him to create and share his exciting and otherworldly adventures with others.

With a background in both traditional and digital arts, Krystian pushes the boundaries of unique immersive experiences in his work as Creative Director and Co-Founder at DreamCraft Attractions.

DreamCraft is a close-knit studio of diverse creatives, tech futurists and straightforward collaborators specializing in designing and creating motion platform systems for theme parks, award-winning hygienic headsets, VR / AR rides, virtual humans, scalable backend ride systems and full-bore story-driven experiences.

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COURTNEY HARDING - Friends with Holograms

Courtney Harding is the CEO and founder of Friends with Holograms, a New York-based full-service virtual and augmented reality agency. She has created groundbreaking voice-activated Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for Accenture and is currently advising Coca-Cola on its augmented reality strategy. Other agency clients include Verizon, Unity, and the U.S. Air Force.

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JEFF MEADOR - Portico.ai

Jeff Meador is the COO of Portico.ai and also serves as the co-chair the VR/ AR Association’s training committee. He began his career working with Stanford’s Multimedia Laboratory in the 1990s, developing some of the first online interactive experiences for classrooms. He has maintained his passion for leveraging and extending technology to create effective and engaging methods of learning. In recent years, his focus has turned to immersive media such as Virtual and Augmented Realities.

As COO of Portico, he leads the vision and strategy of how to deploy interactive, conversational role play tools to training content creators. He is a champion of standards, best practices, and the science of learning, having authored or co-authored several white papers for the VR/AR Association in support of using immersive reality to augment traditional training.

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MATT GRANT - Creative & marketing multimedia

Matt is a creative and marketing multimedia professional focusing on web design, broadcasting, creative production, 3D rendering and virtual/augmented reality. Matt started his career in multimedia in 2002 as a camera operator for a local news channel in his native New Zealand. After visiting Vancouver he fell in love with the city and has lived here since. Initially working in Vancouver’s film industry, Matt co-founded the Real Estate Channel television network in 2005 and was a founding Partner at LNG Studios shortly after in 2009.

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WILSON TANG - Yumebau Inc.

Wilson is founder and CEO of Yumebau Inc., a “Cultural Augmentation” company based in Vancouver, Canada. We are dedicated to creating the most immersive social AR/VR mobile experiences, with the power to change the way people learn, play & socialize. Over the course of more than 20 years in digital entertainment Wilson has led and built world class teams in video games at Kabam and Electronic Arts, and Hollywood films at Industrial Light & Magic.

Wilson is a designer at heart, fluent in the language of architecture, games, technology, UX, films, polygons and code. Even though he is passionate about human-centric technology, he is still pretty handy with pencil and paper, where everything begins.

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CHRIS PFAFF - Chris Pfaff Tech/Media

Chris Pfaff is a leading new media and technology producer and strategist. He is renowned for integrating leading-edge technology into the media and entertainment community. He was the first to use IRC for an interactive corporate webcast; produced one of the first DVDs, in March, 1997; produced the first HD animated logo; produced numerous multipoint broadband events in the late-1990s; produced some of the first mobile short films in 2002-2003, and produced the first Twitter Wall in 2011.

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MICHAEL OWEN - MediaCombo

Michael Owen is the CEO of MediaCombo, a creative agency committed to helping clients tell stories with empathy, clarity and enthusiasm to engage, educate and entertain their audiences. As a freelance producer, Michael Owen has more than 25 years of experience producing documentaries, commercials and music videos.

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JEFF OLM - Creative Director

Proven track record for completing projects utilizing, productions that exceed client expectations. Experience in designing, implementing, and executing a consistent color workflow client experience for digital acquisition projects. Ability to create, training, and maintain high quality training and marketing. Expertise as creative director, director of photography, editor, and colorist.

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ALEX SNIDER - PATIO Interactive

Alex Snider is the Strategy Director at PATIO Interactive Inc; a design and development agency specializing in technology-driven business solutions. As a former strategy consultant and deal advisor, Alex has a strong belief in collaborative working and relishes creating engagement and positive cultures that unleash the potential in individuals and organizations.

Alex encourages the whole team at PATIO to not only be engaged within the technology field, but to strive for leadership in all their endeavours. With a background in construction, healthcare, energy and natural resources prior to her joining our small but mighty, innovative technology firm, she has a deep understanding of the realities of transferable learning and thriving in male dominated environments. Alex places significant value on sharing her experiences and their ability to support and influence the perception of women in STEM and in the growing cannabis industry.

PATIO Interactive is a technology-driven design and marketing studio.

PATIO focuses on leveraging different forms of technology to create unique engaging experiences, from corporate to commercial to narrative arts and beyond. We specialize in the effective integration of new & emerging technologies into everyday business needs.  As a team of engineers, designers, technologists and marketers, we bring ideas to life from initial conception to the final product. discover more

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CHARLES BERN - PATIO Interactive

Charles is the founding partner of PATIO Interactive, a design and development agency specializing in technology-driven business solutions. He started the company in 2014, focused on enhancing user experiences by combining disruptive technology with business strategy. Now working with a wide range of forward-thinking companies, PATIO has since become a leader in creating immersive and extended reality software that helps businesses "thrive in disruption".

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SRINIVAS KRISHNA - Geogram

Srinivas Krishna is a member of the VRARA Storytelling Committee and the Founder and CEO of the pioneering mobile AR studio AWE Company (2012) and the mobile AR platform Geogram (2017). A patented inventor, he has created foundational AR technologies and produced some of the most remarkable mobile AR experiences of the past decade. His work as a digital media innovator has been applauded by Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, as “utterly breathtaking…genius.”

Prior to his work in augmented reality, Srinivas produced and directed feature films that have premiered at Toronto, Sundance and Cannes, and have been distributed worldwide. He launched his career in 1991 with the international hit Masala, which was voted by the British Film Institute among the Top Ten South Asian Diaspora Films of the 20th Century and is a classic of world cinema.

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SAM TREVINO - Insitu (a Boeing company)

In his current role, Sam manages products and services for 30+ training courses on 5 Unmanned Aerial Systems used in 6 schoolhouses, globally. Insitu certifies more than 3,500 students per year, and is implementing new instructional technologies that assist their SMEs in surging information flow.

Sam’s efforts include implementing a flipped-classroom variant, growing the use and implementation of AR/VR, agile end-to-end product development, providing custom curriculum options, and supporting two programs of record while maintaining compliance with various industry standards. Sam has also served as an Infantry man and Sniper during OIF1 and OIF2.

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