Misschien oud nieuws, maar in elk geval verrassend genoeg om hier op te nemen: Obama heeft twee mensen in zijn Innovation Team opgenomen die verstand hebben van virtuele werelden. Bij deze een gedeelte van het bericht uit een Washington Post rapport.
Obama has named a team to create an "Innovation Agenda" which will draft "a range of proposals to create a 21st century government that is more open and effective; leverages technology to grow the economy, create jobs, and solve our country's most pressing problems," among other noble goals.
On that team is New York Law School professor Beth Noveck and Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a Chairman Emeritus of IBM. Both of them are not just well-versed in SL, they're also crucial to its existence. As vice president of technical strategy and innovation at IBM, Wladawsky-Berger was instrumental in convincing IBM to devote tremendous resources and capital in 3D web technology, Second Life and OpenSim in particular; it's why the Fortune 500 company maintains one of the largest and most active sites in SL, and by extension, has conferred enormous legitimacy to Second Life as a technology worthy of serious corporate interest.
Beth Noveck has been closely involved in SL's development from the beginning, as the founder of New York Law School's State of Play, the ongoing conference series that's done so much to shape academia's understanding of virtual worlds as an important social phenomenon.