Tag: Virtual Ability

The Virtual Ability community in Second Life is hosting its 14th annual Mental Health Symposium on Thursday, May 15th, 2025. The theme for this year’s event is Facing Our Fears: Managing Anxiety About Life’s Uncertainties.

Fear is a built-in human reaction. Fear of large carnivores, fire, dark, starvation and strangers likely contributed greatly to the survival and early evolution of humanity. The modern world has given people even more causes for fear: community violence, biased public institutions, horrific war, climate change, racism, gender violence and artificial intelligence, among many others. Fear can at times be useful, but it also impacts quality of life. Disabling fear is a treatable condition. The varied causes and levels of intrusiveness of a fear demand individualized therapeutic approaches. The broad theme of this conference allows us to look at the topic of fear from a number of different perspectives.

Virtual Ability Mental Health Symposium 2025 introduction

Virtual Ability Inc  (VAI) and the Virtual Ability community hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within this cross-disability community are people who deal with a variety of mental health issues. So, not only is this an opportunity for community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have an opportunity to otherwise meet, it also  allows the general public to attend a professional conference for free.

The symposium will once again feature an international group of presenters offering a wide interpretation of the theme, based on their interests and academic backgrounds.

Speakers

(All times SLT)

• 07:00: Dr. Manish Kumar Asthana, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee – Attenuating conditioned fear using imagery-based interventions.
• 08:00: Mr. Aman Kumar Prajapati, Invertis University (India) – Near death experience and transformation of afterlife belief.
• 09:30: Ms. Maria Nieves, Catholic University of Pelotas (Brazil) – Worry related to climate change among Brazilian adults.
• 10:30: Ms. Jen Johnson, Private Practice, Learning from the Land: Growing Emotional Resilience in the Climate Crisis.
• 12:00 Noon: Dr. Mustafa Demir, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA – Effects of trust in government, counterterrorism policies, and counterterrorism laws on fear of cyberterrorism and fear of terrorism.
• 15:00: Dr. Veró Caridad Rabelo, San Francisco State University – When Safety for You Means Danger for Me (interview).

Panel Discussions

(All times SLT)

• 12:30: Peer Support and Fear – Second Life panel discussion featuring Viola Mole, Pet Karu, Kip Yellowjacket and Demelza McGinnis. Moderator: Itico Spectre.
• 13:30: Fear within Specific Disabilities – panel discussion featuring: Dr. Kathryn Post (Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cancer Outcomes Research & Education (CORE) Programme); Dr. Leigh Brosof (clinical psychologist specializing in research on and treatment of eating disorders) and Gloria Kraegel (Team Leader at Brain Energy Support Team, and Chief Groundskeeper at Etopia Sustainable Communities). Moderator: Cicero Kit.

All speaker sessions and panels will be available via the Virtual Ability You Tube channel.

The Symposium takes place in Virtual Ability’s Sojourner Auditorium, on Virtual Ability island and full information can be found here.

About Virtual Ability

Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, chartered in the state of Colorado, USA.  We are a non-profit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. This means that for US citizens, contributions made are deductible as a charitable donation for federal income tax purposes.

For further information on the board of directors, please visit the Virtual Ability About Us page.

Related links

• Virtual Ability Inc website
• Virtual Ability Blog
• Virtual Ability Sojourner Auditorium (Rated: General)
• Virtual Ability coverage in this blog (Events & Reviews → Virtual Ability from the menu)

Virtual Ability Inc., will be hosting its annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC) on Friday, November 15th 2024 at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island.

A professional conference held in-world in Second Life that is to the public, IDRAC features an international line-up of guest speakers each year, with individual sessions lasting between 30 and 90 minutes, and may include opportunities for Q&A. For those who cannot make the in-world venue, it is live streamed via the Virtual Ability You Tube channel.

The theme of the conference this year is Disability & Health: Where will AI Take Us?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an area of current research interest and regulatory concern. It holds both promise and peril for people with disabilities and healthcare in general. The utility and problems of AI differ for people with different types of disabilities. This conference offers a quick look at this broad topic. We expect lively discussions and information sharing among presenters and our very interested and interactive audience.

via Virtual Ability Inc.

