ARVR Women 2018 Yearbook: Nexus
For ARVR Women and Allies 2018 was all about NEXUS.
No matter what acronyms, or M, X, R, V’s we use to convey reality as a medium, immersion is at the center of what brings ARVR Women together, connecting us to a global network of dreamers, builders and leaders who are creating the future.
In between the frames of our yearbook, for every smile and victory, there’s a story of defeat. If you’re barely holding on in this risky, glitchy, terrain, you’re succeeding. We hope these pages give you a moment to reflect and celebrate your persistence.
From the Latin, nectere, to bind, Nexus is our link to survival: each other. Everyday our community members inspire and motivate us to help level the playing field, expand opportunities for underrepresented voices and
tackle the challenges of an imbalanced industry.
Among our successes this year, ARVR Women Co-Founder Iva Leon designed our new logo that appears on the cover, we started Breakfast Fight Club, our unplugged morning meetup, and we created our Futurist in Residence program, that puts state of the art augmented reality headsets Magic Leap One and HoloLens 2 into the hands of four African-American women artists to gauge the headset’s impact on their work and the future.
We received funding for the program through the Investing in Tomorrow Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) with support from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
We’re grateful for our community. Thanks to their ongoing support, ARVR Women has a deeper sense of purpose and drive to be a light at the edge of the metaverse — deep in the heart of Nexus.
Breakfast Fight Club is ARVR Women’s unplugged morning meetup for non morning people inspired by David Fincher’s 1997 cult-classic starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
We’ve had twelve rounds of breakfast since our first event in April at Au Coquelet in Berkeley. Two were in the U.K. and thanks to Alina Kadlubsky, an intrepid effort at AWE in Munich.
Our club doesn’t actually fight. We drink coffee, talk about immersive design and hardware and have a soap raffle. Bring your business cards for a chance to win.
Admission is the cost of a cup of coffee (or tea) and maybe a doughnut.
Demos welcome but not required.
OC5
Thanks to generous support from Oculus, ARVR Women was able to provide
tickets for selected members to their 5th annual developer conference in San Jose, September 26th and 27th, 2018.
We’re grateful for the incredible opportunity to meet the makers and connect with our group members in the real world!
We got to play with the new Oculus Quest, formerly known as project Santa Cruz, launching in 2019. And Cecile Eskenazi, recognized our Feature Friday’s Spaces Live in her VR for Everyone talk.
Plus, OC5 inspired NEXUS, we peeked the event’s immaculate shoe game and we had our biggest Fight Club of the year. Thanks Oculus!
