The application of immersion to awaken human potential through innovative experience design is dependent upon one’s ability to spark the imagination. Our keynote speaker shares his journey of exploring how the diverse application of interactive entertainment techniques can define new innovations in life transformative simulations. Using the interplay of story,play and game,his design research showcases examples of how stimulating the imagination can enhance military training for the US Army, informal education for NASA, medical imaging for ER surgeons, teacher training in Urban classrooms, experiential marketing in shopping malls as well as cognitive rehabilitation in therapy clinics.

As technological advancements in simulation catch up with the science-fiction of our parents, what kind of creative leaps will our children be making into a future where reality, virtuality and imagination work as one world? The future of immersive media will transfer from theme parks to our living rooms, and all new design paradigms will emerge to transform our homes into a school, museum, theme park, training facility, shopping center, as well as a medical and rehabilitation clinic. This talk presents a vision with all new challenges for the future.

Christopher Stapleton (www.simiosys.com/cstapleton) is an internationally recognized innovator of experience design integrating both art and science to capture, simulate and analyze human experience. His foundational experience and training on Broadway, in New York film and television led to producing and designing mega theme parks for global brands such as Universal Studios, Disney Imagineering, Nickelodeon Recreation, Sanrio, Resorts World Sentosa and the Wanda Group. His creation of the University of Central Florida’s Media Convergence Laboratory has prototyped many of the first real world applications of Mixed Reality for NASA, the National Science Foundation, US Department of Education and Defense. Currently, his creative innovation cooperative, Simiosys, is exploring new paradigms in the application of creative imagination to transform everyday life.

MFA & BFA New York University, Tisch School of the Arts (Design for Film and Theater) 1984.