Category Archives: Events

VRTO 2024 Final Report

Events, General

VRTO 2024: Unveiling the Future of Spatial Media at OCAD University

Toronto, ON – [July 15, 2024] – The 9th Annual VRTO Spatial Media World Conference & Expo returned to OCAD University on July 10-11, 2024, produced by Constant Change Media Group Inc., programmed and produced by Keram Malicki-Sanchez, and co-produced by Aimee Reynolds. This event brought together the brightest minds and cutting-edge innovations in virtual and augmented reality in the heart of Toronto’s media arts district.

VRTO has become a cornerstone for industry leaders, innovators, and enthusiasts shaping the future of virtual and augmented reality. This year’s lineup featured an impressive array of speakers, including:

  • Curtis Hickman, Co-founder & Chief Creative Officer of The VOID, Author & Magician
  • Dave Cardwell, Head of 3D & Immersive Labs at Adobe
  • Caitlin Krause, Author, and Speaker from MindWise and Stanford University
  • Ryan Andal, CEO and Co-founder of Secret Location
  • Lianne Baron, Strategic Partner Manager, Meta
  • Anne Toole, writer, and narrative designer on Asgard’s Wrath 2, Days Gone, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Witcher, and more

Attendees had the opportunity to:

  • Experience Groundbreaking Demos: Live demonstrations and VR, AR, and IoT demos from over a dozen creators and colleges, including Durham, Conestoga, and OCAD.
  • Participate in Interactive Workshops: Hands-on experience with cutting-edge tools and techniques.
  • Network with Industry Leaders: Connect with professionals from various fields to share ideas and forge new partnerships.

The conference covered a wide range of topics, including:

  • Virtual Museums, Archaeology, and Cultural Anthropology
  • Generative AI for Virtual Production
  • Web3D/WebXR Optimization and Advancements
  • Digital Humans and Hyper-Reality 2.0
  • New Advancements and Content Approaches for AR/MR

With over 35 speakers from around the globe, VRTO 2024 was an event not to be missed.

Check out this amazing Matterport volumetric capture of the venue by Scott Bowie at QuickturnVR

Complete List of Speakers:

Confirmed Very Special Presenters Include:

Media Coverage:

Attendee Reflections

Drashti Pandya (Volunteer):

“I was privileged to have the opportunity to video record the event, which allowed me to listen to a plethora of inspiring talks. Some of my favorite sessions included:

  • Anne Toole elevating VR storytelling to new heights and reaffirming my belief in the power of VR narratives.
  • Tendisai Cromwell’s insightful discussion on VR in environmental causes.
  • Debbie Deer’s session on data disparities, crucial for our future AI innovations.
  • Mike Boers’ candid insights into virtual production.
  • Curtis Hickman demonstrating that magic can indeed be created within VR.

I extend my sincere gratitude to Keram Malicki-Sanchez for this remarkable opportunity and to all the organizers and fellow volunteers for their warm welcome and collaborative spirit.”

Nitya Shinde (Volunteer):

“Day 2 at VRTO was full of networking opportunities. I met Justin Baillargeon and celebrated one year of DR. VR. I experienced Debbie Deer’s VR presentation, which was inspiring and motivated me to be creative in spatial experiences. Connecting with AR pioneers Heather Dunaway Smith, Luke Hurd, and Lianne Baron was enlightening and provided valuable guidance on AR, design, and marketing concepts.

The energy, innovation, and collaboration at VRTO were truly inspiring.”

Jason Moore (The Metamovie):

“Huge thank you to the entire VRTO team for an incredible conference. I enjoyed presenting with Nicole Bernard, running a workshop with Whitton Frank, and meeting Carol Silverman & Dario Laverde. It was an uplifting, intimate, and inspiring event. I’m coming back next year!”

Dr. VR (Justin Baillargeon):

“Attending VRTO as a podcaster was unforgettable! Reconnecting with old friends and meeting past guests from Dr. VR in real life was wonderful. Despite technical hurdles, live broadcasting episodes ended up working well. A huge shout-out to the organizers for making this event feel like home. Thanks to the volunteers for their help!”

Ivette Hernandez (Journalist):

“I had the opportunity to attend VRTO and explore Latin American and Hispanic representation in the Tech Industry. Talking with Carlos E. Paz-Soldan added valuable insights to my piece for CHHA 1610AM and Frequency News. I encourage you to explore the Canadian Hispanic-Latin American Virtual Museum exhibition at VRTO 2024.”

Dario Laverde:

“A big shout out and thanks to the VRTO team for a conference unlike any other. The quality of discussions and connections made was unparalleled. Plan to attend next year.”

Carol Silverman, Creator of Belongings:

“Thank you for the opportunity to speak about my room-scale VR experience ‘Belongings’ and designing nonlinear spatial narratives in VR, and demoing to amazing people in the exhibition hall! It was fantastic to hang out with Justin Baillargeon AKA Dr. VR for two whole days. I’m still pinching myself that it really happened.”

