Virtual Worlds Conference

Theme: "New Ventures and Leadership in Virtual Worlds"

Venue: AT&T Conference Centre and University Teaching Center at The University of Texas at Austin - Directions

Quick Links: Keynote Sessions,  Panel sessions

UPDATE: Slides from the keynotes and panel talks are now available on the details pages above for the keynotes and panel sessions.

The McCombs School of Business and the Center for Business, Technology and Law at the University of Texas will host "New Ventures and Leadership in Virtual Worlds" at the AT&T Executive Center at the University of Texas Austin on April 2-3, 2009. Scholars will be drawn from universities around the world, executives from leading companies will participate, as well as the local University and Austin community. This will be highly interdisciplinary and will enhance the scope and quality of research and education in virtual environments characterized by real-time interaction among avatars and virtual economies. Virtual worlds are common in multiplayer online games (such as Citypixel), virtual environments (such as Second Life), and role-playing games (such as Lineage). Due to increased broadband internet access, virtual worlds are rapidly emerging as augmenting or even sometimes providing alternative means to the real world for communicating, collaborating, and organizing economic activity.

The "New Ventures and Leadership in Virtual Worlds" conference will promote innovative exploration of possibilities and understanding of the challenges of tomorrow's business worlds. This discussion is needed to prepare future leaders for environments of fluid and heterogeneous workforces, self-organized and collaborative work activities, decentralized nonhierarchical leadership, etc. Leading business schools are expanding their boundaries to more deeply embrace both real and virtual worlds in their research and education.

The conference is open to all faculty, students and staff of UT Austin as well as the broader Austin community. Presenters will include business executives, computer scientists, political and social scientists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, information scientists, etc.

Follow UT's Virtual Worlds Conference on Twitter!
Sign up on the web at http://twitter.com/utvwc Just click the "Follow" button. On your mobile, web-enabled phone, go to m.twitter.com" Or signup via SMS/text message. Send "follow <username>" in a text message to Twitter (40404) to start following someone from your phone. Note: You must be a registered Twitter user to use these services. Create your own account at twitter.com
Comments about the conference?
If you have comments, ideas, or suggestions abou the conference, keynotes, or virtual worlds in general, post a comment on the utvwc Twitter page! You can make a Twitter post on the utvwc twitter page by posting an @Reply. From the web or your phone, enter: @utvwc <your comment here>

The Open Forum sessions of the conference will be co-hosted by the Stockholm School of Economics on its island in Second Life ­ SSE MBA, for those who would like to attend the conference keynote and panel sessions virtually. The SLurl is here (opens a new window). Please contact Robin Teigland (robin.teigland@hhs.se), aka Karinda Rhode in SL, if you have any questions.

The conference has been organized as follows:

MISQ Special Issue Workshop (Free Registration) Thursday, April 2nd The MISQ Special Issue workshop is devoted to MISQ papers (see Call for Papers). While space is limited and registration is currently restricted to authors, associate editors and reviewers, we welcome active researchers in the field of Virtual Worlds to participate as special guests. In order to obtain an invitation to register for Thursday's workshop, please fill in the invitation form by clicking here Open Forum on New Ventures and Leadership in Virtual Worlds Friday, April 3rd (Welcome mixer on Thursday, April 2nd) Click here for agenda

The conference is presented by the McCombs Excellence Fund and the Center for Business Technology and Law and is supported by Shell.