Conference Sessions

All times SLT.

07:00	Denis R. Newman-Griffis – University of Sheffield (UK):  Artificial Intelligence and Disability Data Justice: Representing Human Function and Disability in AI Systems
08:30	Panel Discussion: Nicholas Lesica – University College London, Aldo Faisal – Imperial College London, and Sahrish Panjwani-Charania  – Coordinator of Staff Development, Gwinnett Co. Public Schools, Georgia: Topic: AI and Disability
09:30	Interview: Rose Hill – Crisis Connections: AI and Youth Mental Health
10:30	Muhammad Mamdani and Amol Verma – University of Toronto: The Promise and Pitfalls of AI in Medicine
11:30	Cynthia Calongne – Colorado Technical University: Interview with a Surprise Guest
12:30	Carol Miller – Penn State: Artificial Intelligence to Support Speech-Language Services
13:30	Kate Glazko – University of Washington: An Autoethnographic Case Study of Generative Artificial Intelligence’s Utility for Accessibility

With such a wide range of perspectives, IDRAC 2024 promises to be a cornerstone event for anyone interested in the future of AI, disability, and health. Attendees can join the sessions in Second Life®, interact with speakers and other participants, or tune in to the YouTube live stream.

via Virtual Ability Inc.

You can learn more about the speakers via Virtual Ability’s IDARC 2024 web page.

Related Links

• • Conference SLurl (Virtual Ability Island, rated: General)
  • Virtual Ability Inc website

The 2023 Virtual Ability Inc., (VAI) Mental Health Symposium on Friday, May 17th, 2024, marking the internationally supported Mental Health Awareness Week (May 13th through 19th, 2024, inclusive). As such, it forms a part of a wide range of physical world and virtual world events framed around Mental Health Awareness Month, which has been throughout May observed in the United States since 1949.

2023 marks the 13th such symposium hosted by Virtual Ability Inc., and has the theme Our Youth, Our Elders, carrying a focus on the fact that children and the elderly face unique mental health challenges that are not well understood and often not adequately addressed.

The Symposium will take place in the virtual world of Second Life, at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island. Those from outside of Second Life wishing to attend can do so by creating a free Second Life account through Virtual Ability’s Sign-Up Portal, and then entering Second Life via Virtual Ability’s New Resident Orientation Course.

The schedule of speakers for the event can be found on the Virtual Ability Inc., website, and presentations commence at 07:30 SLT (US PDT) on the morning of Friday, May 17th, and run through to the concluding presentation, which starts at 14:30 SLT, with each session lasting approximately one hour. For ease of reference, a brief summary of the presentations is provided below – but do please check the complete schedule via the link above for the fullest information on speakers and talks.

• 07:30 SLT: Dr. Esther Gachuri, PhD and Dr. Anne Wambugu, PhD, MAMFT, MA, Pan Africa Christian University (Nairobi, Kenya) – “Elderly Peoples’ Perception of Their Wellbeing in Selected Mainstream Churches in Kenya”.
• 09:00 SLT: Dr. Folajinmi Oluwasina, PhD, FRSPH, University of Calgary (Canada) – “Invisible Struggles: Addressing Mental Health Among Black Youth in Canada”.
• 10:30 SLT: Mr. Horta Reis da Silva, Lecturer in Nursing Education at King’s University, England – “Loneliness in Older Adults”.
• 12:00 noon SLT: Dr. Valerie Hill, MLIS, PhD, director of the Community Virtual Library in the metaverse and co-coordinator of the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium, and Rose Hill, MLIS, CPC, SUDP-T, is a Certified Peer Counsellor with a focus in trauma and crisis counselling – “The Impact of Parasocial Relationships with AI on Mental Health”
• 13:00 SLT: Jessica Simionato, MPH, BSp, La Trobe University (Melbourne, Australia) – “Intergenerational programs – bringing youth and elders together to enhance social connectedness”.
• 14:30 SLT: Robert Walker, MS, COAPS, Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, USA – “Older Adult Peer Support: Our Time Has Come”.

