Events

The Metaverse Safety Week (MSW) is an international community effort, led by the XR Safety Initiative (XRSI), featuring industry leaders from around the world.

Students who participated in the Immersive Media Design Program’s New Works Incubator, a six-week summer development program, designed and showcase their immersive media projects during NextNow Fest 2022.

UMD faculty, staff, and students met with and heard from award-winning cybersecurity professional, Kavya Pearlman and digital governance advisor, Kristina Podnar.

More than 25 XR exhibitors and 200 people joined the University of Maryland campus community for a fun evening exploring emerging technologies through immersive media art, interactive augmented experiences, and virtual adventures in the Discovery District at The Hall CP and WeWork College Park.

Photos from the event can be found in this Flickr Album. Special thanks to University photographer, Hong Huynh, for capturing these beautiful photos.

The University of Maryland’s Immersive Media Design (IMD) program in partnership with the campus-wide Arts for All Initiative and the Department of Art hosted a week-long public event running. The showcase presented interactive immersive media projects and various speakers.

XR Safety Week was created and promoted by the XR Safety Initiative, the first global nonprofit with the mission of helping build safe and inclusive immersive realities, but everyone in the global XR community can play a big part. At XR Safety Week, we ask everyone who’s interested in building a better and safer Metaverse to connect, collaborate, and share their knowledge or passion by submitting and hosting their own events. These initiatives will be promoted through XR Safety Week channels and contribute to a community-driven global movement for responsible innovation, better regulations, and a deeper knowledge of the worlds we are immersing in.

DCXR hosted artist George Sabra and XR Technologist/ Climate activist, Shayna Skolnik, for a conversation on environmental art in VR and the importance of using new technologies to communicate concepts and ideas to the public.

Students majoring in UMD’s Immersive Media Design (IMD) program showcased a half-dozen XR projects during the annual NextNOW Fest. Watch some of the highlights from this event on YouTube.

Attendees were able to interact with a handful of student-made installations. Read more about these projects.

Members of UMD's XR community toured Avatar Dimension, the only volumetric-capture lab on the east coast, along with brightline.

A panel of XR experts from UMD, Michigan, Yale, and Unity College shared insights on subjects as diverse as creating an extended reality program for an institution as it transitions to virtual learning to how to design a curriculum.

The INNOHUB@PGCC partnered with MAVRIC to pilot an Extended Reality (XR) Technology Commercialization Lab where Prince George’s County-based Minority Based Enterprises (MBEs)  explored the commercialization of promising XR technologies to enable them to become a part of the growing immersive media industry and ecosystem.

To celebrate Women's History Month, DCXR hosted a virtual panel featuring women in the XR industry who are making an impact. Panelists included: Sophia Moshasha, Cindy Mallory, and Aishwarya Tare '22. The panel was moderated by Emma Mankey-Hidem.

MAVRIC was proud to serve as a partner support of TEDxCollegePark 2021. This virtual event included over a dozen speakers, smaller group discussions, and virtual networking opportunities.

Organized by faculty and staff from the lmmersive Media Design (IMD) program and MAVRIC, the event brought together faculty, staff, and students from across campus interested in immersive media research and projects. Presentations from the workshop can be found at the IMD@UMD YouTube Channel.

MAVRIC Interim Director Sammy Popat presented on XR at UMD along with his counterparts at Yale and Carnegie Mellon who shared XR projects are their respective universities during the monthly Immersive Learning Network Champions in Higher Education meeting.

MAVRIC in partnership with Innov8MD hosted a dinner that brought together local XR entrepreneurs with college students interested in launching augmented and virtual reality ventures.

To highlight the relationship between science fiction and the development of virtual reality, the Museum of Science Fiction & Isovista held a VR Starship Design beta competition.

This panel on “Gaming & Technology’s Impact on Higher Education & Global Innovation" discussed how innovation, technology are continually evolving the landscape of higher education.

While gaming and entertainment have propelled immense growth in the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), the talk discussed how capable these technologies are for changing our society.

MARVIC, the VR/AR Association of Washington, D.C Chapter, and DCVR Present held a Meetup with the Microsoft Mixed Reality Developer Relations contact.

XR ventures and faculty startups from across the University of Maryland campus and throughout the DMV region were selected to participate in DC Region I-Corps program.