Dan Blair of BSDXR:

“This year VRTO was a slice, spent most of my time talking about custom peripherals, haptic experiences, and questioning reality. It was great meeting up with Megha Shah and Abhi P. from my team in Toronto, and hanging with Corey King, Blair Renaud, Robyn Smith, Ashley Huffman, Julie Smithson, Alan Smithson, Justin Baillargeon, Stephanie Greenall, Rob Theriault, and many more. Sponsors should take note because this stuff is taking off. It’s worth exploring.”

Gustavo Sanchez-Perez from the Visual Effects Society:

“An epic experience at VRTO this week representing Visual Effects Society (VES) – Toronto Section together with Josh Miles Joudrie. Thanks to all the panelists for their insightful presentations and to everyone we got to interact with on behalf of the VES.”

Jason Hunter from Durham:

“That’s a wrap! Had a great two days at VRTO. Thank you for another great year!”

Corey King – Co-Founder of ZenFri Inc.:

“VRTO has the highest per capita quantity of cool people I’ve ever seen.”

About VRTO

VRTO (Virtual Reality Toronto) is an award-winning, critically acclaimed conference that has catalyzed new ventures and opportunities in media, arts, entertainment, education, and enterprise since its inception in 2015. Known for its practical approach and positive business and development outcomes, VRTO remains a leading force in the VR and AR industry.

Toronto is renowned as a global hub of innovation and technological prowess. It consistently leads breakthroughs in digital media, artificial intelligence, and immersive technologies. The city’s vibrant ecosystem of startups, research institutions, and industry leaders fosters a dynamic environment where cutting-edge ideas flourish and transformative technologies emerge.

Looking Forward

VRTO 2024 was an inspiring event that showcased the future of spatial media and provided a platform for industry leaders and enthusiasts to connect, learn, and innovate. We look forward to seeing the advancements and collaborations emerging from this year’s conference and eagerly anticipate VRTO 2025.

VRTO – Toronto’s Spatial Media Arts Conference – Returns To Earth This July 20-21

Events

Have you ever wondered how the latest Star Trek series brings their alien worlds to life? How will a new form of immersive, experiential television blur the lines between the real world and the virtual one? And who owns the art that AI is generating? Answers to these questions and more, only at VRTO!

VRTO is a special two-day event featuring a bleeding-edge conference track, fast-track workshops, an exhibits hall comprising the core spatial media community, and a special symposium where attendees will network and learn about Virtual Production, live VR theater performance, Hyperreality TV, natural language Holodecks, next-gen haptics—in short: new and fast-expanding technologies defining the future of production for entertainment, television and film, arts, performance, design, and communications.

The Pixomondo team at work on Star Trek in Toronto
The Pixomondo team at work on Star Trek in Toronto

You will be a part of the behind-the-curtain view of these sectors; consumers have more access to being creators in their own right. Not only will you leave this conference with innovative knowledge of how immersive media is spanning industries, but you will gain the leadership to take these ideas with you and incorporate them into your own user industry.

Event Highlights

Join us in the interactive Exhibits Hall featuring a variety of projects and products pushing the boundaries of this rapidly expanding, complex, and nuanced industry—from multi-user virtual worlds to the latest Augmented Reality art exhibits, (and some free pinball). Be in the same space with today’s startups, and dev studios, playtesting new games before release, and meet companies looking to hire. Be at the centre of Toronto’s tech industry and its key players.

Enter our Workshops featuring instructors that include Award-winning Tisch instructor Ari Tarr and discover the secrets to using 3D web-based and Virtual Reality technologies for live theatre performance and dance, or take a deep dive into the increasingly ubiquitous Virtual Production pipeline with the Emmy-Award-winning team Pixomondo as they show you how they brought the worlds of Star Trek: Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Halo to life.

Learn from our esteemed Speakers including Tim Bettridge (Voice Tech Global,) Michael Rosas (Virtualware,) Shenaz Baksh (LIFT/ SIRT), Ashley Huffman (TITAN Haptics,) Dario Laverde (HTC), and Justin Cathcart (Dark Slope) to name only a few of the rare experts featured at this year’s special summit.

Featured Discussions include:

Virtual Humans & Production | AI, GPT-3, GANs, ML, Processing, Image to Text, Computer Vision, Chatbots | Marketing, Retail, & Commerce | The Spatial Web | Immersive Game & Experience Design | Live Performance & Events in Virtual & Hybrid Worlds | The Future of Work & Play | Education, Training, Metrics & Analysis | Accessibility, Neurodiversity, Design & Communications | Health, Data Capture & Visualization | Enterprise | Law, Ethics, Privacy and much more.

Exhibits hall is free with registration on the event site. For additional information on events, see individual ticket descriptions.

