Being and interacting in a virtual environment opens new potential for being to people suffering from disabilities.
A new paper published in Rehabilitation Nursing finds that virtual interaction in Second Life is found to increase empowerment and feelings of self-worth in users suffering from disabilities, by moving beyond the limitations and constraints of their disabilities
If the BE community will with time be able to alleviate just a small bit of this suffering, we’ve been successful:
As some of you may have read we got to do a litte talk at the Future of Health Innovation a few days ago. The Stanford Daily was there and did a little interview with us:
Imagine a virtual world in which young cancer patients can interact and support one another–a social network that is at once fun, trendy and therapeutic. That’s the vision of Mette Hoybye and Henrik Bennetsen, researchers at Stanford who are collaborating on the BE Community, a project they presented Tuesday at the Future of Health Innovation Conference in Tresidder Oak Lounge.
This is of course very early on but we feel that we are already being met with a lot of interest in our little project. Makes us very hopeful.
It was beyond belief today to actually watch the first live demo of the BE community at the Future of Health Innovation. The boys at Katalabs have been working day and night to make this happen – and they did an amazing job!
Hopefully we’ll soon be able to bring a live version to you here to try out – so stay tuned for that. Meanwhile here is a screenshot:
This coming Tuesday we have been given an opportunity to present the BE community at the two-day conference Future of Health Innovation at Stanford University. The conference will examine and showcase new innovative ways to optimize the health care system, bringing together researchers and companies from Denmark and the US.
As part of a session discussing ‘Best Practice in Online Healthcare‘, we will be sharing our visions for how online social networks, virtual worlds and game mechanics can merge in a shared health intervention targeting young people with a serious illness or chronic health condition to motivate healthy life style choices and bridge social isolation. This will also be the first time we demo the very first pilot of BE.
We are soooooo excited about this – stay tuned for more updates on the presentation
One of the things we discuss a lot in this project is how to make the most of 3D. The spatial and sensory experience of 3D spaces gives an experience of presence and immediacy that impacts the experience of interaction in such spaces. We believe that this may highly impact the experience of body and self when using 3D environments for communication between youth with a serious health condition.
One compelling example of this is a project with 3DVIA Scenes to empower children with autism: Innovation with 3DVIA: Using 3DVIA Scenes to Empower Children with Autism | 3DVIA 3D Model Blog.
The brain games from Morphionix are really excellent examples of how very complex and abstract information on the works of the brain may be taught in engaging and comprehensive ways to children and teens.
We can definitely learn something in the BE project from their production of compelling storylines that engage the target audience
There’s a lot to learn from here….
For those of you reading Danish this small guest blog from Mette might be a fun read. – On how we got started and the Stanford Experience
International Charter of Rights for Young People with Cancer.
A lot of great ideas have surfaced from the Apps for Healthy Kids Competition, which has encouraged the design of games and apps to promote nutritious food choices and physical activity aspart of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative.
USDA announced the winners of the Apps for Healthy Kids Competition yesterday.
My favorite so far – and the winner of GE Healthyimagination Student Award – is the Work If Off! Android app.
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