CREATOR (GERMANY)

Karim Ben Khelifa is an award-winning Belgian-Tunisian trans-disciplinary artist and director, whose documentary storytelling is at the crossroads of art, science and technology. A proponent of cross-pollination that spans disciplines, he has anchored his practice in non-fiction narratives. He started his career as a war correspondent and photojournalist and has traveled to more than 90 countries. He then moved on to work with a variety of immersive media, such as VR and AR.

FOUNDER, ELECTRIC SOUTH (SOUTH AFRICA)

Ingrid Kopp is a co-founder of Electric South, a non-profit initiative to develop virtual reality and other new forms of storytelling across Africa. She is a co-creator of Immersive Africa, a group of organizations and individual working across the continent. Electric South works with interdisciplinary artists across the continent to develop, produce and distribute immersive work. She produces an annual residential lab through Electric South, and is an executive producer on award winning VR projects, including The Other Dakar, Le Lac and Nairobi Berries. Until 2021 Ingrid also curated the Tribeca Storyscapes programme for interactive and immersive work at the Tribeca Film Festival.

CURATOR, BEIJING FILM FESTIVAL (CHINA)

Che Lin is a scholar and curator focusing on new media and multi-reality world exploration. She holds a Ph.D from Peking University, and teaches at Communication University of China. She has been the curator of Sandbox Immersive Festival (2018-2019) and of Beijing IFF for VR Section. She has collaborated with galleries and art spaces such as Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion in Beijing, Goethe Institute in Beijing, to curate exhibitions and events featuring XR technology and content.

PRODUCER, DISTIL IMMERSIVE (AUSTRALIA)

John-Paul is the co-founder and director of Distil Immersive, an award-winning digital production studio. Building on a career spanning 18 years in the interactive media sector, his work bridges the worlds of documentary, art, storytelling, design and technology. He has produced a slew of interactive experiences across the web, TV and in virtual as well as physical spaces. Having previously led the Digital Creative Lab at SBS, he spearheaded dozens of world-class projects and experiences, garnering international acclaim from multiple Webby and SXSW Interactive Awards to Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism. With an emphasis on shedding light on the unseen world, his work has been exhibited at major festivals across the UK, Spain, Latin America and the United States. As a speaker and mentor, he has shared his experience at SXSW, AIDC, Sheffield DocFest, iDW Switzerland, DocsBarcelona and Mediamorfosis Valparaiso, and he is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

PRODUCER (CANADA)

David Oppenheim is a Creative Producer and Executive Producer of interactive experiences. At the National Film Board of Canada (2014-2022) his most recent credits included Draw Me Close, Agence, The Book of Distance, Otherly, The Space We Hold and To Kill a Tiger. His productions have won multiple Webby awards, Canadian Screen Awards and a Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Award, and premiered at major festivals including Venice, Tribeca, Sundance and TIFF. David is a past resident at the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab. He is currently completing his Masters of Design at OCAD University in Toronto.

ARTIST, VRTOV (AUSTRALIA)

Oscar Raby is a VR film maker, Co-Founder and Creative Director at VRTOV, Melbourne-based Virtual Reality studio behind the projects The Turning Forest, Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel and Assent. In 2013 he completed a Masters degree in Animation and Interactive Media at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where the subject of his research was Portraiture in New Media. His graduating work, the autobiographical Virtual Reality documentary Assent, has been part of Sundance New Frontier, IDFA DocLab and Sheffield Doc/Fest as well as festivals in Australia, Canada, USA, Mexico, the Netherlands and the UK. Assent received the Audience Award for Cross-platform at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2014. Oscar is currently working on a PhD under the supervision of Professor Jon McCormack and Dr Vince Dziekan that examines the underlying technical and cultural frameworks of VR software design.

RESEARCHER, PRODUCER, CURATOR, UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (AUSTRALIA)

Julia is currently a researcher as part of the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor’s Fellowship project, using practice-led research to explore how immersive media (virtual, augmented and mixed reality) might address the climate crisis. She produced Privy To, an XR project exploring privacy rights through using an artist’s brainwaves to compose music, which was showcased at CPH:DOX in 2021. She was a research fellow in interactive factual media at UWE Bristol, UK, and an immersion fellow on the UK’s South West Creative Technology Network, where she developed a manifesto for virtual futures. She holds a PhD in interactive documentary and social impact, and has taught at institutions in Australia and the UK.

DIRECTOR, MIT OPEN DOC LAB (USA)

Sarah Wolozin is the founding director of the MIT Open Documentary Lab where she develops and oversees lab projects, programs, and operations. She is the founder and editorial director of Docubase, co-founder and member of the editorial collective of Immerse, and co-founder of the MIT Co-Creation Studio. She has always had an interest in exploring new platforms for storytelling and social change. Before arriving at MIT, she produced award-winning documentaries and educational media for a wide variety of media outlets and started experimenting with the web back in the early stages of its public use. She is dedicated to making space for people and stories that challenge dominant narratives and reveal hidden stories while creatively and critically exploring emerging technologies