More then ten years ago we were naive thinking that good will and mutual trust from both sides of the academia can make a change in the Israeli - Palestinian conflict. I took an active part of a joint collaboration initiative by Tel-Aviv University and Al-Quds University headed by Sari Nusseibeh to build the first West Bank Science Museum. The project supported by the European Union was promising. After several visits and face to face productive meetings the second Intifada broke up killing all lines of interactions and possible progress.
That is why I was so trilled to meet entrepreneurs at the ISEMI and the IPCC Israeli – Palestinian IT seminar organized by Prof. Liora Katzenstein. The aim of the seminar sponsored by the Portland Trust, HP Indigo division and @MercyCorps was to discuss the challenges and opportunities of making business in our region. Thanks to ISEMI CEO Proj. Liora Katzenstein and IPCC CEO Mr. Avi Nudelman for making the seminar possible [see event pics here]. The seminar was a great opportunity to make face to face interactions and learn from peers entrepreneur experience. I’m looking forward to collaborate and make fruitful biz in the future, whether in the real life or in virtual spaces. More important, to contribute to the overall goal of achieving prosperity, security and hopefully peace to our region.
For those of you that followed my Immersive Education Grant winning People 2 People (P2P) Project: Using Virtual Worlds for developing Leadership and Conflict Resolution Skills among Arab and Jewish Israeli Students set a sure thatthe closure of the Sun Microsystem 3D platform Wonderland did not put an end to it. Over the last months we @MetaverSenseare building the project on an open source 3D world platform using our own resources. Preliminary alpha testing with our teens players are promising and now we are looking for institutes and organizations interested to join the game arena. Moreover, currently, I’m developing a conceptual framework of a 3D Virtual park that will afford businesses and brands of our region to set up virtual venues to make connections and trade bridging over time and space using avatars. Feel free to contact me if you are interested to learn more about the educational trajectory or the business trajectory.
During the semiar I thought of new ways of bringing fun and engagement to conferences and events by combining gamification mechanism and interactive technologies for our clients. This service is under development at juloot.co Hub and I invite you to join us @julooting.
This post was written on my iPhone. Yes, on top of meeting P2P during the ISEMI seminar breaks, I went multi-tasking using my iPhone as an interaction and production tool. Here's how:
* Announcing via foursquare and twitter : Peace starts when People meet People to make biz!
* Finger tapping my ideas and write this post using my Notes app.
* taking photos and upload it via Plixi app in real time.
World Builder created by the brilliant filmmaker Bruce Branit: A man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves. No words are neede just click PLAY and EnJoY the future virtual world buliding vision of true love!
My presentation on Sunday, 09:30AM [SL time] entitled: Start your Engines! Real-Virtual Worlds Engaging Interactions will focus on real - virtual worlds engaging learning interactions by using video games. Several Mash-up and video games concepts developed based on game engines and social networks developed at the Instructional System Technologies Department at H.I.T-Holon Institute of Technology will be presented.
Lessons from my Games4Girls Academy Project at H.I.T-Holon Institute of Technology will be shown together with the coming SLACTIONS 2009 conference second call.
חוויות למידה חדשות בתוך עולמות וירטואליים במו ידיך!
איך עולמות וירטואליים תלתממדיים כמו סקנד לייף מאפשרים לך ליצור חוויות למידה חדשות ומרתקות במו ידך .
מצגת של ד"ר חנן גזית, מנכ"ל מטאוורסנס בע"מ בכנס מורים, תלמידים ועולמות וירטואליים במכון מופ"ת, 21 לינואר 2009 .
Dr. Hanan Gazit, MetaverSense Ltd CEO presentation: New Learning Experiences in 3D Virtual Worlds: Second Life in your hands! at the "Teachers, Learners and Virtual Worlds" Israeli Education Conference at MOFET Institute, 21 of Jan 2009.