For those unable to attend in-world, the symposium will be live streamed on You Tube.

About Virtual Ability

Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, chartered in the state of Colorado, USA.  It is a non-profit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. This means that for US citizens, contributions made are deductible as a charitable donation for federal income tax purposes.

Virtual Ability hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within its cross-disability community, VAI has members who deal with a variety of mental health issues. So, not only is this an opportunity for VAI community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have a chance to meet otherwise, it allows the general public to attend a professional conference at no cost.

With thanks to Gentle Heron for the information.

Related links

• Virtual Ability 13th Annual Mental Health Symposium
  • Schedule
  • Virtual Ability Sojourner Auditorium (Rated: General)
  • You Tube live stream
• Virtual Ability Inc website
• Virtual Ability on Twitter
• Virtual Ability coverage in this blog

Virtual Ability Inc., will be hosting its annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC) on Friday, November 10th 2023 at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island.

A professional conference held in-world in Second Life that is to the public, IDRAC features an international line-up of guest speakers each year, with individual sessions lasting between 30 and 90 minutes, and may include opportunities for Q&A. For those who cannot make the in-world venue, it is live streamed via the Virtual Ability You Tube channel.

The theme of the conference this year is Do, Create, Live, and sessions are as follows (all times SLT):

07:00	Joseph English (QuadRebuild) will talk about how setting up QuadRebuild to help others changed his new life as a quadriplegic.
07:30	Erin Willis and Daniel Garza (University of Colorado, Boulder, Lilmesican Productions, Inc) will explain their research on patient influencers who do direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketing.
08:30	Emily Wright (It’ll Be Alwright), who survived multiple concussions, explains how she rebalanced her mind
09:30	Downs Syndrome sufferer John Cronin and his father Mark describe running John’s business, John’s Crazy Socks.
10:30	Panel discussion: what “Do, Create, Live” means in education.
11:00	30-minutes break.
11:30	Keri Gray (Keri Gray Consulting Group) discusses the National Alliance of Melanin Disabled Advocates (the NAMED Advocates).
Noon	Panel discussion: what “Do, Create, Live” means in the arts.
12:30	Judy Mittag explains how advocates got federal legislation passed to require insurance coverage for lymphedema supplies
13:30	Heather Markham (Making Waves for Good) shares how we can each choose a title for our own stories
14:30	End of sessions

You can learn more about the speakers via Virtual Ability’s IDARC 2023 web page.

Related Links

• Conference SLurl (Virtual Ability Island, rated: General)
• Virtual Ability Inc website
• 2023 IDRAC conference schedule

My Apologies to Gentle Heron and the VI team for the tardiness in getting this article published; life has me somewhat at sixes and sevens at the moment.

The 2023 Virtual Ability Inc., (VAI) Mental Health Symposium on Friday, May 12th, 2023, a little ahead of the internationally supported Mental Health Awareness Week (May 15th through 21st, inclusive). As such, it forms a part of a wide range of physical world and virtual world events framed around Mental Health Awareness Month, which has been throughout May observed in the United States since 1949.

2023 marks the 12th such symposium hosted by Virtual Ability Inc., and has the theme Self-Identity and Mental Health. As with previous years, the symposium will feature a broad cross-section of speakers, who this year will be talking on a range of  identities, from “mad” to autistic, from military to caregiver.

The Symposium will take place in the virtual world of Second Life, at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island. Those from outside of Second Life wishing to attend can do so by creating a free Second Life account through Virtual Ability’s Sign-Up Portal, and then entering Second Life via Virtual Ability’s New Resident Orientation Course.

The schedule of speakers for the event can be found on the Virtual Ability Inc., website, and presentations commence at 07:00 SLT (US PDT) on the morning of Friday, May 12th, and run through to the concluding presentation, which starts at 12:00 noon, with each session lasting approximately one hour. For ease of reference, a brief summary of the presentations is provided below – but do please check the complete schedule via the link above for the fullest information on speakers and talks.

