for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
at Davidson College

for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
at Davidson College

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Article

EVENT RECAP: Immerse Yourself in Virtual Reality

On Thursday, October 4th, LaunchLKN held its fifth event in the Infinite Possibilities series at The Hurt Hub@Davidson. Erica Madden, Executive Director of LaunchLKN and founder of Bloom Strategic Communications, describes LaunchLKN as a community of innovators that aims to connect people from across the Lake Norman region. This particular event, Infinite Possibilities: Immerse Yourself in Virtual Reality, focused on panelists’ experience, research and professional work with virtual reality (VR) technology.

Madden explains: “the key of the Infinite Possibilities series is to see what themes  in the Lake Norman region have a heat map of interested people.” These events exhibit new aspects of technology that are receiving attention and sparking new interest groups. She says, “we’ll see if virtual reality becomes one of these topics.”

The first panelist, JD Mills—Digital Innovation Systems Engineer at Davidson College—describes virtual reality through the lens of a “geek, hacker and consumer of electronics enthusiast.”

Mills says,“the idea that virtual reality is a new concept and only arose in the past 5 years, is false.” VR technology had been hundreds of years in the making; however, the iPhone was a turning point for this technology—it was the first time the consumer was able to put VR technology in their back pocket.

His advice to companies and entrepreneurs interested in VR: “Don’t wait it out.” While the technology is rapidly getting better, you only risk getting that much further behind.

Facebook and other large companies have already invested billions of dollars in the future of VR technology. This future goes beyond gaming. Mills asked his audience to imagine, “a device that looks like glasses which you can use to import productive social experiences anywhere you go.”

For Mills, and for many companies, the question of whether VR is the future of social interaction is not a matter of “if” but “when.”

Following Mills’ brief history and future possibilities of VR technology,  Josh Shabtai—Director at Lowe’s Innovation Labs—explains VR through the lens of home improvement.

Shabtai says, “For us [Lowe’s] it’s all about human problems.”

Lowe’s estimates they lose around 70 billion dollars to home improvement projects that never get off the ground. Customers either do not have enough time or cannot not decide on products.

Shabtai thinks VR technology can help, specifically in “closing the gap from idea to implementation.”  

With VR technology, customers would be able to take the ads they see on the internet and use their phones to place the product virtually into home photos or videos.

Shabtai’s Innovation Team is exploring how VR technology could create improvements to in-store navigation. Customers would be able to use their phones to navigate through stores as if directed by a GPS. Shabtai compares it to “having Waze inside of every [store] environment.”

The final panelist, Dr. Tabitha Peck—Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College—explains implications of VR technology on academic research.

Peck says that in VR you can give people avatars, or virtual bodies, that, no matter how the avatar looks, make “you actually believe that you own [that body].”

Researchers can dress these avatars with different clothing or give them different skin colors that then simulate a new experience for VR users.

Peck explains: “Just performing these illusions actually changes your attitudes and behaviors.” If you dress someone as a doctor, they will become more healing. If you place a white VR participant, into a dark-skinned avatar , research shows the participant’s racial bias goes down for weeks after the experiment.  

In her own research, Dr. Peck has found that VR can be used to lift “stereotype threat,” a situation in which people perform at a lower standard because they are stereotyped to do so. For example, if women are reminded they are stereotyped to score lower at STEM-based projects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) compared to men before they take a math test, they will perform worse than if they are not reminded. On the other hand, if you place a female VR participant into a male avatar, she will not be affected by stereotype threat.

After listening to the three panelists share how VR impacts everyday interests, work and research, the message is clear—virtual reality  is a developing field for opportunity, no matter your industry.

 By Lucy Fasano ’21, Resident Storyteller at The Hurt Hub.

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Article Student

FEMALES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE + INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, aka “FIX IT”

When Davidson’s computer science major was approved in late 2016, the first few students to declare the new major were women — and women have been a proactive and leading force in the program ever since. Recognizing that technology can be an isolating experience, whether in school or at work, several women in the computer science program formed a women’s coding club called FICSIT in 2015-16. Their mission is to provide a safe and comfortable space for female programmers/computer scientists to foster out-of-classroom learning experiences and to encourage creativity and exploration in the computer science community.  FICSIT stands for Females In Computer Science and Information Technology, pronounced “fix it.” Get it?

FICSIT meets every other week. Their activities have included collaborative lessons in HTML and CSS, attending (and winning!) hackathons, discussing computer science classes and research opportunities, visiting the VR lab and Studio M (the campus makerspace), and interacting with technology professionals in person and online. Co-presidents Megan Goodling and Kendall Thomas are planning a focus on career exploration in 2018-19. They invite all Hurt Hub members, supporters and partners to suggest potential speakers and activities by contacting their advisor Laurie Heyer. Email laheyer@davidson.edu, or stop by and see her at The Hurt Hub!

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Article Co-Working

FLYWHEEL COWORKING MEMBER PROFILE: NEWS OF DAVIDSON

News of Davidson is a nonprofit website for news and information about Davidson and its environs for the people who live and work here — and those who wish they did.

You will find tips and thoughts from our columnists, see some news items, and discover the Distinguished Davidsonians feature. The columns, Random Acts of Kindness and Voices of Davidson, are tailored for contributions from our citizens about happenings in their own lives.

We hope that readers will visit often to find news, sports highlights, topical columns from community neighbors, information from nonprofit agencies, and an integrated calendar of key community events and dates.

Please submit your articles for these columns or events for our community calendar to editors@newsofdavidson.org.

We offer an easy option to sign up for our email notifications on our main page. We typically send out two emails a week, to avoid email clutter. One email is a summary of the articles we have posted over the previous week, the second email is called “Ready, Set, Weekend in Davidson.” It is a quick summary of events taking place in Davidson.

We are especially happy to be founding members of the Hurt Hub@Davidson. We look upon this great place as an incubator of ideas and stories that should appear on our site! Please get in touch with us so that we can tell the community about your special projects and business ideas.

We also are eager to hear your thoughts about our site. Send your ideas to contact@newsofdavidson.org.

News of Davidson Board of Directors:  David Batty, Jane Campbell, Stephanie Glaser, Catherine Hamilton-Genson, Ruby Houston, Cindy Jones, Meg Kimmel, Bill Giduz, Pat Stinson, Connie Wessner, and Marguerite Williams

News of Davidson Editorial Board:  Jane Campbell (Sports), Bill Giduz (News), Meg Kimmel (Co-Editor), Marguerite Williams (Co-Editor)

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