DAY 1 - DECEMBER 6, 2021
Immersive Storytelling & Journalism
Opening Event: XR Safety is a Shared Responsibility
In the opening session of XR Safety Week, world-class journalist Laurie Segall interviews the founder and CEO of XRSI, Kavya Pearlman.

Kavya Pearlman

Laurie Segall
From topic to medium – XR for journalism
There is a long way to go before using Virtual and Augmented reality as media. Today, XR is widely considered a topic for news more than a platform, and this will require a paradigm shift. Nevertheless, there are immediate potential uses for XR in journalism. Think about data: for many decades, we’ve been dealing with […]

Adam Marton

Marco Magnano
It’s (not) just a game!
Are video games “just” games? The debate is probably as old as video games themselves, and probably the only correct answer is “who cares”? What’s for sure is that video games, or at least their mechanisms, are everywhere in our lives, and they can help us deal with various challenges, from education to tourism, from […]

Micaela Mantegna

Fabio Viola

Marco Magnano
Beyond gadgets: how to report about the Metaverse?
In recent months the word “Metaverse” has become one of the most used (and abused) terms in the tech industry. We’ve also heard or read that the Metaverse is going to replace the Internet and maybe we’re all supposed to live there. And we also heard that a very big corporation changed its name to […]

Tom Ffiske

Doug Thompson

Antony Vitillo

Kavya Pearlman

Marco Magnano
Immersive Storytelling: Learning from Games to Guide the Future
Join Ben Bowman for a discussion surrounding the powerful interactive storytelling approaches in video games that we have seen evolve over the past few decades to learn how we can view use their concepts to drive our storytelling in the future, and the considerations they bring for user safety and privacy in the XR space

Ben Bowman
Virtual Perspectives, Real Outcomes
In this seminar, Laura will leverage multiple industry-based case studies of how Storytelling in XR is being used to facilitate empathy development, perspective-sharing, and human-centered problem-solving. The learning objective of the session is to better understand how to leverage storytelling in XR as a tool for solving complex problems. Prerequisite knowledge & experience in Production/Development […]

Laura E. Brown
DAY 2 - DECEMBER 7, 2021
Child Safety
Immersive Digital Therapeutics and Child Safety
Lucia Pannese is CEO & Founder of Milan-based Imaginary, a leading European Serious Games development company specialing in digital health applications. Imaginary has developed a comprehensive range of games-based digital therapeutic solutions to tackle global challenges such as obesity, autism, rehabilitation, and life-changing conditions such as cystic fibrosis. Lucia’s talk will cover some case studies […]

Lucia Pannese
Safe Guarding your Child’s Mental Health within the Metaverse with MIQ (Metaverse Intelligence Quotient)
MI-Q Metaverse Intelligence Quotient The rapid proliferation of technology in our society has increased concerns around mental health. According to the research, social media increased the risk for depression, anxiety, loneliness, and self-harm. Let’s take that one step further and look at esports and the metaverse. Due to the rise of gaming and esports, a […]

Shea Richburg
Safety in XRPT: Extended Reality Play Therapy
Extended reality has begun to blossom within numerous environments, including in the mental health treatment of children and adolescents. Applying the fundamental tenets of an approach such as play therapy, a mental health practitioner can offer highly motivating, immersive, fun, and powerful interventions within which they can connect, assess, educate, and intervene. Safety in XRPT […]
Education in the Mirror World
What it will be like to be a kid learning in the Mirror World/Metaverse? What experiences do we want our kids to have and what technological hurdles must we overcome to make them a reality?

Future Meme
The Future of Child Safety in XR & the need for Metaverse IQ Workshop
Join Shea Richburg and Raulvin Coke Co-founders of Future Wise Group for a workshop on The Future of Child Mental Health in the Metaverse. During the session, the founders will discuss the importance of maintaining positive mental health by establishing what they have coined as Metaverse IQ or MIQ. The mini presentation will be followed […]

Shea Richburg

Raulvin Coke
DAY 3 - DECEMBER 8, 2021
Diversity & Inclusion
Empowering diverse communities within Extended Reality

Erica Stanley
Game on: The role of safety in the metaverse

Julie Inman Grant
Avatars, virtual harassment, and XR safety challenges in Higher-Education
Over the next few years, XR is bound to significantly impact higher education by changing how students learn, supporting new modes of distributed/hybrid learning experiences at scale, and developing empathy. This adaption will also result in the education community facing a new set of critical security, privacy, safety, and ethical challenges. Our panel discussion will […]

Maya Georgieva

Ricky LaFosse

Didier Contis

Jeremy Nelson

Thomas Lewis

April Speight
Evangelizing Diverse Communities to the Metaverse
The industries that form the foundation of the Metaverse, gaming and XR, have historically neglected their women and minority audiences. Now that the Metaverse is here, we all need to come together and make this industry and our future more inclusive, diverse and equitable. Our panel speakers bring their perspective on these issues and solutions, […]

Saskia Fairfull

Nico Fara

Stephanie Orme

Miguel Sanchez
A VR Lab in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
Gonçalo Pratas talks about how and why to build a VR Lab in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean

