Date and Time

Friday, Feb 21, 2025

11:00 — 5:00 pm

Location

Admission

Free

Reserve Tickets

Share

The symposium brings together leaders and experts within the immersive technology/game research and development industry sectors and community organizations to identify and strengthen university- San Francisco Bay Area engagement and partnerships. The program will include keynote speakers, panelists, highlights of the robust engagement opportunities with the university, and a reception for networking.

The symposium is primarily in person and will be broadcasted live to a global audience.

10:30 AM – Room opens
11:00AM – Welcome / Opening Remarks
11:10AM – Nathalie Mathe, CAMD – Highlights of the M.S., Game Science & Design program and XR program at Northeastern University
11:30PM – Tony Simon, CAMD – Keynote speaker on “Games, neuroscience and mental health”
12:20PM – Lunch Break – networking
1:00PM – Panel on “Games & XR, AI in Entertainment”: Azad Balabanian, Niantic + other panelists TBC
2:00PM – Noah Falstein, The Inspiracy – Talk on “Games, XR and AI: A Transformational Future”
2:30PM – Brittan Heller, Stanford University & Atlantic Council – Talk on XR/AI and ethics/law
3:00PM – Concluding Remarks – Opportunities for partnerships on the Oakland campus
3:30PM to 5:00PM – Afternoon Reception – networking – demos/visit at the VRLab

Speakers

Dr. Nathalie Mathe, CAMD

Dr. Nathalie Mathe is a Professor of the Practice, Master in Game Science and Design, at Northeastern University, Oakland. She previously taught XR/Immersive Media at Drexel University, Philadelphia, and at University of the Arts, San Francisco.

Nathalie Mathe is an award-winning Virtual Reality creator. She is the founder of NativeVR, a VR studio crafting unique experiences celebrating diversity. Over the past 10 years she contributed to dozens of VR projects for World Vision, Google, Chevrolet, USPS, Jaunt. In 2017, she created UTURN, an interactive 360 comedy raising awareness on the gender gap in the tech industry, presented at Cannes, VRTO, AWE, IVRPA and multiple international festivals. In 2022, she produced The FriendVR with artist John Sanborn, an interactive VR experience exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany. For twelve years, she created visual effects on feature films like Fast & Furious 6, Skyfall and Dark Knight Rises.

Dr. Tony Simon, CAMD

Dr. Tony Simon is a distinguished cognitive neuroscientist and passionate advocate for the transformative potential of digital therapeutics. He brings 30+ years of experience in leading teams that develop and commercialize digital medicines for cognitive impairments, brain injury, disease, or degeneration. Most recently, Dr. Simon served as Vice President and Head of Cognitive Science at Akili Interactive, where he worked closely with the product, game studio, marketing, regulatory, legal, and other teams leading the cognitive DTx field with the FDA-authorized video game treatment EndeavorRx.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Simon served as a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UC-Davis where he built and led a translational cognitive neuroscience research lab. He co-founded and served as CEO of Cognivive, Inc., a UC-Davis backed startup, which translated scientific and clinical evidence into neurotherapeutics delivered as commercial-quality virtual reality games.

Azad Balabanian, Niantic

Azad Balabanian is an VR developer, 3D artist, and product manager focusing on AR, VR, stereography, and radiance fields. He is currently a Sr. Product Manager at Niantic Labs working on Into The Scaniverse, a gaussian splatting viewer for Meta Quest. Previously, he helped develop Puzzling Places at Realities.io and hosted the Research VR Podcast, facilitating discussions about the science and design of Virtual Reality and Spatial Computing industry. His love for aerial cinematography and 3D scanning has taken him from Iceland to Armenia, creating cinematic short films, and documenting a vast amount of history.

Noah Falstein, The Inspiracy

Noah Falstein has been a professional game developer since 1980, and was among the first 10 employees at LucasArts, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He has served as the first elected Chair of the IGDA, and was Chief Game Designer at Google, working with their Tango AR and Daydream VR teams. Currently, Falstein focuses primarily on games for health involving XR, AI, or both, and has been consulting and advising for companies from startups to FAANG, training physicians, treating ADHD, Depression, Trauma, Myopia, and more.

Title: Games, XR and AI: A Transformational Future

Summary:

Since the 1970s, video games have been at the forefront of technological innovation. While the modern gaming industry has faced certain challenges, the future holds immense promise, particularly with the transformative potential of both XR and AI. These technologies are poised to drive unprecedented growth, initially within the gaming sector and subsequently across broader society. Notably, games that go beyond entertainment to create meaningful change in players’ lives are proliferating, revolutionizing educational opportunities, advancing healthcare solutions, and even saving lives.

Brittan Heller, Stanford University

Brittan Heller works at the intersection of technology, human rights and the law. She is currently a lecturer at Stanford University and a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School, examining XR’s connection to society, human rights, privacy, and security. Heller is on the steering committee for the World Economic Forum’s Metaverse Governance initiative and studied content moderation in XR as an inaugural AI and Tech Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights. She is a visiting fellow at the Yale Information Society Project, a Senior Non-Residential Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, and an affiliate at the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet. Heller has been awarded a 2024 Bellagio Residency to write about the intersection of spatial computing and AI.

Title: Mods, Machines, and Mayhem: AI, XR, and the Ethical Crossroads of Immersive Tech

Summary:

As artificial intelligence and extended reality (XR) converge, they are reshaping how we create, experience, and moderate digital spaces. In the gaming and immersive technology industries, these advancements raise urgent ethical questions: Who governs AI-driven interactions in XR? How do we balance creative freedom with responsible content moderation? And what happens when machines—not humans—become the primary architects of digital expression? This talk explores the emerging challenges at the intersection of AI, XR, and ethics, from bias in AI-generated environments to the future of player agency, algorithmic gatekeeping, and the evolving role of human moderators. Heller examines how industry leaders, developers, and policymakers can navigate these new ethical dilemmas, ensuring that immersive worlds remain innovative, inclusive, and accountable.