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In virtual space, the sky's the limit -- literally. Your Avatars can fly and teleport and change form in an instant, even in a relatively mundane collaboration meeting or classroom setting. Ben Erwin of Silicon Harlem returns to discuss the development of XR's version of "Netiquette."

Julie: Hello, my name is Julie Smithson and I am your XR for Learning podcast host. Every session is meant to provide you with the value in microlearning, about the way technologies will change the approach of education, the creation needed and the tech savvy brilliance to support the advances of our digital transformation. Join us today with my next guest, Ben Erwin, who is an expert on the XR ecosystem, from hardware and software platforms to the who's who in the industry. Recognizing the revolution of how we consume information being brought about by spatial computing and volumetric video, Ben has focused on creating new experiences and WebXR and social VR. As director of Silicon Harlem's annual tech-enabled community conference since 2018, Ben programmed the agenda, developed the marketing and produced the events for the next one, which will be held at the Forum of Columbia University in October. Thanks so much for joining me, Ben, today.

Ben: Hey, Julie, it's great to be back.

Julie: And so much to talk about with everything that's going on. I know we've had several different conversations about our intake and insight into the way things have changed before the coronavirus has hit our communities. But we talked a lot about the communication of technology, the humanics behind it, and how to adapt with the interaction. So maybe if you want to open up with a bit of your expertise and what you're seeing today in our communities and in business and how we're dealing with each other on communication.

Ben: Well, I think that the phenomenon that we're seeing right now, especially since it kicked in -- it was a very sort of interesting timing, how the Educators In VR conference happened. The outbreak had already happened in the east, and this conference happened the week of February 17th. And it was so phenomenally successful that it was a proof-positive use case that social VR is not only a thing, but something that many different types of use cases can take advantage of. Number one is conferences. And so HTC Vive, last week, had another phenomenal conference. They had scheduled an in-person conference and they had to cancel it because of the pandemic. And they held it very successfully on the ENGAGE platform last week. We've also seen a big surge in Zoom, which is a traditional platform, uses browsers as an install base. People are getting used to the idea of not only working remotely, but collaborating remotely. Teachers are giving lesson plans over the Internet. Students are learning as classes, in groups over the Internet. This is a very rapid paradigm shift that we're seeing. And what gives me a lot of heart is how well it's going.

Julie: Yeah, I think everybody's kind of-- well, we've had to, we've been forced to take that step back and figure out both in the classrooms as well as in business on how are we collaborating, how are we working together, how do we now collaborate when I'm at my house and you're at your house and we're so many miles away? And we do have this technology now that can be put in front of us, we can connect to, we can actually see and visualize things like 3D models to work on and to collaborate, to develop and design together. All of that technology is possible now. So opening up that new means of communication, where before it was always face-to-face or it was over the phone or just even in a conference call, we can now introduce more online platforms and virtual platforms to collaborate. And I think that's really opened the