James McCrae, Co-Founder | JanusVR

James McCrae is the CEO and co-founder of Janus VR, an immersive and collaborative web browsing and design platform. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto. His PhD work won the best Canadian Dissertation award 2014, and was commercialized as the modeling and fabrication software FlatFab. He was also given the Inventor of the Year award by the University of Toronto in 2015.

Jai Krishnan, Chrome Media Product Manager | Google Draco

Jai Krishnan is a Product Manager at Google working on open media compression and is involved in Google’s work with the Alliance for Open Media. Prior to Google, Jai was a consultant at Accenture. He has degrees in EE and design from Stanford and Northwestern.

Eduardo Cuervo, Research | Microsoft

Eduardo Cuervo leads the cloud & edge mixed reality initiative at the Mobile and Networking Research Group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA. There he works on enabling untethered immersive mixed reality experiences. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science at Duke University, and his B.S. from Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico City.

Bernie Roehl, Founder | Virtual Escapes

Bernie Roehl began work in the field of VR back in the early 1990s. Working with a student at the University of Waterloo, he created the world’s first open-source VR library, “REND386”, which allowed hobbyist developers to begin experimenting with the technology. He subsequently created the AVRIL library as a follow-up to REND386. His work led to him winning the 1995 Meckler award for software.

Roehl was active in the early development of VRML, and was the chair of the 1998 VRML Conference. He contributed to the development of the VRML standard and co-created the VRML Humanoid Animation specification, elements of which were later incorporated into MPEG-4. He also created Canada’s first college program in virtual reality for New Brunswick Community College. He co-developed 3DNA, the world’s first true virtual desktop software, for the company of the same name.

In addition, Roehl is the author of four books on Virtual Reality and VRML: Virtual Reality Creations (Waite Group Press), Playing God: Creating Virtual Worlds with REND386 (Waite Group Press), Using VRML (Que Publishing) and Late Night VRML (Que Publishing).

Rafael Brown | Digital Myths

Rafael Brown is a 20-year game industry veteran working in VR as Creative Director & Co-founder of Digital Myths. Rafael is a longtime game designer and game developer, who has worked on such titles and IP including Rage, Doom, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, Mafia, and Thief. He got into VR after early exposure at id Software working under John Carmack (now CTO of Oculus). His indie VR startup, Digital Myths, is working on tech & tools and an initial game project for SocialVR. Digital Myths is focused on the PC/Console end of the VR spectrum, creating immersive, interactive, tactile, intimate, and cooperative online experiences in VR.

Keram Malicki-Sanchez, Editor-In-Chief | IndieGameReviewer.com (Moderator)

Malicki-Sanchez is the founding director of VRTO. He is also the editor-in-chief of IndieGameReviewer.com since 2008 and founder of FIVARS – the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories. He spent the early 90’s building communities in IRC and the early aughts as an SEO consultant and guild leader in World of Warcraft. A graduate of UCLA’s certification programs in Digital Media, Producing and Cinematography, respectively, Malicki-Sanchez is also an alumnus of Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School – Los Angeles chapter – and has 30 years of experience as an actor in over 65 films and television shows including American History X, John Q, True Blood and 24.

He has been asked to speak about the intersection of technology and the arts at NXNE, Cinegear Expo (Los Angeles), Toronto Tech Week, CNE Innovation Garage, Digital Hollywood, NAB (Las Vegas), ideacity and many more. He is also the founder of Transportive Technology – a virtual reality production company and Constant Change Media Group – a 360 media company and disruptive media consulting firm.