“Let’s go virtual: Meet, learn, collaborate in the digital world” – Corona as a chance for VR

The coronavirus leads to the fact that neither business nor holiday trips take place, theatres, concert halls and sports facilities remain empty. Festivals and conferences are cancelled or postponed.

While some praise renunciation and reflection on oneself, others experiment with new digital formats. For many creative people in particular, the cancellation of festivals and events threatens their very existence. They therefore react immediately and try to do the best they can quickly and with the existing equipment (e.g. living room concerts by Igor Levit on Twitter, zoom conferences by XPLR: Media in Bavaria , digital DOKfest.München etc.).

Students and their parents try to use digital platforms to complete tasks. However, these platforms are neither geared to the tasks at hand nor to the number of users. Here the unmet need for digital infrastructure in schools becomes clear.

Now the hour of extended realities has arrived: Digital platforms and VR platforms offer the possibility to exchange information in groups without real social contacts, also globally, to organize collaboration and virtual conferences.

The XR HUB Bavaria sees it as its task to provide assistance and share best practice examples, to pass on experiences and to answer questions. Therefore, last Wednesday, in cooperation with the 1E9 think tank and the LMU, we very spontaneously launched our first virtual talk show on ZOOM “Let’s go virtual: Meeting, learning, working together in the digital world”.

The topics:

• When is VR needed at all – and when not?
• Examples for the use of XR for events, teaching, business
• XR as entertainment and in social life

Our guests:

Representative of the Julius – Maximilians – University of Würzburg:

• Prof. Dr. Marc Erich Latoschik, who heads both the XR HUB Würzburg and the HCI (Human Computer Interaction) Chair
• Prof. Dr. Silke Grafe, Chair for School Pedagogy
• Dr. Sebastian Oberdörfer, who works for both chairs
  

Representative of the LMU in Munich:

• Prof. Heinrich Hußmann and Sylvia Rothe from the field of media informatics and human machine interaction
• Prof. Albrecht Schmidt, from the Human Centered Ubiquitous Media department (with whom the XR HUB Munich has already held a real event on XR for journalism and media).

The event was moderated by Wolfgang Kerler from the 1E9 think tank, with which the XR HUB Bavaria is currently holding a competition on the topic of New Realities.