Mitch Kapor Speaks on Ending Bias Tonite in SL
Mitch Kapor, an early investor in and board member of Linden Lab, creators of the virtual world of Second Life, will give a talk this evening in SL, all about the Level Playing Field Institute, where he also sits on the board and which “promotes innovative approaches to fairness in higher education and workplaces by removing barriers to full participation,” and about philanthropy in general. Mitch’s talk at last year’s Second Life Community Convention was a really informative and insightful look at how disruptive technologies happen (something Kapor knows a lot about, having helped make computers useful for large numbers of people). If he can have the same effect on reducing the kind of subtle bias in education and the workplace that holds people back without many people even being aware of it, it’ll be a great thing. Mitch’s talk goes off at 8pm SL Time (11pm Eastern), and you’ll be able to listen to it at »Sheep Island Auditorium«, »Crayon Theater«, and »Reuters Auditorium«. The late time unfortunately puts it out of reach of most European SL members, but hopefully the talk will be archived somewhere on the Web.
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I attended the event held at Sheep Tower in Second Life, of which a photoset may be viewed at http://flickr.com/photos/seesaw8/sets/72157600263668411/
It was fascinating to see attention drawn to a cause, The Level Playing Field Institute, by those with virtual world ’star power,’ in this instance Second Life creator and Linden Lab CEO Philip ‘Linden’ Rosedale and Linden Lab Chair Mitch Kapor.
This is another instance of where a RL model is being transferred into a virtual environment. And just think, no one had to jump on a plane, drive a vehicle, waste energy, pollute the environment to attend. Pretty rad if you ask me!
Forgive me, but how is this RL model, which itself could be critiqued, transferred into the virtual world? where is this foundation helping minority students *through and in* SL? They’re not — it was merely a RL/SL mash-up *event* augmenting the RL event primarily.
And just think of all the servers running and the electricity they are consuming and the non-renewable hydrocarbons that have to be burned to fuel this 3-D streaming world and your computer and connection to it!