CHRONICLE II
If 2016 was about exploring the reality revolution, 2017 is about defining exponential experience for Digital Raign. We're interested in collapsing the space and building relationships between; technology & people, AI & impact, VR & consciousness, in short emergence.
Exponential Experience
What experience do you envision for the coming year? As our vision has taken shape, we would like to understand yours. Our mission for 2017 is to 1) engage partners to bring the power of emerging tech to the world and 2) to convene intimate thought leadership labs to move what's possible forward collaboratively. Please give us your thoughts in this short questionnaire of how we can co-create experiences that will amplify and accelerate our collective evolution. Please take a few moments to tell us your desires: Digital Raign Future Survey.
Phase II - Launch
At VRLA, we launched our new website, expanded accelerator services offering, partnerships, expeditions and announced our series of summits. We also welcomed Lizzie Kountze as our Chief Impact Officer. She brings her cause-centric background to our team to drive the development of our Impact Partner Program.
Creative Services & Training
We have joined forces with industry veteran Dan Mapes, supporting the growth of his new venture Paragon VR and gaining his expertise as our content production studio with capabilities covering VR, AR, AI and Blockchain, creative and experiential. Please let us know if you would like to explore project possibilities.
Accelerator Services
We launched Digital Raign in August 2016 as the first full service Executive Search firm for the VR industry. Since then we have expanded our services offering through partnerships to include outsourced financial systems/shared CFO, growth hacking, international strategy, legal/IP, R&D, training and development.
Based on our network we added business development and investor engagement to our offering portfolio in April. How can we help you grow?
Reality Summit at the Esalen Institute
Our Reality Summit is now an annual event with this year’s dates falling on Sept. 3-8th, right on the heels of Burning Man, so we are expecting some cross pollination and increased international participation. We are expanding the content this year from our three pillars of VR, social impact and mindfulness; to AI, AR, Blockchain, consciousness and neuroscience. Due to high demand for last year’s Summit, we are implementing a process of asking participants to apply prior to extending invitations to purchase tickets for the experience. Early participants include:
We are honored to have Dr. Tom Furness (International VR Research Institute), the Grandfather of VR, joining us at the nexus of the inception of IVRI and the expansion of his nonprofit Virtual World Society. Industry luminaries Robert Scoble (Transformation Group) Nonny de la Pena (Emblematic Group), the Godmother of VR and O.G. Jacki Morie (University of Southern California) will be joining us this year.
The Institute of Noetic Sciences is sending an executive team including President Cassi Vieten, Innovation Lab Director Julia Mossbridge, and head of their VR Lab, Loren Carpenter. Marco DeMiroz (The VR Fund), Sari Stenfors (Augmented Leadership Institute), Jenna Seiden (HTC), Aaron Gani (Humana), Joanna Popper (Singularity University), Dr. Peter Buecker (BehaVR), Tom Polson (3DPaint/FX), Katie Hanson (HealthExpense), Travis Barker (Peerless), Leanne Gluck (America Makes) are joining us for the first time; Craig Allen (Creative Alchemy Inc.), Rebecca Gasca (Pistil & Stigma), and Rachel Carpenter (Cinematrix) are returning as part of the community from last year.
From our partner community we will be joined by Dan Mapes (CyberLab9), Malia Probst (VRScout), Mikey Siegel (Consciousness Hacking), Barry Pousman (Variable Labs), Andy Lürling (LUMO Labs), Nichol Bradford (Transformative Technology Lab), Ian Michael Hebert (Esalen Institute), Nicole Radziwill (James Madison University) and Morgan Benton (James Madison University).
Partners: Virtual World Society, CyberLab9, Esalen Institute, Transformative Tech Lab, Emerging Future Institute, Lumo Labs, Consciousness Hacking, Paragon VR, Hub Culture, Vortex Immersion Media, James Madison University & X-Labs, International VR Research Institute and VRScout.
We hope you will join us for our 2017 Reality Summit – Overview, Application & Registration
European Summit & Global Retreats
In partnership with Lumo Labs, we are designing the inaugural European Reality Summit in the Netherlands. We have also started to engage other collaborators including top tech and social impact universities SingularityU and THNK as well as local economic development agencies Brainport and BOM. As we increasingly expand our global footprint, we are developing a network of partners to produce retreat-style immersive events in some 20 locations around the world from Brazil to Bali, Hong Kong to Helsinki. Let us know if you would like to partner on bringing our growing community together in your part of the world or join us in the Netherlands or Asia.
Culture Studios
Android Jones was our featured artist at our 2016 Summit at Esalen. He continues to up level and innovate on his immersive experiences (MicroDose VR, Samskara) at iconic events such as VRLA, Coachella and Burning Man. Through our deep experience with festival and conference production we have developed musician, artist and festival producer retreats to introduce new performance and interactive technology, explore the cutting edge of immersive environments and to invite attendees to understand these technologies facilitating their ability to implement them when visioning and creating next level projects.
Upcoming Curation & Content
NYCxDesign: May 3 – 24, 2017 – VR, AI & Art Activation @ Times Square
Maker Faire Bay Area: May 19 – 21, 2017 – VR & Maker Panel @ San Francisco Bay Area
Hub Culture Innovation Campus: May 15 – August 31, 2017 Pop Up Experience + AI & Impact Conferences @ Bermuda
Augmented World Expo: May 31 – June 2, 2017 – Virtual World Society Impact Day (June 2nd) @ Santa Clara, CA
TransTech Conference: October 13 – 15, 2017 – Panel & Experience Creation @ Palo Alto, CA
Reimagine Reality: October 21 – 23, 2017 – Reality Summit Europe @ Eindhoven
ALL-IN: Dates TBA 2018 – Radical Inclusion Summit @ Esalen Institute
Impact Partner Program
We are looking for companies that share our values and are interested in being positioned at the forefront of technology and engagement. We desire to develop experiences that both create awareness and build brand value. Opportunities to create unique brand experiences exist through our emerging integrated platform of experiential/immersive events, content, and impact initiatives. Lizzie Kountze is leading this effort and can be reached at l@digitalraign.com.
Virtual World Society
When we formed Digital Raign, we embedded social impact in its DNA. As the organization has matured we have found that our values are what have attracted people to our community. We had the good fortune of meeting with the Grandfather of VR, Dr. Tom Furness over the Thanksgiving holidays and subsequently establishing a partnership with the nonprofit he founded, Virtual World Society. Digital Raign co-founder, Alison Raby, recently joined the VWS Board bringing her expertise in diversity and human systems to the organization as it prepares for global growth. We are currently designing programs and partnerships focused on technology access, beneficial research and humanitarian applications of VR. If you believe in this important work, we encourage you to become a VWS member.
Exponential Humanity
As we grow we continue to remind ourselves of why we are doing this work-we believe in utilizing emergent technologies toward the betterment of humanity. We're big believers in the people side of tech, so please reach out if our approach and offerings resonate with you, we are concentrating on engaging the right people to co-create transformative experiences in the world. Our goal is to design a unique competency based on exploring frontier technology as it intersects with human potential. Some views on what's next from us are captured in the Exponential Experience article by think tank Emerging Future Institute. These two articles by futurist Gerd Leonhard and Peter Diamonds founder of Singularity University feel like good jumping off points to where we are going... exponential humanity.
For more information on these exciting developments, CONTACT US.
