VRTO (Virtual Reality Toronto) was founded in 2015 by

Keram Malicki-Sánchez Keram Malicki-Sánchez is an actor, musician, writer, filmmaker, interactive media and virtual reality developer, multimedia artist, and event producer. He is the founder of the VRTO Spatial Media World Conference & Expo, and the Festival of Int ...

as a

Meetup Meetup, headquartered in New York City, is a social media platform and social networking service for hosting and organizing in-person and virtual activities, gatherings, and events for people and communities of similar interests, hobbies, and pro ...

group dedicated to

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. In June 2016, VRTO launched the VRTO Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo, a professional event focused on exploring arts, culture, and science through immersive technologies. Its inaugural year – held at the Mattamy Centre (better known as

Maple Leaf Gardens Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church and Wellesley, Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was originally constructed in 1931 as an indoor arena to host ice hoc ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

) – it featured keynotes from

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

Professor Steve Mann, Hollywood film director

Brett Leonard Brett Leonard (born May 14, 1959) is an American film director, producer and music video Music video director, director specializing in the science fiction and Horror (genre), horror genres. A few of his films such as ''The Lawnmower Man (film ...

– director of

The Lawnmower Man "The Lawnmower Man" is a short story by American writer Stephen King, first published in the May 1975 issue of ''Cavalier'' and later included in King's 1978 collection ''Night Shift''. Plot summary Harold Parkette is in need of a new lawn mow ...

, Chief Digital Officer Ana Serrano of the

Canadian Film Centre The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is a charitable organization founded in 1988 by filmmaker Norman Jewison in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Originally launched as a film school, today it provides training, development and advancement opportunities for ...

and Phil Lelyveld of

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

. The opening year featured a keynote,

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

and discussion panel around creating a Code of

Ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

for Humanistic Augmentation also known as the HACode or The Toronto Code. In 2016 and 2017 the show was co-produced by Jessy Blaze and Chrissy Aitchison. In 2018 and 2019 it was produced by Stephanie Greenall, Aitchison and Melanie Smith. Longtime collaborator Joshua Miles Joudrie served as a key production consultant.

VRTO 2016

The conference, in its inaugural year welcomed 800 attendees and 64 speakers from Toronto, Montreal and Los Angeles, and featured over 20 companies working in the development of virtual reality,

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

and

mixed reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

in addition to training sessions dedicated to the creation of

360 video 360-degree videos, also known as surround video, or immersive videos or spherical videos, are video recordings where a view in every direction is recorded at the same time, shot using an omnidirectional camera or a collection of cameras. The term ...

, game development,

photogrammetry Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...

and

WebVR WebXR Device API is a Web application programming interface (API) that describes support for accessing augmented reality and virtual reality devices, such as the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Meta Quest, Google Cardboard, HoloLens, Apple Vision Pro, An ...

. The conference featured a preview of the

FIVARS Festival of International Virtual & Augmented Reality Stories Festival of International Virtual & Augmented Reality Stories (FIVARS) is a media festival that showcases stories or narrative forms from around the world using immersive technology that includes virtual reality, augmented reality, live VR perfor ...

. The conference featured a workshop titled The Hacker's Guide to the Metaverse that taught programming

using the

JanusVR JanusVR was a company based in San Mateo, California, and Toronto, Ontario, that developed immersive web browsing software. It was founded by James McCrae and Karan Singh in December 2014. Named after Janus, the Roman God of passages, JanusVR p ...

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

platform.

VRTO 2017

The largest conference dedicated on virtual and augmented reality in Canada, the sophomore year featured 100 speakers and 60 installations. The second year of the VRTO Conference & Expo in 2017 was staged at the

Rogers Communications Centre The Rogers Communications Centre (RCC) is a building on the campus of Toronto Metropolitan University. It is home to the Creative School (formerly the Faculty of Communication and Design) and its departments, including the RTA School of Media. Co ...

on the

Ryerson University Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, or Toronto Met), formerly Ryerson University, is a public research university located in Toronto, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District in downtown Toronto, although i ...

campus in downtown Toronto June 24–26 with the theme of "Giants" based on the quote by

Sir Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His book (''Mathe ...

: "“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of Giants.” Keynote speakers included Stanford neuroscientist Professor Walter Greenleaf, Ph.D., Graham Smith, David A. Smith, Dr.

Sara Diamond Sara Diamond may refer to: * Sara Diamond (academic administrator) (born 1954), Canadian artist and former university president *Sara Diamond (singer) Sara Maxine Diamond (born January 5, 1995) is a Canadian singer from Montreal, Montreal, Quebec ...

