Mel Slater, GuestXR Technical Coordinator and Investigator and Co-director of the EventLAB of the University of Barcelona, has participated at the VR Days Europe organised under the framework of the Immersive Tech Week, a series of conferences that took place between November 28th-December 2nd in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
During the conference, Mel Slater delivered the keynote “Meet yourself and celebrities in VR”, moderated by Monique van Dusseldorp. The talk delved into some of the history of shared VR and presented developments that include meeting yourself or interacting with celebrities in the same virtual space.
You can download the slides used in the presentation here:
Within this context, the GuestXR project was presented as a project combining virtual meetings with Machine Learning to address problems that may occur in virtual meetings. GuestXR aims to develop an immersive virtual social space anchored in XR based on examining individual and group behaviour by drawing on existing theoretical models from the neuroscience and social psychology standpoint.
In addition to the keynote speech, he participated into an panel entitled “Social XR – The extended body”, that discussed which new ways of social interaction are now possible thanks to Extended Reality (XR), and what they mean. During the panel, Mel Slater acknowledged GuestXR as one of the running projects he is leading. Besides him, the panel was participated by Belle Cridland and Daria Fedko and was moderated by Muki Kuhlan.
The Immersive Tech Week has been a festival filled with experiences, talks, round tables, workshops and more. Industry leaders, XR enthusiasts, academics, start-ups, scale-ups and policy makers from all over the world have united to get inspired, share knowledge, find new opportunities and make connections. The VR Days Europe aim to unite the XR community, inspire creative minds and drive business forward to make a positive difference for tomorrow.
