KEYNOTE: Philip Rosedale

Keynote Speaker: Philip Linden / Philip Rosedale

Keynote Title: We’ve Been Metaversing Since Before It Was Cool
From Virtual Worlds to Learning Worlds: Two Decades of Immersive Education

Keynote Description: For more than twenty years, shared virtual environments have served as laboratories for rethinking identity, creativity, and collaboration online. Long before the recent surge of interest in “the metaverse,” educators were building campuses, simulations, conferences, and communities inside persistent digital spaces such as Second Life. These early efforts revealed a powerful insight: the transformative potential of immersive technology lies not in graphics or hardware, but in agency, embodiment, and social presence.

This talk reflects on the evolution of virtual worlds in education — from early experimentation to today’s convergence of spatial computing, artificial intelligence, and persistent digital identity. It considers emerging questions around platform control, identity ownership, and the role of AI as a creative partner rather than a replacement for human teaching. Looking ahead, immersive learning environments are likely to become hybrid, participatory, and deeply integrated into global networks of collaboration. The long-term vision is not a virtual escape from education, but an expansion of it — where learners build, inhabit, and co-create the spaces in which learning happens.

About Philip Rosedale:
Born in San Diego, the son of a Navy carrier pilot whose deployments took my family all over the United States before returning to San Diego for high school and college. BS Physics, UCSD ’92.

Fell in love with coding in middle school, and started a software company in high school which helped me pay for college. Moved to San Francisco in ’94, discovered the Internet, and created FreeVue, a videoconferencing app that worked over dialup with the earliest web cameras. Acquired by RealNetworks in late ’95, where I led the creation of RealVideo and became CTO.

In ’99, I left RealNetworks and founded Linden Lab to create Second Life and fulfill my dream of building a virtual world. After 10 years running Second Life as CEO, I started several experimental new companies with two co-founders, including LoveMachine, Worklist.net, and Coffee & Power. In 2013, after experimenting with the mems gyro chips that would enable the Oculus Rift, we started High Fidelity to build a new open-source virtual world platform for VR Headsets. In 2019, with VR failing to gain wide consumer acceptance, refocused High Fidelity on spatial audio.

In 2022-2024 created a lab in San Francisco working on several new projects, including FairShare, which aims to provide a basic income and reduce wealth inequality using a group-based digital currency. Also helped create CIMC.AI, which is exploring consciousness in machines.

Rejoined Second Life in October 2024 as CTO to help with several new initiatives!

Find Philip on these social media networks:
Substack, Medium, X

Venue: VWBPE Auditorium (3 choices):
Auditorium – Canopy Waterfall
Auditorium – Floating Gallery
Auditorium – Rainbow Mezzanine