1:00 PM - 2:15 PM
Session C:
Building Compelling 3D Communities and E-Commerce Venues on the Internet
All content and entertainment websites and online communities are searching and exploring new ideas in e-commerce and interactive capabilities for their website’s design and functionality. For a number of years, there has been an exploration of the online possibilities in utilizing compelling 3D multi-user worlds where users can "jump" into and navigate as 3D avatars as well as socialize and communicate with each other, with the goal being the conducting of business, the purchasing of products, or just the exploring of ideas. These virtual worlds are becoming easier to create and maintain, and in this session we explore the state of this technology as a solution for building advanced online communities, e-commerce venues, and online collaboration applications.
Steven Chrust, Chairman of the Board, Worlds.com
Byron Beach, VP Partnerships and Commerce, Cybertown
Rick Noll, CEO, Activeworlds.com
Sharleen Sy, founder & VP, Marketing, CYBERWORLD International
Chris Yewdall, President and CEO for Dynamic Digital Depth Inc
Gregory Peter Panos, Co-Chair, SIGGRAPH-Los Angeles, Moderator
Steven Chrust, Chairman of the Board, Worlds.com: Steven G. Chrust joined Worlds.com in April 1999 as Chairman of the Board. Mr. Chrust brings over two decades of experience in the telecommunications industry to Worlds.com Inc. Most recently, Mr. Chrust was co-founder and vice chairman of Winstar Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: WCII). Mr. Chrust spent most of his five years at Winstar helping the company through its high growth startup stages, leading corporate development, strategic and capital planning, and acquisitions. He is also the former Chairman and CEO of AMNEX, Inc., an operator services long distance company, and Executive Vice President of Executone Information Services, Inc. Prior to working in telecommunications, Mr. Churst was Director of Technology Research at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, a leading telecommunications research and analyst company. While at Bernstein he was named top telecommunications analyst each year for more than a decade by Institutional Investor and listed as the #1 analyst in the sector for five consecutive years in their annual all-star rankings.
Sharleen Sy, Founder & VP, Marketing, CYBERWORLD International; Currently a founder and Vice President of Marketing at CYBERWORLD International Corporation, Sharleen has spent the last 11 years in helping to build successful start-up software companies in Canada. Beginning with Delrina Corporation in 1987 as the 6th member of the small start-up, Sharleen specialized in Product Marketing Management for Delrina's high profile products including Per:Form, Per:Form PRO (later becoming FormFlow), and successfully bring the WinFax products to market including WinFax, WinFax PRO and DosFax. Delrina eventually grew to over 770 people, and was sold to Symantec Corporation. As founder and President of MouseTrap Computing, one of the earliest multimedia and web site development companies in Toronto, Sharleen's projects included Multimedia Demo Disk creation for Delrina/Symantec as well as web site creation/development management for the Microsoft MSN Canada Guidebook, Delrina/Symantec Site, Canadian-Living's web site, and Sequel Technology's web site. In the winter of 1995, Sharleen joined the "Founder's Club" at MGI Software Corporation, managing and bringing to market the successful product lines for PC Photography (PhotoSuite, PC Photo Starter Kit, Sports Cards, Wedding Kit, etc.) and consumer 3D. She left MGI to pursue her area of interest: professional 3D graphics software. At Alias|Wavefront, the world leader in high-end 3D animation and modeling software, Sharleen held a Senior Product Management position overseeing and launching Maya Artisan, Maya Core, Power Animator, Media Studio, and StudioPaint 3D. Recently returning to the software entrepreneurial arena, Sharleen has joined her colleagues - founders of SHL Systemhouse, OpenText, GMN, Antares Electronics and R&D from Alias|Wavefront to form CYBERWORLD International Corporation. CYBERWORLD develops a breakthrough software technology for building and viewing multi-dimensional, media-rich web realities. Sharleen holds an Industrial/Systems Engineering Degree from the University of Toronto.
Chris Yewdall, President and CEO for Dynamic Digital Depth Inc.: As president and CEO for Dynamic Digital Depth Inc. (DDD), Chris is responsible for the operations of DDD. He has been the driving force behind the commercialization of DDD's DeepSee 3D technologies, and continues to grow their presence in the Internet, broadcast, advertising markets. Chris has a unique blend of marketing and technical skills, backed by a sound understanding of the fast-moving digital entertainment market, which is critical to the success of strategic and tactical plans necessary to commercialize the company's technologies. Based in Santa Monica, California, Chris oversees the growing management team to ensure a market-driven international presence. Chris' interesting and diverse background includes serving most recently as vice president of business development at the UK-based C-Dilla Ltd., an anti-piracy software provider to the world's leading desktop and entertainment software developers. He also held several senior management positions in Europe and North America with the UK-based Virtuality Group, the world leader in immersive virtual reality technologies. At Virtuality, Chris built the entertainment operations to a worldwide marketshare of more than 85 percent, which led to one of the most successful stock market IPOs in the UK in1993. He also worked as a technical consultant and sales executive for a systems development software provider for IBM mainframe computers. He added his technical expertise at Jaguar Cars in the UK, where he installed computer-aided design systems and was involved in the prototype development of the XJ220, one of the world's fastest road cars. In 1988, Chris graduated from North Staffordshire University, Stafford, England with an honors degree in Information Systems.
Gregory Peter Panos is Founding Co-Director of the Performance Animation Society
where he leads this emerging field toward the future of virtual actors, digitized performance and human simulation in cyberspace. A leading futurist, writer, consultant and educator specializing in the fields of "Virtual Reality" (VR), Human Simulation, 3D Real-Time Computer Graphics, "Performance Animation", innovative WEB site development and emerging new media technology, Greg's keen vison of the future often tells us what is coming and why it's going to be hot way before is happens.