During my experience at Laval Virtual Europe 2022, I had the opportunity to meet Benjamin De Wit, Director of VR Days for almost 8 years, which this year will be called “VRDays Europe’s Immersive Tech Week 2022”. The event will take place from November 28th to December 2nd and will move from Amsterdam to Rotterdam.
There will be lots of news as well as 60 different nationalities, 20 global partners events, 100 companies, 150 speakers… and there will be 5 intense days of events.
Benjamin De Wit was the announcer of the LAVAL VIRTUAL AWARDS 2022, a showman who involved, fascinated, and entertained the entire audience in the hall, at the Espace Mayenne, in Laval.
With great enthusiasm, Benjamin carried out an interview with me for “Flying Into The Metaverse Through Books & Culture” (a project in collaboration with AWE), where he explains in great detail how the “VRDays Europe’s Immersive Tech Week 2022” event will take place, the reasons why Rotterdam has become the city that will host this event, and tells us what we will have to settle down.
He also told us about the collaborative relationships between Laval Virtual and VRDays Europe’s Immersive Tech Week 2022, also citing Stereopsia Europe and XR4 Europe.
Three Top Curators will be with Benjamin to organize this event: Timmy Ghirau, Innovation Leader, Volvo Cars – Miriam Reiner, Head of the Virtual Reality and Neurocognition lab at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology – Nonny De La Peña, Founder & CEO, Emblematic Group.
Here you can see the Council Advisors.
You can see the interview here on AWE Youtube Channel:
This is the highlights of the interview:
0:00:00 – Opening by CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:00:25 – Welcome BENJAMIN DE WIT
0:00:27 – Presentation by BENJAMIN DE WIT
0:00:33 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI question to BENJAMIN DE WIT – “You are the Festival Director & Founder of VRDays Europe and you are also a very good actor and showman, as we also saw the last night on the stage of the LAVAL AWARDS 2022. This year VRDays will change its name and will be called IMMERSIVE TECH WEEK a five-day conference and exhibition on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality content, creativity, and innovation. The other big news is that the event this year will be held in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Can you tell us what awaits us from November 28th to December 2nd?”
0:01:19 – BENJAMIN DE WIT answer CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:03:36 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI question to BENJAMIN DE WIT – “Why did you change cities from Amsterdam to Rotterdam?”
0:03:41 – BENJAMIN DE WIT answer CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:05:48 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI question to BENJAMIN DE WIT – “Who are the curators of VRDays Europe’s Immersive Tech Week 2022?”
0:05:52 – BENJAMIN DE WIT answer CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:07:06 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI question to BENJAMIN DE WIT – “Could you tell us what kind of partnership exists between VRDays Europe’s Immersive Tech Week 2022 and Laval Virtual?”
0:07:14 – BENJAMIN DE WIT answer CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:08:22 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI question to BENJAMIN DE WIT – “Can you make some predictions for the future? What do you think of the Metaverse?”
0:08:28 – BENJAMIN DE WIT answer CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:10:09 – CECILIA LASCIALFARI question to BENJAMIN DE WIT – “Tell me about your plans for the future… I want to know all the secrets you haven’t told anyone yet!”
0:10:20 – BENJAMIN DE WIT answer CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:12:22 – Thank you BENJAMIN DE WIT by CECILIA LASCIALFARI
0:12:25 – “Thank you” by BENJAMIN DE WIT
0:12:26 – Presentation CECILIA LASCIALFARI
This interview was made by CECILIA LASCIALFARI
OPEN CALLS – VRDays Europe’s Immersive Tech Week 2022
Below you can find the links for the calls to participate in VRDays Europe’s Immersive Tech Week 2022.
CALL FOR EXHIBITORS
Join Immersive Teck Week as an exhibitor. We are excited to showcase your project. APPLY NOW
CALL FOR SPEAKERS
Join the family and become a speaker at Immersive Tech Week. We are waiting for your story, knowledge, and insight. APPLY NOW
CALL FOR PLAYGROUND
The Playground is open to the general audience from 28th November to 2nd December 2022, on the ground floor of De Doelen. We would love to hear your suggestions for demos, experiences, interactions, and more. APPLY NOW
CHURCH OF VR
VRDays Europe brings together some of the best and brightest minds working in immersive technology. Be one of them! APPLY NOW
XR & PERFORMANCE NIGHTS
De Doelen and VRDays Europe present an evening program where performing arts meet immersive technologies. We are looking for the dialogue of performing arts & XR Technology that inspires and nurtures artistic innovation. Music (all genres), theatre, dance, puppeteering – all are welcome. APPLY NOW
CINEDANS LAB ’22
Interested in being part of the VRLab’22? Are you a dancer, choreographer, audiovisual artist, or multimedia designer and do you have an interesting idea for a VR project relating to dance, movement, or the body? Submit your plan now! APPLY NOW
IMPULSE – SME’S
Impulse – SMEs is a coaching program to prepare entrepreneurs to face investors, during multiple online sessions over the course of three weeks with mentors, to improve their business proposal, strengthen products value proposition, and learn how to best defend a project and a vision. APPLY NOW
IMPULSE – CONTENT
Impulse – Content will consist of online masterclasses with expert mentors and participation in Stereopsia EUROPE in Brussels, including B2B meetings and pitch presentation of the projects to a jury of potential partners, co-producers, distributors, and film funds. APPLY NOW
IMPULSE – RESEARCH
IMPULSE PROGRAMME – THE EUROPEAN XR ACCELERATOR
XR4EUROPE, LAVAL VIRTUAL, Stereopsia EUROPE, and VRDays Europe have teamed up to foster growth for entrepreneurial, creative, and academic ventures by facilitating the matching of high-potential projects with their scaling counterpart. It is dedicated to three verticals: Content, SMEs, and Research. For each one, there are scouting, training, access to market, and nurturing phases involved in the Programme, for a holistic engagement with each selected project. Applications are now open for two verticals: Content and SMEs. The research will join in 2023.
Dedicated to facilitating meaningful connections for early-stage projects, the IMPULSE Programme is now seeking both applicants and commercial partners or investors to participate in its three phases.
Throughout the IMPULSE Programme, attendees will increase their industry connections, and their funding potential and further mature their individual projects. Content creators can thereby meet producers or distributors, and entrepreneurs are confronted by investors and venture capitalists.
The IMPULSE Programme is an amplifier of European reach: A unique, productivity-inducing, win-win situation for XR professionals and talents, industrials, and investors wishing to develop their XR portfolio and knowledge, or integrate these technologies in their own companies, or provide reach and visibility to immersive artworks.
Find all the information here: IMPULSE PROGRAMME THE EUROPEAN XR ACCELERATOR
“I want to mobilize and unite great minds from various backgrounds and from different realms of society – with seemingly unrelated objectives – that all share the belief that developments in immersive and emerging technologies will have a profound impact on the world we live in. Reality is an amalgam – a mixture of so many people, ideas, cultures, and so on – and the new, digital, virtual, augmented reality, the metaverse will be no different.”
Benjamin De Wit
Cecilia is also an artist, photographer, videomaker, community manager and International Journalist. She is the organizer of AWE Nite Florence and she is the Italian Representative for Artivive.
Cecilia created a project called “Flying Into The Metaverse Through Books & Culture”, which is a series of interviews with the most important professionals in the XR field and manages an online Journal called ARea6DoF, registered to the Italian Court, where she writes the articles about the different topics she is concerned with.