Written by Kianna Best on Apr 9, 2024. Posted in General Interest

Building It For Themselves

The tech industry has a history of being dominated by men, but the gender disparity is slowly changing through networking collectives and support systems, like Women in Immersive Technologies, which are affording women more opportunities in the sector. The Location Guide speaks to its members and ambassadors about how they’re pushing boundaries with their projects and products.

The headline stats still don’t make for great reading…. the number of women in leadership roles in the tech industry has fallen to a devastating low of 28%, according to the DDI's Global Leadership Forecast.

This is obviously discouraging for women considering entering the industry. But the ones who have made it to the top are determined not to give up and continue to break boundaries by forming support networks, sharing personal insights into the industry and crafting initiatives to entice and support the next generation.

A good example of this is the Women in Immersive Technologies (WIIT) Europe and iVG.World’s Bad*ss Metaverse Design Competition (the latest event took place across May and June), which has opened up the world of VR to girls aged 13 to 17 living in Europe and Nigeria.

Funded by the WIIT Meta Grant ’23, the series of workshops tapped into the next generation of immersive technology professionals, promoting equal representations and exposing the possibilities for a prospective career choice.

THE KEY THING ABOUT IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY IS WHEN PEOPLE DISCOVER THINGS FOR THEMSELVES AND GROW THEIR SENSE OF CURIOSITY.

Starting on Facebook in 2016, WIIT Europe’s vision is to create an inclusive network of talented women driving Europe’s virtual, augmented and mixed reality sectors. Members can look for a business partner, talent, mentors or investors. They run a number of events like the one above that offer further networking opportunities.

We spoke to some of the WIIT members and ambassadors about how they’re working on a variety of exciting immersive tech projects, incorporating gaming, science and more, and tackling gender disparities…

VANESSA JULIA CARPENTER AND LEMKE MEIJER

Gagarin Iceland is an experiencd design studio based in Reykjavik that creates installations, which weave education, information and data together.

The company’s interaction designer Lemke Meijer and chief innovation officer, Vanessa Julia Carpenter, are captivated by the multidisciplinary craft of immersive tech, merging the creativity of storytelling, the complexity of science and binding it all together with the technology and craft.

“My whole career revolves around making complex things accessible to everyone and fun to experience,” says Meijer. “I like teaching people something and I do that through making interactive experiences. I always explore new technologies and see how they could work for my ideas.”

Using mixed reality technologies on mobile, headsets or even through binoculars, environments are brought to life. Meijer is also design lead on the platform, Astrid Climate Change, which keeps educators and students up to date on important developments in climate change.

Carpenter stresses the importance of trying and combining mediums to challenge people’s perceptions. “I was fascinated by what was possible when we combine computers and art,” she says. “The school that I went to had a programme, Interactive Art and Technology, which was so inspirational, pushing our understanding of how to combine mediums like film, dance, design, sound, and traditional computing such as programming into new configurations that could challenge people’s understanding of the world and give them the opportunity to reflect and change in their own lives.”

Both Carpenter and Meijer insist, “The key thing about immersive technology is when people discover things for themselves and grow their sense of curiosity.”

Interestingly, neither say they have had any issues in the immersive tech industry as women or faced any misconceptions or stereotypes from others, which is a positive sign and hopefully indicative of change.

ALEXANDRA HUSSENOT

From playing zombie killing games and enjoying Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert, to hosting team meetings in Altspace, immersive tech is an ever present playground for Alexandra Hussenot, CEO of creative media technology company Immersionn.

Transforming flat two dimensional web pages into 3D virtual worlds, using the power of the gaming industry, Immersionn is trying to evolve how we use the internet.

“In 2014 I went to the Imax in London and I tried a Samsung Gear VR experience (phone nested into a stereoscopic viewer) and an Oculus experience,” says Hussenot. “It blew my mind and I thought "that's it, this is the future of connecting people, we all go inside the phone and the internet!"

Hussenot previously worked as the UK lead for WIIT and continues to explore and predict where the industry is going, foreseeing the arrival of Apple to the market, and a world where AI and virtual reality combine to assist in the choices we make. At the core of this is her value for industry collaboration and the initiatives behind building the immersive tech community. Often battling misconceptions of the people behind the tech, shifting our way of life and work.