- President of

OCAD University Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD U, is a public university, public art school, art university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its main campus is located within Toronto's Grange Park (neighbourh ...

Moses Znaimer Moses Znaimer (; born 1942) is a Canadian media executive. He is the co-founder and former head of Citytv, the first independent television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the current head of ZoomerMedia. Early life and education Znai ...

, Charlie Fink, Dr. Karan Singh and James McCrae - founders of

and additional live interviews with Steve Mann, and Tim Merel among others. Several panels, under the banner of "Super Sessions" featured leaders in the field of Virtual & Augmented Reality, health sciences (Dr. Lora Appel, Dr. Tom Overly, Dr. Stephane Bouchard), "Out-of-Home" entertainment (James Jensen of THE VOID, Eyal Kleiner of

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of High-definition video, high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and movie theater, theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (image), aspect ratio (approximately ei ...

, Ed Callway of

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

). The show was also the launchpad for various products and initiatives, including the

's Pulse on VR "living ecosystem" report on the Virtual Reality industry, the Webmoti camera that mitigates social anxiety for children with

autism Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

who wish to participate in the classroom, and the Somato Cherry haptic wireless virtual reality controller. Themed pavilions were co-curated between Malicki-Sanchez and specialists in their respective fields, including Dr. Maria Karam (somatosensory pavilion), Ian Kelso (

conference track), Isaac Rayment (augmented reality "ARt Gallery") that featured early augmented reality artists Zenka, Daniel Leighton, Alex Mayhew, Dan Goldman, among others.

VRTO 2018

VRTO 2018 shifted its lens to

psychedelia Psychedelia usually refers to a Aesthetics, style or aesthetic that is resembled in the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience produced by certain psychoactive substances. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic ...

, esoterica, philosophy and phenomenology and how they relate to experiential design,

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

and

Visual Effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...

. It featured speakers such as Steve "Spaz" Williams (the VFX wizard behind the films '' The Mask'', ''

The Abyss ''The Abyss'' is a 1989 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. When an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean, a US search and recovery tea ...

'' and ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...

''), Philip Rosedale (creator of Linden Labs and

Second Life ''Second Life'' is a multiplayer virtual world that allows people to create an Avatar (computing), avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multi-user online environment. Developed for person ...

), and

, along with 85 other leaders of the VR industry. In its third year, the event added an extra day of conferences, workshops and training. The exhibits featured numerous startup companies in the Ideaboost incubator in partnership with the Canadian Film Centre.

VRTO 2019

This year, the conference moved to a new location – the Toronto Media Arts Centre. The 2019 conference shifted focus onto a recalibration for the spatialized technologies industry as a whole and added various notable authors to the lineup, including bestselling author Blake Harris "The History of the Future," and

Douglas Rushkoff Douglas Mark Rushkoff (born February 18, 1961) is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture and his advocacy of open-source ...

"Team Human." Other notable speakers included Sarah Vicks from

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Studios and Olivier Asselin from

Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...

who spoke about

volumetric video Volumetric capture or volumetric video is a technique that captures a three-dimensional space, such as a location or performance. This type of volumography acquires data that can be viewed on flat screens as well as using 3D displays and VR he ...

and VR locomotion, respectively, and Amelia Winger-Bearskin,

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

phenom syrmor made an in-person appearance, and panels on e-Sports, inclusivity, and a live

game show A game show (or gameshow) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a game show host, host, who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating a ...

featuring Blair Renaud, and Andre Elijah about

game development game development (sometimes shortened to gamedev) is the process of creating a video game. It is a multidisciplinary practice, involving programming, design, art, audio, user interface, and writing. Each of those may be made up of more specialize ...

VRTO 2020

With the social and global effects of the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

pandemic A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...

many conferences were forced to adapt or close down. The VRTO conference moved online for its 5th anniversary, forming a multiplatform, multimodal experience founder Malicki-Sanchez termed "The Flotilla," that had a 30-day run spanning June 6 to July 6. It used a video-streaming conference app, the

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

Hubs web VR platform running custom code on the

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

cloud, the

Discord Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...

\platform, and hosted a micro summit on accessibility. The conference also featured contributions from

and

Rochester Institute of Technology The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in Henrietta, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York, Rochester. It was founded in 1829. It is one of only two institute of technology, institut ...

