Next on Copper Robot: Using virtual worlds for social change

Our guests on the next Copper Robot this week are two organizations using virtual worlds and digital media for social change.

Our guests Rita King and Joshua Fouts of Dancing Ink Productions are using virtual worlds to promote conversations between different cultures. The company has focused on Islamic relations recently; last year, they hosted Egyptian bloggers in conversation with a U.S. diplomat in Second Life. This week, Dancing Ink will follow that event up with a video broadcast of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control briefing on swine flu from the American University in Cairo.

King is creative director of Dancing Ink. In the past, she reported on corporate corruption in relief efforts in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. Fouts is chief global strategist at Dancing Ink, with a focus on gaming, virtual worlds, and digital diplomacy.

Rita is Eureka Dejavu in Second Life; Josh is Schmilsson Nilsson.

We'll also be joined by Spencer Zuzulo, of Louisiana-based 3DSquared, a non-profit that's using gaming and digital technology for workforce development among disadvantaged young people, still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Rita and Josh visited 3DSquared a few weeks ago and came back raving about the work 3DSquared is doing. I'm looking forward to hearing more about what's going on there, and I hope you'll join us.

The interview is 6 pm Second Life time (which is also Pacific time), Sunday, May 17.

Join us live in Second Life at the Seaside Theater on World2Worlds Island.

Or join us on the Web for live streaming video.

We'll post video and an audio podcast recording of the event here afterward.

P.S. People who obsessively watch the Copper Robot schedule will note that we had original scheduled representatives of Linden Lab to come in this week to talk about the new regulations for adult content. We ran into some scheduling conflicts, the Lindens will be on May 31. And it won't just be about adult content -- we're lining up a veritable Lindenpalooza.

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