• 07:00 SLT: Dr. Joanna Fox, Associate Professor in Mental Health Recovery at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, England – “Mental Ill-health and the Recovery Process”.
• 08:00 SLT: Dr. Yasuhiro Kotera, Associate Professor in Mental Health at the University of Nottingham, England – “Cultures and how we feel well: Making a global map of mental health personal recovery”.
• 09:00 SLT: Dr. Kate Cooper, clinical psychologist and researcher, University of Bath, England – “Autism social identity and well-being”.
• 10:00 SLT: Dr. Fred Berlin, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA – “Transgender Persons (Gender Dysphoria)”.
• 11:00 SLT: Dr. Bonnie Vest, Research Associate Professor in the Primary Care Research Institute, Department of Family Medicine, University at Buffalo, USA and Dr. Rachel Hoopsick, Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA – “Military Identity and Service Expectations among Reservists: Associations with Mental Health and Substance Use”.
• 12:00 SLT: Wonkyung Jung, PhD, RN, Postdoctoral Fellow in the RESILIENCE Centre, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, USA – “Social Integration and Resilience”.

About Virtual Ability

Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, chartered in the state of Colorado, USA.  It is a non-profit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. This means that for US citizens, contributions made are deductible as a charitable donation for federal income tax purposes.

Virtual Ability hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within its cross-disability community, VAI has members who deal with a variety of mental health issues. So, not only is this an opportunity for VAI community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have a chance to meet otherwise, it allows the general public to attend a professional conference at no cost.

With thanks to Gentle Heron for the information.

Related links

• Virtual Ability 12th Annual Mental Health Symposium Schedule
• Virtual Ability Inc website
• Virtual Ability Blog
• Virtual Ability Sojourner Auditorium (Rated: General)
• Virtual Ability on Twitter
• Virtual Ability coverage in this blog

The Virtual Ability community in Second Life is hosting its tenth annual Mental Health Symposium on Friday, April 16th, 2021. The theme for this years even is Mental Health in Trying Times, focusing on mental health in the age of the pandemic.

The symposium will once again feature an international group of presenters offering a wide interpretation of the theme, based on their interests and academic backgrounds.

Virtual Ability Inc  (VAI) and the Virtual Ability community hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within this cross-disability community are people who deal with a variety of mental health issues. So, not only is this an opportunity for community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have an opportunity to otherwise meet, it also  allows the general public to attend a professional conference for free.

The schedule is as follows (all times SLT):

• 07:00-08:00: Clara González Sanguino, Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) – the impact of Covid-19 on our mental health. A longitudinal study from the beginning of the pandemic to the return to the new normality in Spain.
• 08:30-09:30: Laura Ritchie, University of Chichester Conservatoire, UK, and Daniel P Cervone, University of Illinois, will share their research Projects pursued and abandoned: Pandemic reactions of care & coping.
• 10:00-11:00: Catherine Ettman, Boston University School of Medicine – the prevalence of depression symptoms in US adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 11:30-12:30:  Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine, and students Evan Conaway and Sandy Wenger discuss their research on the impact of Second Life and Animal Crossing during the COVID pandemic.
• 13:00-14:00: Ryan Schultz, Sciences and Technology Library, University of Manitoba, Canada – Acedia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A 5th-Century Term for a 21st-Century Problem.
• 14:30-14:30: Mark Czeisler, Monash University, Australia, Mental health, substance use, and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic—disproportionately affected populations.

Sessions will also be available on the Virtual Ability You Tube channel.

The Symposium takes place in Virtual Ability’s Sojourner Auditorium, on Virtual Ability island and full information can be found here.

About Virtual Ability

Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, chartered in the state of Colorado, USA.  We are a non-profit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. This means that for US citizens, contributions made are deductible as a charitable donation for federal income tax purposes.

For further information on the board of directors, please visit the Virtual Ability About Us page. If you wish to keep up with Virtual Ability news and updates when on the move, you can follow them on Twitter.

With thanks to Gentle Heron for the information.

Related links

• Virtual Ability Inc website
• Virtual Ability Blog
• Virtual Ability Sojourner Auditorium (Rated: General)
• Virtual Ability on Twitter
• Virtual Ability coverage in this blog (Events & Reviews > Virtual Ability from the menu)