[conf] MacArthur Island Launch a Success!
We are happy to report that the public launch of MacArthur Island in Second Life was very successful. The launch featured a live conversation between the avatars of Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation, and Cory Ondrejka, co-founder of Second Life now at EMI. Over 150 avatars, plus another 20-some viewers of the live webcast, gathered to participate in this discussion on the future of virtual worlds and philanthropy.
Mr. Ondrejka and Mr. Fanton both spoke very well from their respective and unique positions as a virtual world visionary and a philanthropic pioneer. They described quite movingly the potential of these technologies to promote the public good, spur new kinds of collaborative action, and capture people’s imaginations towards a better future. And Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation did a fantastic job moderating the discussion, fielding to Mr. Fanton and Mr. Ondrejka a wide range of questions from the virtual audience.
Click on the image above to see the video archive of the whole event, graciously provided by our friends at Treet.tv. Or visit MacArthur Island yourself at this teleport link.
The whole event was quite the team effort, involving most of the Global Kids Online Leadership Program staff, several programmatic, communications and technical staff at the MacArthur Foundation, the virtual world video producers at Treet.tv, and master machinimatographer Draxtor Dupres.
Best comments from audience:
Wrigley Kidd: I'm not sure who the bear is..... just an average bear interested in philanthropy
globalkids Bixby: Please welcome Jonathan Fanton and Cory Ondrejka.
Grace McDunnough: (was secretly hoping to see the flying spaghetti monster)
Chimera Cosmos: Yes! MacArthur "gets it" better than any foundation!
Grace McDunnough: That was the fastest hour ever