Gonçalo Pratas
Game Changers of VR Sports: Inclusion From All Perspectives
The panelists will discuss their roles from starting out as competitive players to becoming leaders in one of the biggest competitive communities in VR. Brett, of Better Than Unicorns, will moderate the panelist as they discuss their thought process and innovative ways of creating diverse and inclusive opportunities, as well as addressing toxic behavior often […]
Game Changers of VR Sports: Accountability & Safety in Competitive Leagues
Accountability & Safety in Competitive Leagues: It’s not just a game when it comes to ensuring a safe and fair league in VR sports. On this panel, the leading organizers of six different VR leagues will share ways they protect their communities while upholding the integrity and the spirit of competition. Learn from more structured […]
DAY 4 - DECEMBER 9, 2021
Medical XR & Immersive Healthcare
The Promise, Opportunities, and Risk of Medical XR
The future landscape of Medical Extended Reality will enable enormous breakthroughs in our ability to provide access to healthcare, to treat and diagnose people, and provide immersive tools for medical education. It also provides unprecedented access to the most sensitive data that can be collected. What are the promises of Medical XR, and how might […]

Divya Chander
Healthcare Simulation and Training
Medical education is undergoing a paradigm shift accelerated by the pandemic to adapt existing curricula to accommodate XR. The talk will discuss how training, simulation, and remote collaboration could potentially be disrupted.

Shafi Ahmed
Accelerating the adoption of XR to support health care education in England within NHS
The use of Extended Reality (XR) technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have become an invaluable part of the delivery of education and training in healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic.Clinical experiences and clinical placements are an essential part of medical and clinical training in the United Kingdom. Many of these physical […]

Neil A Ralph
Creating a world-class ecosystem for XR in the NHS
Following the launch of the Growing Value of XR in the Healthcare Report, the UK has begun developing a united strategy for deploying XR across the NHS. Join the discussion and hear from expert representatives who will share the existing activity across the UK, plans for further strategic development, and opportunities for global collaboration.

Li Cheng (Dolly) Chong

Abison Logeswaran

Richard Price

Neesa Mangalaparathy

Sarah Ticho
Physiotherapy, Psychotherapy, and beyond
In whatever form, therapy should ultimately be focused on giving back autonomy and self-determination to people. Does XR encourage more active participation in therapy as opposed to more passive forms of treatment? What are the advantages, limits, and risks of using immersive technologies as part of treatment, and to what degree can they safely replace […]

Valentino Megale

Derek V Nielsen

Oliver D’adda
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
With all of the capabilities of XR – stopping pain, replacing LSD treatments, physically healing, there is the capacity to cause great harm. Any developer with Unity could potentially misuse XR either intentionally or unintentionally. In this talk, we explore ways that developers could harm patients with this powerful medium in order to understand how […]

Kavya Pearlman

Mohamed Khamis
DAY 5 - DECEMBER 10, 2021
Privacy & Safety
Digital Human Rights Day
Privacy and Ethics overview on the Metaverse
in partnership with APEE – Associação Portuguesa de Ética Empresarial The panelists will foster a discussion over the ethical challenges for individuals and companies in the Metaverse. PARTICIPANTS Luis Bravo MartinsCMO @ KIT-AR, Immersive tech author, speaker Gil Davide Mário Parra da SilvaPresident at APEE
Gremlins and Guardrails: What’s next for the Metaverse?
The Metaverse poses a set of unique challenges to traditional rules-based frameworks for technology management and oversight. In this panel, three leading practitioners – from the areas of law, emerging technologies and national security, and risk management, respectively – discuss key issues and drivers for Metaverse adoption to optimize safety and soundness. Gremlins will never […]

Thomas A. Campbell

Karen E. Silverman

Damien Weldon
RoundTable – Understanding the impact of XR Data Collection on Human Rights, Work, Education and Commerce
Hosted and directed by XRSI On December 10, we mark 73rd International Human Rights Day and celebrate the fifth and final day of XR Safety Week. On that day, we will join a wide and global community of stakeholders to take an essential step toward safety to build brave new virtual worlds by hosting a […]

Kavya Pearlman

Kristina Podnar
Building Human Rights Into Metaverse
This event is organized by Electronic Frontier Foundation and Access Now in honor of International Human Rights Day as part of XR Safety Week. For International Human Rights Day, EFF and AccessNow are bringing together experts and stakeholders in the fields of XR and the human rights community to address the unique risks and challenges the development of these technologies […]
Virtual Citizens Forum
XRSI, Meta, Microsoft, and MRC are co-hosting the very first Virtual Citizen’s Forum. The forum is meant to empower creators, artists, developers, and all virtual citizens to share their success stories, their concerns, and challenges and seek real-world solutions by connecting with specific individuals and organizations that are able to address the concerns as well […]

Kavya Pearlman

Kristina Podnar

Kent Bye

Rochelle M Nadhiri

Brian D. Wassom

Oz Sultan

Dr. Dalya Perez

Chyna McRae

Ethan W Crank

Scott F. Butler

Mathew Kerbis

Dennis “Fox” Bonilla
Closing Keynote by Kavya Pearlman and Matthew Price

Kavya Pearlman
