ARVR Women’s Academy: Teaching Women How To Build A Multi-Reality
At a Halloween party this past October, I had one of those pivotal moments that shifts your whole landscape of perception in a Flash. An excited mom and tv producer told me about a new and rejuvenating field with giant potential for creativity and growth. A field where people could financially and creatively thrive, and we are all invited.
She told me about Virtual and Augmented Reality and the group ARVR Women, formed by a woman named Jodi Schiller, and her team of Iva Leon, Jazmin Cano, Hallie McConlogue, and Erica Layton, with Micah Blumberg as an ally, all dedicated to bringing more women into the field.
Jodi came into the industry after having seen an incredible Augmented Reality experience which, as in my case, immediately expanded her vision for the future. She was excited to discover a whole new way of telling story and engaging in the world. With her background in expressing women’s stories in theater, and love of technology, she felt now was the time to create a diverse set of creators in this new tech medium while the industry was still fluid. Her vision was simple: Everybody should have a hand in creating this tech (a new reality) for everyone, rather than leaving it to the narrow cross section of makers as has been typical in the technology field for the last few decades.
I showed up at that first meetup of ARVR Women the next evening. In a large group of women, we discussed our desire to learn everything about the tech, and most importantly for Jodi and her vision, how to make it. Jodi and I were speaking at that first Meetup and she said “Sometimes creating something new is like driving around in an invisible car, people can see you moving, but they don’t see the car. You look mad, totally nuts, until, of course, you don’t.” (Everyone wonders how it happened so quickly.)
Fast forwarding four months, I am part of the first wave for the AR VR Women’s Academy. Jodi and her team, including Liv Erickson, Suzanne Leibrick, Kirsten Duvall, Rebecca Mandel and so many others too numerous to mention (mentors, teachers, coordinators, speakers, photographers, videographers, event volunteers), championed us and worked hard to create this opportunity. Their goal is to lay a foundation for complete gender parity in the industry within five years (50/50 in 5) by flooding the market with qualified, female AR VR experts.
I had the pivotal shift immediately seeing this was the field I’ve been looking for, STEAM (science technology, engineering, art and math) at its finest. It thrives on the weave of multidisciplinary fields (if we have a vertical, shouldn’t there be a horizontal and a whole gyroscope too?). We are shaping this new reality, here and now ,and I want everyone I know to be part of this huge undertaking. We can evolve together, transform the world around us; we have the tools.
The Academy is growing beautifully, is well-received, and is entirely open-sourced, limited only by room capacity. We also have an e-learning expert as one of our students, Alex Streczyn-Woods (she wants to take education into VR), and she is creating an online resource based on our class.
As for the school, every student brings varied gifts, talent, and wisdom to the field. We combine our expertise from a wide array of different backgrounds and perspectives to generate new visions for potential applications, at the same time creating a supportive community. If we could each bring even one idea (and we have so many!) into the world as thoughtfully as Jodi and her team have built the Academy, how many problems would we solve? How many lives could we change?
As the first cohort for the Academy, we see our role as being leaders in the program, and we are dedicated to passing on our growing expertise to the next wave. I have a picture now of the world I want to build, both for myself, and for my children. We are growing and evolving and always looking for more people to join us.
Our allies and sponsors include Thoughtworks, Unity, Immersv, EaseVR and Nvidia. Our first class has been co-sponsored by Women Who Code with the incredible Erin Jerri Pangilinan working with Jodi’s team. In order for us to expand around the world (we have had interest in as far flung places as Taiwan, Odessa, Hong Kong), we now need more champions. The skills are in high demand, we have amazing instructors and leaders supporting us, a community, a school, a platform, and most of all, we want each and every one of you to be here with us. Please share our waitlist with your colleagues, friends and family. We think we are creating new worlds and portals, a kind of tech magic, and we want you to share in our wizardry: ARVR Women’s Academy Waitlist.
