Birds of a Feather and Social Hangouts
Registered attendees are invited to create their own social sessions using Hubs’ web-based 3D spaces. These sessions should happen outside of the scheduled conference session times, and can be focused around any reasonable topic. While we originally envisioned these as a replacement for the “Birds of a Feather” sessions at many conferences (here, aimed at people with common interests related to VR), we encourage attendees to consider any topic or idea, including purely social gatherings aimed at hanging out and chatting with other attendees.
Please scroll to the bottom of the page to see the list of scheduled BoF and social events.
While the virtual conference won’t allow us to go out for dinner and visit cultural spaces in Atlanta this year, we hope you can use these gatherings to meet people with common interests, make new friends, and discuss all the research being presented at this year’s VR conference.
Before scheduling a session, you should create a Hubs room for it. To create a room, select “Create a Room” on the front page of hubs.ieeevr.online. Please go into “Room Settings” (in the menu on the upper left corner of the window) and set a Room Name you are happy with (this room name appears in the URL and when visitors join, so you should choose something appropriate). That’s all you need to do to start; you may continue editing and changing your room later, or just leave it as the default space.
(You can set this room up as you like; you are free to add and remove content, change the scene, or even create an entirely new scene in the Spoke editor, right up until your schedule begins.) There are tutorials and help available for creating Hubs rooms on the hubs.mozilla.com site, and a #hubs-editing-authoring channel in the IEEE VR 2020 Slack where you can ask for help and pointers.
Once you have a room, with a name you are happy with, copy the URL and fill out this form to request a BoF/social session. You will need to provide:
Please note: you are responsible for moderating your BoF session, enforcing the IEEE VR Code of Conduct and reporting any behavior that violates our VR community guidelines. Please refer to this page to learn more.
This form is specifically for requesting sessions that are open to all registered conference attendees, using the Hubs platform.
If you would like to hold social sessions using other software, outside of the conference platform, we encourage you to do that, but we will not list them here. We have set up a #social channel on the conference slack where you can advertise and invite people to your event. (Only registered attendees have access to hubs.ieeevr.online, so we only want to advertise events that are happening there on the conference sites).
If you have any questions or concerns regarding handling and organizing your BoF session, please contact us through the #birds-of-a-feather channel on Slack.
Deadline: There is no specific deadline for the sessions. You can request for one before or during the conference. However, if you wait until the last minute, we may not have time to list your BoFs on the website.
URL | BoF Name | Description | BoF Chair | When (EDT Atlanta time) |
Sponsor rooms on front page | Chat during breaks | Come to Sponsor Rooms on hub.ieeevr.online between sessions to hang out and chat with other attendees | Conference Chairs and Sponsors | Every break and lunch |
Chat with the Chairs | Come chat about VR with the conference chairs and others | Conference Chairs | S: 5:30-6pm W: 5-5:30pm | |
Hello ANZAC VR 2020 | Discussion room for people from Australia and New Zealand interested in AR/VR/XR tech, education, ethics, etc. | Adrian Urbano | 3/23/2020 6am-7am | |
European VR meetup | A meetup for VR researchers in Europe | Adalberto Simeone | 3/23-24-25 12:30-2pm EST 17:30-19:00 CET | |
Collaboration Meet and Greet | Place to discuss existing and new collaborations between labs | Andrea Stevenson Won | 3/23 5pm-7pm | |
IEEE VR 2020 Sweden Meetup | Lunch chat for Swedish/Nordic participants. How can we research VR together? | Thommy Eriksson | 3/24 | |
Privacy BoF | Come chat about privacy in MR! | Diane Hosfelt | 3/24 | |
IEEE VR 2020 Jobs and Academic Positions | Since we can not meet in person, the aim of this room is to connect people who are looking for jobs or academic positions, and companies or researchers looking for candidates. | Anil Ufuk Batmaz | 3/24 5pm-6pm | |
Time manipulation in VR | Come and chat about the manipulation of time perception in VR! | Ning Xie | 3/24 5:30pm-6:30pm | |
Hangout and chat (drinks optional) | Come hangout and chat in Hubs after Tuesday sessions | Diane Hosfelt | 3/24 8pm-10pm | |
Hello ANZAC VR 2020 | Second meetup for people in Australia and New Zealand interested in AR/VR/XR tech! | Adrian Urbano | 3/25 5am-6am (EST) 8pm-9pm (Melb/Sidney) | |
IEEE AIVR 2020 meetup | Meeting hosted by IEEE AIVR 2020 co-chair for everyone interested in learning about the conference, getting involved in its organisation, or just have a chat about AI and VR/AR | Wolfgang Hürst | 3/25 12:30pm-1:30pm | |
MR in Spanish | Reunión de investigadores en realidad mixta, para socializar, practicar español y ver posibilidades de colaboración. (Reunion of investigators in mixed reality to socialize, practice spanish, and see possibilities for collaboration) | Pablo Figueroa | 3/25 12:30pm-1:30pm | |
Immersive Storytelling | A place to discuss immersive storytelling. We can talk about: - How can we use VR effectively in storytelling? - How can we use storytelling in VR for contextual learning? - What storytelling opportunities are there amidst the situation we have in COVID-19? | Adrian Urbano | 3/25 4:30pm-5:30pm | |
Women in MR | A place for women in MR/VR/AR to meet and chat | Diane Hosfelt | 3/25 6pm-7pm | |
Making the Switch from Traditional Animator to VR | Swing is a virtual-reality film by RIT Assistant Professors mari jaye blanchard, Mark Reisch (VR Technical Director), and Ithaca College Assistant Professor Vicky Mejia Yepes (Sound Design). Combining 2D, 3D and 2.5D animation techniques, we will discuss some of the hurdles we needed to overcome when creating this film. | Mark Reisch | 3/25 5pm-6pm | |
Distributed User Studies with COVID-19 and beyond | Lets discuss how to make remote user studies possible under the current COVID-19 circumstance and any related questions: - what happens to user studies now? - how do we run user studies remotely? - how to deal with potential issues (e.g. different devices people have in their home, where to recruit the participants) | Cheng Yao Wang | 3/25 5pm-7pm | |
Spatial Audio Chat | Chat with other spatial audio people, or ask questions about sound in VR. | Aïli Arakida | 3/26 11am-12pm | |
Diversity Scholar Luncheon | Chat with other recipients of the diversity scholarship. | Amber Solomon | 3/26 12pm-1pm | |
THE CIVIC PROGRAM: An open discussion about public spaces and civic values in MR. | Architects Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg (SpacePopular) lead an open conversation about Augmented Reality in Public Space and how civic values can be maintained in privately-owned commercially-driven virtual gathering space. | LARA LESMES & FREDRIK HELLBERG | 3/26 12:30pm-1pm | |
Call to Action: Leveraging Virtual Reality to Encourage Social Distancing | Discuss how virtual reality can help encourage voluntary compliance with social distancing practices during the rapidly escalating COVID-19 pandemic. | Evan Suma Rosenberg | 3/26 12:30pm-1:30pm | |
BOF - Virtual Production | This Birds of a Feather is for attendees interested in virtual production for live action and animation projects. Virtual Production is a relatively new term that covers a range of processes used in media production that leverage real-time audiovisual and lighting technology (e.g. game engines, virtual reality hardware, and video projectors) to create immersive environments for cast, crew and audiences. Virtual Production returns us to a time where all the creative decision makers are in the same room at the same time, making the final product together. | Michela Ledwidge | 3/26 7pm-8pm |