Steven is a project manager and journalist for IDG. and contributes to Ars Technica and Fast Company. He is the president of non-profit Grassroots Developer Education, Inc. co-organizes the Boston Google Developer Group, both provide free sessions introducing new technology and skill-based learning for designers and developers. He has worked to bring AR and VR to the developer community since I/O 2014. Twitter: @stevep2007

Scott is a final-year PhD candidate working on learning and education in virtual reality in the Fluid Interfaces research group at the MIT Media Lab. His interest in rapid-prototyping interactions in software has made tool development both a byproduct and a focus of his research. He is currently finishing his thesis and his team is preparing to release an open-source toolkit for VR research (stay tuned!) Twitter: @scottgwald

Misha is a PhD candidate working on natural locomotion techniques for multiperson experiences in virtual reality in the Fluid Interfaces group at the MIT Media Lab. Her inspiration comes from the paragons of virtual reality like the Holodeck from Star Trek or William Gibson's cyberspace. She is looking forward to a VR future with Sword Art Online's NerveGear or Ernest Cline's robotic arms and doing her part to help build it. Twitter: @pixelscanner

Alicia is a graduate student at Boston University and data analyst at Amazon Alexa. She is a strong believer in the power of virtual reality to create awakening experiences and bolster human intelligence. Her work (www.aliciahong.com) at BU explores the mind-and-body relationship with different media platforms in VR using biometric devices. She enjoys data science. Her long-term vision in life is to explore and define a spiritual language in daily social dynamics. 

Arpit is an experienced product manager, marketer, and a leader with experience in launching successful software products in the healthcare, advertising and ecommerce industries. He has a passion for getting things done and has organized several 5k road races and TEDxBeaconStreet (the largest TEDx conference). Twitter: @arpitgupta

Burc Oral, Ph.D., is a long time technologist who started his journey punching cards to solve geophysics problems.  Nowadays, he works on mobile architectures at the Staples Velocity Lab, in Cambridge, MA. 

Cindy is a multimedia artist and creative coder.  She authored several webVR storytelling tools as a fellow at the MIT Open Doc including VRDoodler, a web-based 3D drawing program that renders in virtual and augmented reality. At the MIT Civic Media Lab on the Media Cloud team, her role as web developer is helping to build the next generation of web-based tools for journalists and researchers

Connor does business development on behalf of start-up technology companies looking to solve tough social problems, and has over four years of experience working internationally in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. He graduated from Wesleyan University with honors in 2012 and likes VR, rockclimbing, and Washington DC Capitals ice hockey.

Diane is a Computer Scientist and serial Edtech entrepreneur. She has been a mentor and/or judge at HackMIT, HackHarvard, Simmons Shark Hack, MIT Hacking Medicine Grand Hack, the Harvard WECode Hackathon, Harvard Astropreneurshipand Space Medicine, MIT Mobile VR Development Challenge. She is an alumna of MIT and Harvard. Twitter: @dianeew

Divyanshu Varshney is the founder and CEO of Spiro Studios, a young company on a mission to provide physical rehabilitation services to the doorsteps inorder to help people get better in a fast, easy and fun way. He is also the founder and president of  VR | AR | MR, India's first and now largest Virtual and Augmented Reality Community. Divyanshu holds a Bachelors in Information Technology from Manav Rachna College of Engineering. Twitter: @Div_Varshney

Guillermo is a PhD student and Research Assistant at Fluid Interfaces Group, MIT Media Lab.  Guillermo’s work focuses on the back and forth between the physical and the virtual by exploring embodiment and experiences that address the augmentation of ourselves as technology is integrated into our lives. This is done by assessing the emotional response from the body while interacting with future technologies as they become a reality. His current research explorations use real body characteristics, including electrodermal activity, electromyography, and electrocardiography, as low fidelity indicators of our current state.

