What is life like living as a virtual avatar? Are the billions of dollars that Meta is spending on creating the metaverse a guarantee for success? Will the obsession with our carefully crafted digital doppelgangers turn society into a virtual playground? And will it be heaven, or a nightmare? In this inaugural episode of Playing with Reality, our host Menno Van Doorn speaks to author and professor Beth Coleman and Sogeti infrastructure engineer Martijn Klerks about their lives in the virtual world, to see what forming your own online reality is really like.

Today’s Guests

Beth Coleman is an Associate Professor of Data & Cities at the University of Toronto, where she directs the City as Platform lab. Her research focuses on smart technology & machine learning, urban data, and civic engagement. In 2011, she published the book Hello Avatar, an examination of online identity and the ‘x-reality’ between the virtual and the real.

https://ischool.utoronto.ca/profile/beth-coleman/

Martijn Klerks is an infrastructure engineer at Sogeti. He is also a hardware specialist in VR technologies, working with Slime VR to create affordable and open source VR technologies available to the public. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martijn-klerks/?locale=en_US

Sogeti works closely with clients and partners to take full advantage of the opportunities of technology. Find out more about us here: https://www.sogeti.com/