Follow VRTO on social – @VRtoronto and #VRTO2022

https://conference.virtualreality.to/

VRTO_2020_Flotilla banner

VRTO2020’s Flotilla Is A VR Conference That Convenes International Thought Leaders To Shape Our Spatialized Future

Events

VRTO explores everything from your digital twin at the office to an immersive world that is accessible by all.

Toronto, ON – Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo (VRTO), Canada’s premier immersive technologies summit celebrates five years.

If ever there was a time to convene thought leadership around the future of work, virtual presence, and spatialized socialization, that time is now and VRTO is the summit to do it.

The roll-up-your-sleeves-and-sort-it-out symposium will take place on June 6-8 and will explore how these technologies transform the way we engage with data, the world, and each other.

The organization is calling this year’s show “The Flotilla” – alluding to the idea that there isn’t one platform to rule them all, but rather that the answer will come by tethering together different spaces, modalities, and people to do what needs to be done.

VRTO2020 Flotilla

The show will be available on mobile, desktop and in VR to foster social interaction while bringing the thought-provoking presentations and training that VRTO is known for. A key differentiator between VRTO and other conferences that have pivoted online is its aspiration to bridge the terrestrial reality to the extremely active and prolific metaverse that has been flourishing for years via the web and a variety of emerging social VR platforms. Thus the event will take place between several of these spaces, affording a grand tour of the landscape.

From Virtual Humans to the Spatialized Web, Climate and Ecology to the Future of Work, VRTO takes a deep dive into how immersive technology will affect, transform, and advance industries across the board.

“I created VRTO in 2015 to meet an inevitable future where telepresence, platform agnosticism, and accessibility are fundamental to social and economic progress. In 2020, it is clearer than ever before that we need new ways to approach the real and the virtual worlds we now inhabit. The way we process data will necessarily become spatial. The way we manipulate real-world processes will become increasingly complex and remotely piloted,” explains Keram Malicki-Sanchez, Founder and Executive Director, VRTO.

“VRTO is the summit where the people in the trenches come together to exchange these challenges and their solutions in hopes of making meaningful strides towards knowledge that any business, enterprise or individual can understand and adopt for whatever their needs dictate. And sometimes, we have to come at those challenges from unusual and unorthodox perspectives,” continues Malicki-Sanchez.

The future of work means building a true digital face-to-face experience, Elizabeth Bieniek, Director of Innovation, Cisco Collaboration shares her insights on where extended reality developments will change the way we work.

Rose Barasa, Industrial Relations, Strathmore University will discuss how organizations and institutions are applying immersive technologies in Kenya, and how companies can invest and partner with VR initiatives in Africa.

Aditya VishwanathElizabeth Bienek

Featuring an in-depth and interactive summit on Accessibility and inclusion in VR, VRTO will showcase the latest developments in research and design, inclusive storytelling and hardware, and the global movement to create inclusive standards around this technology.

Jonathan Avila, Chief Accessibility Officer, will discuss how Level Access is helping companies make their digital systems readily accessible and enable technology to be an empowering force for those with disabilities.

Focusing on VR solutions for patients, David Parker, Founder & CEO, Wishplay shares learned processes and procedures for providing immersive experiences for those looking to live beyond the limitations of their illness or disability.

Jody Tyree VRTO speakerDave Cardwell SpinVFX

Moisen Mahjoob Nia, OCADU + SMARTlab PhD candidate, presents research on immersive applications that address isolation, mental health, and accessibility issues VRTO 2020 will gather thought leaders from the largest Visual Effects companies in the world who have collectively won multiple Academy Awards, including Asad Manzoor, Lead Unreal Artist, Pixomondo (Star Trek, The Mandalorian), John Canning, Executive Producer for VR, AR, and Interactive, Digital Domain (Marvel’s Avengers Infinity War, Captain Marvel), and Dave Cardwell, Creative Director, SPINVFX (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong).

Applying her deep background in interactive and immersive media as well as distribution, Jody Tyree, Entertainment and Advertising Product Owner for Ford’s Autonomous fleet, explains how she is rethinking the passenger’s in-vehicle experience. No longer do your eyes have to be on the road! Now what?

Christina Heller Kathleen CohenGalit Ariel

Kathleen Cohen, Immersive Strategist, The Collaboratorium will explore virtual beings, digital twins, and the legacy that is your likeness, and Christina Heller, CEO, Metastage will discuss how her Microsoft-partnered capture studios is creating high-resolution volumetric video of some of today’s biggest stars for the next wave of entertainment.

VRTO is your ticket to understanding and designing the very real virtual world we are all inhabiting. We are interested in accessibility, understanding, teaching, learning, and collaboration. Join us at VRTO and upcoming onboarding Meetup events that will prepare you to go down this rabbit hole.

Official conference site: https://conference.virtualreality.to
For tickets, go to https://vrto2020.eventbrite.com/