DCVR Meetup #19: Women and the VR Industry

We're incredibly excited to announce that January's meetup will be focused around women in VR.

Lack of gender diversity plagues the tech industry as a whole, but it's especially noticeable in the emerging VR ecosystem. Men currently make up the majority of VR entrepreneurs, developers, and even event attendees. If virtual and augmented reality really is the future of computing, we need to ensure that the same harmful gender biases we're rooting out of the current tech industry don't infect the next one.

We'll also be having food and drinks courtesy of our amazing hosts, Bytecubed (https://bytecubed.com/)! ByteCubed is a technology consulting firm that focuses on innovation, thought ­leadership and technology development for large federal agencies including the DOD, DHS and DIA and Fortune 1000 enterprises.

First, we'll have a panel of local women VR entrepreneurs and researchers. These women are trailblazing markets as diverse as 360 video and VR for health. We'll hear their stories about pioneering a new technology and how to get more women to do the same.

Panel Members:

Amy Nichols is a serial entrepreneur and the the founder and CEO of bThere (http://www.bthere.io/), a virtual reality and 360 video management, streaming, and editing platform. After creating a variety of 360 videos, she and her team decided to create the tools to address the challenges of 360 video post-production. Amy is a regular speaker on entrepreneurship and has testified before a congressional panel on the impact of legislation on small business.

Dr. Sunbin Song, a research fellow in NIH NINDS (https://www.ninds.nih.gov/) for the Human Cortical Physiology Section, is utilizing VR to study motor learning and investigate the potential for remote home-based rehabilitation paradigms in a VR environment. Dr. Song along with John Ostuni who founded the Virtual and Augmented Reality Interest Group (VARIG) at the NIH are actively developing VR technology that can be used for both diagnostic and rehabilitation purposes. She is also co-chairing forums organized by digitalgov.gov (http://digitalgov.gov/) for VR in government in 2017

Emma Mankey Hidem specializes in 360 video and has been working in the VR space since 2013 as the founder of SunnysideVR (http://www.sunnysidevr.com/). Most of her VR work so far has been in the marketing space but she has a documentary background so she is very excited about the story-telling possibilities in VR, particularly from a journalism perspective.

Shayna Skolnik is co-founder and CEO of Navteca (http://navteca.com/), a majority woman-owned technology company headquartered in Greenbelt, Maryland. Navteca develops unique technical solutions for government clients like NASA and NOAA, non-profits, and private entities. Navteca has been an early leader in pioneering the use of next-generation VR technology for science and Shayna has presented VR for science at the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Supercomputing (SC16), Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), and at NASA.

Our panel moderator will be Jessica Bell, a member of the leadership teams for DCFemTech (https://dcfemtech.github.io/) and the DC Tech Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/DC-Tech-Meetup/). She is a self taught web developer and very active in the DC Tech community, especially with Women Who Code (https://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-DC/) and Hear Me Code (http://hearmecode.com/). She teaches at General Assembly, the Arlington Public Library, as well as speaks at local conferences.

Second, we'll have a livestreamed talk from Sarah Stevenson on the best ways to bring women into the VR industry.Sarah is a former member of DCVR and a founding team member of SH//FT (http://www.shiift.world/), a foundation that partners with industry leaders in VR and AR to create and sponsor opportunities for underrepresented groups. Sarah will discuss the work of the organization so far and the many challenges and opportunities in making the VR industry more diverse.

Sarah Stevenson is Partnership Manager for VRLA (http://www.virtualrealityla.com/), the world’s largest virtual reality expo based in Los Angeles, and Co-Founder of REVRIE (http://revrie.works/), a VR production and consulting company whose clients have included BMW, Mercedes and The Economist. She is an AR/AI researcher for the writings of Ray Kurzweil (Head of Engineering at Google) and an Oculus Launchpad Fellow. She originally got her start in VR in DC where she worked for TechCast, a tech trend researching company founded at the George Washington University, and organized the Women in VR DC meetup group (https://www.meetup.com/DC-Women-in-VR/).

Agenda:

6:30: Doors open / networking

7:00: Intro from the organizers

7:05: Panel of Women VR Entrepreneurs

7:45: Q&A for Panel Members

8:00: Talk by Sarah Stevenson of SH//FT

8:30: Q&A by Sarah Stevenson

8:45: Demos!