Virtual reality is no boys club
Samsung is literally giving it away. Mark Zuckerberg is betting on it. What could be creating such interest that major tech companies are willing to go all in? Nothing less than virtual reality. The fantasy that we’ve been reading about for years might finally be, well, real – virtually.
On Tuesday evening, March 1, a group of women and a few guys gathered in the New York City offices of Discovery Communications to experience the reality behind the virtual reality hype. Spoiler alert: it’s not hype.
Discovery Communications is already home to some of the most virtual reality-worthy content, with over 400,000 downloads of the Discovery VR app, and that is without even having promoted it yet. Jennifer Cortner, Vice President Partnerships for Discovery Communications, is one of the many women taking the lead in the virtual reality space. Cortner thinks women are uniquely positioned to tell great VR stories because, “so many great stories create empathy and that is what women do great.” Cortner leads a 90-person in-house agency that is responsible for the development of virtual reality content for the networks, among other things.
In many ways, Discovery is positioned to lead in this space. As Cory Key, Vice President Digital, Discovery Agency, VR, points out, “we are taking people places.” So far Discovery has taken us inside Mythbusters, Racing Extinction in South Africa and even into space with Spacewalk Mayday. Advertisers have jumped on board as well. While Toyota has developed VR content with Discovery, less obvious brands, such as Gillette, have created successful branded VR content with the “Things that make you sweat” campaign. The team created a 4D experience at SXSW showing off athletes doing “things that make you sweat.”
Some of the other women Cortner is watching are Nonny de la Pena, Filmmaker, Use of Force; Christine Cattano, Framestore; Elizabeth Baron, Ford’s FiVE Lab (Ford’s Immersive Virtual Environment) and Christina Heller, CEO VR Playhouse. Each of these women is leaving her own unique, indelible mark on VR development. De la Pena is re-imagining how the news gets reported. Her VR film, re-enacting the death of Anastacio Hernandez Rojas at the hands of border patrol police at the Mexican border, put viewers at the scene. Cattano is best known for fulfilling avid Game of Thrones fans’ fantasies of being inside the story with “Ascend the Wall.” The VR Playhouse team brought viewers to Burning Man virtually, for some the best way to experience the festival. And finally, the FiVE Lab has changed the way new cars are being conceived and designed in the 21st century.
Susan Price of Fortune magazine suggests, “Women in the field say that because virtual reality is such a fledgling industry, there’s no established glass ceiling or old boys network to contend with. As the technology grows, they say they expect the VR opportunities to blossom – for all genders.”