NMC Campus Observer

Thinkerer Challenge

Second Life’s “Thinkerer Challenge” Awards to Foster
Tools from the Metaverse That Benefit Real Life

August 15, 2007 (Thinkerers Quest, Second Life) - Thinkerer Studios - a network of residents in the virtual online world of Second Life - today announced the launch of an awards program to identify and encourage the development of creative products and services that use Second Life capabilities to enrich or empower experiences in Real Life. The first Award recipient will be made known at the end of September, 2007.

Recipients of the Thinkerer Challenge Award will receive 30,000 Lindens - the currency of Second Life - and the use of a parcel of virtual land (or an equivalent arrangement) for one year. In addition, they will be invited to become judges of future Thinkerer Challenges.

Cash awards will be funded by the founder of Thinkerer Studios, Thinkerer Melville. Awards will be given as often as once a month, depending on the volume and quality of nominations. Honorary Awards will also be presented on occasion, depending on merit and circumstances. All winners and their projects will be publicized and promoted, both in and off-world.

“The goal of this award is to focus attention on how people can use a virtual environment for creative collaboration that reaches back into the real world as its main destination,” Thinkerer Melville (Selby Evans in Real Life) said today, when announcing the launch of the awards program at the Symposium on Creativity in Second Life, presented by the New Media Consortium.

Criteria

• Creative synergy. The product or service results from an innovative combination of ideas from the real world and capabilities offered by Second Life.
• Collaboration. The product or service results from the collaboration of two or more people who have made distinct and recognizable contributions.
• Outfacing. The item (or a significant aspect of it) is accessible and of value to some people outside of Second Life.

The Jury and the Process

Members of the Jury will be individuals with ample real-world and Second Life experience, representing a range of creative and technical fields. Judges will identify Second Life groups that are dedicated to related and meaningful endeavors and invite them to submit nominations. In addition, a group may identify itself to any of the judges who will then determine whether or not to invite a nomination from them. A list of the groups which may submit nominations will be published on the first day of each cycle on the organization’s website.

The Jury includes:

• Tom Polum (Second Life moniker: Trip Potvin): As a producer, Tom was part of the national tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Hairspray/The Producers (with producing partner Jean Cheever). Currently filming on Last Call Documentary. Tom’s Second Life persona - Trip Potvin - is also the producer of Broadway Live Island, a residential and commercial community covering 5 sims (regions) designed to support the development of live theatre in Second Life.
• Adele Ward (known in Second Life as Jilly Kidd): Adele Ward is an award-winning author whose poetry collection Never-Never Land is due out from Bluechrome in November 2007. Adele is also a fiction editor working for Bluechrome Publishing in the UK, with years of experience as a journalist. Adele’s Second Life avatar - Jilly Kidd - hosts live author interviews at the Joysco Convention Centre on SL which are broadcast on SLCN TV.
• Virginia Dickenson (Second Life’s Xenon Darrow): Virginia, an A.B.D with an Ed.D specializing in Adult Learning, Organizational Development, Educational Research, and Instructional Systems Design, has been a design consultant for authoring software and an instructional designer in computer and web based training and virtual learning environments for 12 years. Virginia’s Second Life persona - Xenon Darrow- is the Chancellor of eLumenata University, focusing on using the metaverse to create greater learning impact at an affordable cost.
• David Laundra (Second Life’s Kronos Kerkorian): A screen and stage actor, still photographer, cinematographer, and teacher, David has acted in commercials and industrials, appeared on all the New York-based soap operas; television series “30Rock” “The Jury” “OZ,” “Homicide,” “The Beat” and numerous films. He served as Technical Director, handling lighting and camera, for 26 half hour episodes of “The New York Theatre Review” on PBS. David’s Second Life avatar - Kronos Kerkorian - has focused on photography and Machinima (movies created in the metaverse).

About Thinkerer Studios

Thinkerer Studios is a network of Second Life residents with the goal (quest) of promoting creative and outfacing products and services in Second Life. A thing is outfacing if it is intended to have its primary impact on the “real world” outside of Second Life. The expression ‘products and services’ is intentionally vague because we do not want to predict the result of creativity. The expression would include everything that is commonly called “Art.” It would also include advertising, marketing, education and things we have not thought of yet. The view of Second Life taken by Thinkerer Studios is quite different from the conventional view of virtual reality as a form or entertainment. Thinkerer Studios views Second Life as a tool to be used by creative people to do creative things that have effects in “real life.”

Story filed under: Campus Headlines
Tags: slcreativity
See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)