Heather Davies is a digital content creator specializing in creating juicy content for lean startups, including her own online publishing brand that she launched at 19, while still in college. She's an expert in generating grassroots fandoms and followings for independent media brands and acts professionally in both a content creation and consulting role. Heather graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2016 with an undergraduate degree in English Literature and additional experience in editing, formatting, and graphic design. 

Ildar is an artist and educator from Saint Petersburg, his work revolves around designing new modes of digital production, consumption and governance. These practices take form of educational programs, installations, speculative design concepts, performances. Last year Ildar joined the team on the first day of the hackathon to wrangle the Vive interference problems.

Jacob is a 2nd year MBA Student at MIT Sloan and Founder/Co-President of VR at MIT, MIT's VR/AR Community. He previously worked at BuzzFeed and Samsung Global Innovation Center, and earned his undergraduate degree at Princeton University. 

John is an entrepreneur and founder of 42 Equals Inc., virtual & augmented reality enthusiast, and all around nerd. John’s vision for Boston is that VR/AR is still the wild west of tech, and Boston can strong hold the reputation as the premier region companies seek to build and market VR/AR products and services.  John wants the world to know Boston is the home of VR/AR when it comes to marketing, legal, advertising and consulting firms. John wants Boston to hold the statistic for the most VR/AR designers/developers per capita coming out of Boston’s magnificent universities and drawing talent from around the world. Help Boston see John’s vision. 

Maria is a Grammy-nominated sound engineer at Peerless Mastering in Boston,and is skilled in  architectural CAD.  She has mastered records of many genres and restored many acclaimed historical recordings. She excited to bring a new technology medium to the fore by attracting multi-disciplined creative talents. Outside of work, she re-watches episodes of Star Trek DS9 and studies classical piano at New England Conservatory.  She earned her BA from Boston University.

Mark is an MBA student at Harvard Business School and co-president of the Harvard AR/VR Club.  Along with virtual and augmented reality Mark is passionate about education and healthcare and is currently building molecular visualization software for virtual reality. Mark earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard and has previous experience in finance.

As a Creative Technologist at Hill Holliday, Max continues to explore new and emerging technologies, and evolve the digital work of the agency across all mediums. In his spare time, he can be found exploring the outdoors, target shooting, and playing video games on his PC. For this event, Max has helped spearhead the creative direction, website and Hill Hollidays involvement in this hackathon. Twitter: @maxxgeorgem

Praveen has over 15 years software engineering industry experience in designing and implementing high-performance distributed software systems in various programming languages. Praveen is a hackathon “geek” ready to join a team, and frequently a contributor to a winning team. He mentors young developers and enjoys conversation about technology past/present/future. Praveen holds Masters in Information Technology and Computer Science from Syracuse University. Twitter: @Paravamu

Steve is the Director of Technology at Hill Holliday. He and his group imagine, and bring to life, cutting-edge digital experiences on behalf of all of the agency’s clients. Outside of agency life, Steve manages DownloadBoston.com, a local movement to increase the awareness of Boston-based startups.  And in 2015 he co-founded Flutter (http://experienceflutter.com), an online platform dedicated to helping charities raise money by partnering them up with local sponsors to create amazing experience giveaways.

Victoria is an MBA student at MIT Sloan and is passionate about product strategy around emerging technologies. She is part of VR@MIT and The Future of People Conference. She recently worked with Rendever, a MIT startup that brings virtual reality to older adults to improve the negative effects of aging. Previously, she was also at Microsoft and Boston Scientific and earned her undergraduate degree from Boston University.

Luna is an MBA student from Harvard Business School and founder of Harvard VR/AR Club. She has worked as a VR/AR-focused investor at Rothenberg Ventures and is now starting a VR creative house for memory sharing. Twitter: @yuany44

Pauric is a Principal User Experience Designer at MathWorks where he specializes in product vision and inventing new programming paradigms for STEM Students. He grew up on and off the West coast of Ireland but these days he can be found tinkering in a barn just outside of Boston