Management of XR-focused technology innovation programs, leveraging my experience as a technical sales specialist with Fortune 500 customers over the past 10 years to test, evaluate and advise on upcoming technology innovations. XR mentoring and teaching for educational institutions (Simplon, Factory5, Tuwaiq …).
-
Jan PFLUEGER
Jan was an early adopter of digital technologies in the creative field. The potential of VR was obvious to him, so he began exploring new interaction techniques and developed interaction devices for spatial environments in the research field. His long-standing passion for augmented reality and AR led him to establish the Competence Center as a network hub for AR and AR, the place to inspire and influence AR activities within Audi AG. With its private label, advisXR, Jan advises startups and encourages network activities to drive and deliver the future in AR&VR. In its mission for an open XR ecosystem, it establishes strategic partnerships and supports emerging and established companies in their journey through digital transformation.
-
Gabriella CHIHAN STANLEY
Gabriella (Gabs) is co-founder and Creative Director of Austrian applied immersive entertainment studio vrisch, founder of the XRVienna community, Austrian Ambassador of Women in Immersive Tech Europe, and a South American momtrepreneur. Her award-winning work at vrisch focuses on helping people learn, understand, and have fun through purposeful entertainment. At XRVienna, she facilitates dialog between XR creators and cross-industry professionals, nurturing an egalitarian, respectful, and safe space for knowledge exchange for everyone. In 2018, Gabs was selected as one of Europe’s top 20 Women Founders by Forbes.
-
Muki KHULAN
A familiar and friendly face on the global XR scene as a Host, Moderator, Keynote Speaker and Judge, Muki is a multi-award-winning, BAFTA-nominated CIO, Executive XR Producer and Creative Technologist with over two decades of pioneering interactive, immersive experiences for music, sport, entertainment & broadcasting. She was recently appointed the new UK Ambassador for Women in Immersive Technologies Europe, the NGO she’s been heavily involved with since its inception in 2016. Muki is also currently the Innovation Lead for the IBC Accelerators Media Innovation Programme, steering high-level consortiums to develop open collaboration and groundbreaking R&D solutions for industry-recognised challenges in XR/Emerging Media and Broadcast Engineering, exploring verticles such as Synthetic Humans, Talent ID/IP, Volumetric Video, Virtual Production, 5G Motion Capture for Live Performance & Animation, Real-Time XR Sport, Interoperable 3D Assets, Personalised MetaData, Blockchain, 6DOF Spatial Audio and more. Other Emerging Media clients also include Red Bull Media House, and, mid-pandemic, included Paramount, Mozilla, and The National Gallery via PlaylinesAR, where she Exec’d the critically acclaimed “Art of London: Augmented Gallery” location-based, interactive AR app. In 2019, she also created with Playlines and BOSE the spatial audio drum’n’bass hit, Harry Shotta’s ‘Consequences’, which was awarded the Raindance Immersive headline experience, Digital Catapult’s Surroundscapes Tour, and the Innovation in Storytelling runner-up prize at the Future of Storytelling (FoST) in NYC. At AWE EU’22 in Lisbon, she helped collect a prestigious Auggie Award for the ‘Start-Up To Watch’ Winners, the multiplayer music maker VR composer tool Patch XR with whom she’s been an Advisory Board member since 2018. Previously, after ten years in the ‘00s launching MTV’s first interactive digital platforms, websites, apps and live digital events, Muki went on to Executive Produce for scores of other A-List titles such as Marvel, Angry Birds, Samsung, and, BBC’s The Voice UK, where she helped create “The Virtual Voice’, the BBC’s first-ever series of immersive 360°Virtual Reality “way back” in 2015. Muki is in demand on the global speaking circuit as an MC/Host, Moderator and Keynote Speaker for such prestigious events like AWE, Stereopsia, VR Awards, IBC, SXSW, MWC/4YFN, XR4Human, SportsPro, Media Production Technology Show, Audio Engineering Society, Women in Immersive Tech (WIIT), Abbey Road Studios Spatial Audio Forum and more. She also sits on several industry Advisory Boards, Juries and Committees, and is a regular contributor to tech papers, standards, frameworks and thought leadership publications focussing on emerging and progressive technologies for media and entertainment. X+IG: @MukiApproved
-
Frédéric SIESS
I’ve been working in video games for almost 30 years, in various companies such as Virtual Studio, Kalisto, Darkworks and Asobo Studio, of which I’m one of the co-founders. I joined Ubisoft in 2009 to work as a lead programmer on brands such as Just Dance, Watch Dogs and Rabbids. In 2014 I joined the New Business team at Ubisoft as Technical Director where I mainly focus on XR. I manage a small development team that creates VR or AR experiences for partnerships with museums, LBE or arcade VR.
-
Jayesh PILLAI
Jayesh Pillai is an academician, a designer and a filmmaker.
He obtained his PhD in the field of Virtual Reality from Arts et Métiers ParisTech, France. He has a master’s degree in design (M.Des) from IIT Kanpur and a bachelor’s degree in architecture (B.Arch) from Kerala University, India.
His works are at the intersection of interaction design, storytelling and immersive media. His research areas include ‘Grammar of Storytelling in VR’ and ‘Presence in VR’.
Jayesh is presently an Associate Professor at IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. At the School of Design, he heads the ‘Immersive Media Experience Design’ (IMXD) Lab. -
Andres BURBANO
Andres Burbano (Colombia, 1972) is a media artist and scholar currently an Associate Professor at the Open University of Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. Burbano holds a PhD in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California Santa Barbara and is a visiting professor at the Danube University in Krems, Austria. Burbano explores the interactions of science, art and technology in various capacities: as a researcher, as an individual artist and in collaborations with other artists and designers. Burbano’s work ranges from documentary video (in both science and art), sound and telecommunication art to the exploration of algorithmic cinematic narratives. Burbano has been appointed SIGGRAPH 2024 conference chair and is the author of the book: Different Engines: Media Technologies from Latin America, Routledge 2023.
-
Bradley LYNCH
Longtime content creator in the XR industry. Focused primarily on the future of head mounted hardware and where it will take us.
-
Julien CASTET
Julien CASTET leads research activities since 2012 at Immersion. His main areas of expertise include Interaction, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Computer Music, Computer-Human Interaction, Art. He is an active expert with the French National Research Agency and the European Commission. Prior to his current position, he conducted research on 3D interaction and haptics at the Grenoble Institute of Technology.
