philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Low Barrier, High Quality: Welcome to Public Interest Virtual Reality

Created in 2015, the Public VR Lab is “a collaborative effort to facilitate public dialogue around new VR related technologies and support the community creation of 360 virtual and augmented content.” It’s the first publicly accessible XR content creation lab and training center in the U.S. and offers programs and professional training to youths and adults in Brookline, Massachusetts, and beyond. Participants in the Lab’s programs have access to XR filmmaking equipment, educational workshops, production grants, fellowships, hackathons, and more.

One avenue for exploration is their VR Toolkits, which can be shipped directly to customers and contains everything an organization needs to implement VR in their daily operations. To date, Lab collaborators have included the STAT news team at the Boston Globe, the United Nations Environmental Programme, the Alliance for Community Media, and the MIT Open Documentary Lab, where Bisbee is a research fellow. A partnership with Discovery Education is currently in the works.

While the Lab is relatively new, Bisbee’s start in community advocacy began decades ago in 1992: “Right out of college, I was a community organizer on environmental justice issues. I segued into teaching technology and developing accessible internet programs, and moved into developing community story-based technology tools at a startup in Silicon Valley.”

This year, Bisbee was awarded the 2019 Nextant Legacy Award by Tom Furness—the grandfather of AR/VR—and the Virtual World Society (VWS) during the Augmented World Expo. The award honors living inspirations who show ways to better the world through XR.

“In the context of our work, black communities in Boston have been and are historically, disproportionately, being left behind.”

In 2017, the Boston Globe sought to answer the following question in a seven-part series: “Does Boston still deserve its reputation as a place unwelcoming to blacks?” Findings included that the average median net worth of Black Bostonians is $8 compared to white counterparts whose average median income is $240,000+.

See the full story here: https://msmagazine.com/2020/02/13/low-barrier-high-quality-welcome-to-public-interest-virtual-reality/