. Podcaster Kent Bye wrote a phenomenological journal of his experience and stated that "VRToronto is doing a lot of pioneering work in making their conference more accessible.". The show was co-produced by Stephanie Greenall.

VRTO 2021

For the second year in a row, and due to the ongoing global

pandemic VRTO was hosted wholly in WebXR. "The Flotilla" continued to be a junction to link various virtual world platforms together. In the 2021 event this included links to various virtual world platforms along with the Dyscorpia Project spearheaded by international media artist Marilene Oliver and her fellows at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

. Besides these virtual spaces the conference hosted an extensive seven-day lineup of panels and presentations that included developer talks around game development, virtual production,

Esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

, accessibility and inclusion, volumetric capture, the arts, medical applications, enterprise, and data analysis, and featured a daily live talkshow hosted from within the virtual world by host Max Noir. The event also featured a live performance workshop that was streamed to attendees and culminated in a live virtual performance operated by Dasha Kittredge and Ari Tarr that was also viewable via VR, on mobile and desktop devices. The show was reviewed positively in VRTrend magazine. The show was nominated for World of the Year at the 2021 Poly Awards.

VRTO 2022

VRTO returned to being a live and in-person event in 2022, taking place at

. The event was produced by

Keram Malicki-Sanchez Keram may refer to: Papua New Guinea * Keram Rural LLG, East Sepik Province * Keram languages * Keram River People with the name * Keramuddin Keram (born 1956), Afghan politician *Keram Malicki-Sánchez Keram Malicki-Sánchez is an actor, musi ...

and associate producer Aimee Reynolds. The marketing campaign featured muppets created using

GAN The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to: Places * Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden" China * Gan River (Jiangxi) * Gan River (Inner Mongolia), * Gan County, in Jiangxi province * Gansu, abbreviated '' ...

-created images with the

Midjourney Midjourney is a generative artificial intelligence program and service created and hosted by the San Francisco-based independent research lab Midjourney, Inc. Midjourney generates images from natural language descriptions, called '' prompts'', ...

AI platform. Its new tagline was "Where Fresh Ideas Are Born." The 2-day conference featured speakers including Dr. Alexis Morris (OCAD), Lee Vermeulen, who presented how he was using GPT-3 to make NPCs talk inside of his world designs, Dario Laverde

HTC Vive HTC Vive is a line of Virtual reality, virtual and mixed reality Virtual reality headset, headsets produced by HTC, HTC Corporation. The brand currently encompasses headsets designed for use with Personal computer, personal computers as well a ...

presented their Mars home Virtual Production technology, Justin Cathcart (Dark Slope) demonstrated their VR-based television sports series for adolescents, and the lead team of virtual production from

VFX Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...

studio

Pixomondo Pixomondo (PXO) is an Academy and Emmy award-winning international visual effects and virtual production company with studios in Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and London. The company provides virtual production ...

, who shared secrets behind the creation of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Discovery. The show focused on the way spatial media was reaching critical mass in affecting media creation and featuring talks about live VR theater performance, Hyperreality TV, natural-language

Holodeck The Holodeck is a fictional device from the television franchise ''Star Trek'' which uses "holograms" (projected light and electromagnetic energy which create the illusion of solid objects) to create a realistic 3D simulation of a real or imagi ...

s, and next-gen

haptic technology Haptic technology (also kinaesthetic communication or 3D touch) is technology that can create an experience of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. These technologies can be used to create virtual objects in a computer s ...

. The event drew over 200 attendees from across North America. Pixomondo at VRTO 2022

VRTO 2023

VRTO moved to the OCAD University waterfront location in 2023 and featured over 50 speakers. It included a summit on live virtual reality performers, which was the first time many virtual reality actors from different troupes were together in one place. These actors included Whitton Frank (The Under Presents, Ferryman Collective), Ari Tarr, Mandy Canales, Alex Coulombe, Debbie Deer, Nicole Rigo, and Jake Runeckles. The keynote was delivered by Amanda Watson, who invented the Air Link technology used in the

Meta Quest The Meta Quest, initially the Oculus Quest until August 2022, is a line of virtual reality headsets with augmented reality capabilities developed by Reality Labs, a division of Meta. The first-generation Oculus Quest was developed by Oculus (the ...

. Other notable attendees included Dr. Thomas A. Furness III, and Kyle Chivers - CEO of BLockade Labs. Panels included discussion on the intersection of game development and AI, and the future of XR in education.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:VRTO Virtual and Augmented Reality World Conference and Expo Virtual reality organizations Technology conferences Video game conferences Business conferences June 2019 in Canada