WOMEN IN THE INDUSTRY ARE BUILDING SOMETHING NEW IN THE CREATIVE FIELD.

“We have challenged ourselves with every project a little more. Often we have succeeded to overcome any obstacles and sometimes we have failed. Many non tech people think that technologists know exactly what they have to do before they do it.

But often it is more about planning the right time, tasks and team and executing with smooth communication between all teams. In the immersive technology space collaborations are essential.”

GABRIELLA CHIHAN STANLEY

Paraguay born Stanley is the Co-founder and chief creative officer of  Vrisch. It was set up to utilise immersive technologies to improve communications between companies and their audiences.

Vrisch offers impressive VR and AR experiences, such as Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament, which is a full-motion video adventure game, but which crucially also include the real human experience.

“Through our series of XR installations for the visitor centre of Central Europe’s last remaining primeval forest here in Austria called Dürrenstein, we could help people understand the value of wilderness, as well as invite them to see nature from the inside out and explore through AR,” says Stanley.

She is concerned, though, that the immersive tech industry is growing at such a rapid rate with new trends emerging all the time that quality could be compromised. Commenting on the “misalignment between the expectations from users, companies, and clients and the current capabilities of XR,” Stanley emphasises the importance of “looking at the industry as a journey, instead of a destination.”

She believes we need to look at why we’re doing certain things in XR, “why now, why this way, why with this person. These are all questions that come together as a whole and we can’t cherry-pick them and expect the outcome to be mind-blowing.”

LIZ ROSENTHAL

In the highly competitive and exclusive festival circuit, Liz Rosenthal, CEO and founder, Power to the Pixel, broke through to become curator of the Venice Film Festival’s new competition programme, Venice VR, which showcases the best virtual reality films.

Rosenthal has a lot of experience in the film world, including as owner of Earthly Delights Films and most notably at Power to the Pixel, which helps media businesses adapt in the ever-evolving connected world. She has helped organise and attends a number of initiatives for the industry, including the annual Power to the Pixel: The Cross Media Forum in association with the BFI London Film Festival.

WE NEED MORE DIVERSE ROLE MODELS. WHETHER THIS IS IN TERMS OF GENDER, ETHNICITY, SEXUAL ORIENTATION OR ABILITIES WE NEED TO SHOW EVERYONE WHAT IS POSSIBLE AND WHO IS CREATING THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY.

But she is keen to get ‘immersed’ in the world of immersive technology. “For me, the industry felt like a space where I could find like-minded people,” she says. “But at first it was really difficult. I was moving from the certainty of the film industry to this, and had people thinking I was crazy to do this. They probably still do. I find with this medium, because it’s so new, and there are so many different disciplines, when you get people together in the same room to collaborate and bring ideas together, it’s incredible.”

She believes women in the industry “are building something new in the creative field. Going into it, we want to make sure that there is a place where we aren’t excluded from the start, which hadn’t happened in other sectors of the industry.”

WE’VE GOT WORK TO DO

Undoubtedly, these women and their stories show that progress is being made. As the immersive industry evolves so are attitudes and approaches to creative content. The key is having the right teams in place and understanding the end user, no matter the gender.

LIZ ROSENTHAL

“I think the numbers are terrible for the balance between men and women in the industry, but there is a lot of support. What’s really important is that young women entering the industry know that there are people they can get advice from.”

GABRIELLA CHIHAN STANLEY

“If we always choose the same profile of individuals to work on projects out of the convenience of predicting the safe outcome we will never truly see the life-changing potential of this tech.”

ALEXANDRA HUSSENOT

“Immersive technologies are emerging technologies. It is mathematically challenging due to the three dimensional element, creatively exciting, intellectually fulfilling, socially amazing and commercially difficult. In other words, this is a choice of vocation like, for example, making films or becoming a teacher. You'll need passion and be eager to collaborate with many different experts for as long as the sector is still nascent.”

VANESSA JULIA CARPENTER AND LEMKE MEIJER

“We need more diverse role models. Whether this is in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or abilities we need to show everyone what is possible and who is creating the future of technology. We need to expand the narrative and perspective of how we present technology and experiences. There is an entire perspective of the world which isn’t represented well and we need to incorporate these (and more than women’s) perspectives into what we design, so we are creating a future which doesn’t repeat our past societal structures.”

 

This article was first published in the FOCUS 2023 issue of makers.

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