IDRAC Speaker Spotlight: John Lester

"But you’re not supposed to use it that way!"

John Lester, known in Second Life as Pathfinder Lester, has been working with virtual worlds and online communities since the 1990s, creating online patient support groups at Massachusetts General Hospital for people dealing with neurological disorders, developing online immersive learning environments for students at Harvard, and helping build communities in Second Life that assist people living with disabilities. He worked at Linden Lab for 5 years where he founded Linden Lab's Boston Office and led the development of the education and healthcare markets in Second Life while evangelizing the innovative use of virtual worlds in research, art and immersive learning. John has also worked on multiuser virtual world development using the Unity platform, built bespoke multiuser VR worlds for education using the Oculus Rift, and dabbled with artificial life in augmented reality.

John continues to follow his passion for online communities and virtual worlds through his consulting and contracting work, designing and building immersive learning experiences using platforms such as OpenSimulator and Unity. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Virtual Ability, Inc., a non-profit organization that enables people with a wide range of disabilities by providing a supporting environment for them to enter and thrive in online virtual worlds like Second Life. At his day job, John works as a Product Manager at OpenText where he does R&D in unstructured data analytics and enterprise information management.

John has been working with online communities and virtual worlds since the early 1990’s, beginning with modem-powered BBS systems through early web-based forums and chatrooms and continuing with immersive multiuser 3d virtual worlds. Focusing on education and support, John has experienced a wide range of use cases and insights into how human behavior simultaneously shapes and is shaped by these tools.

John will present at this year’s International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference on Saturday, November 19, at 11am Pacific. The title of his presentation is: ‘“But you’re not supposed to use it that way!” - Exploring how people shape technologies to empower online communities.’ In this presentation, John will tell his story of how a continuing quest for more emotional bandwidth and perceptual immersion was enlightened by communities of people who often used technologies in completely unexpected and breathtakingly beautiful ways.

Photos courtesy Alice Krueger

IDRAC 2016 Schedule

International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference

"We’re Part of the Community.”

Friday, November 18

8am Caroline Pavis of Johnson and Johnson will talk about their HealthEVoices disability bloggers conference.
9:30am Theresa Lorenzo of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, will talk about her research on ways to make disability-inclusive services available in rural areas of South Africa, Botswana and Malawi.
11am A panel of members of Chronic Pain Anonymous will talk about peer support in various social media venues.
12:30pm Members of the Baylor College of Medicine (TX) Center for Research on Women with Disabilities will talk about their GoWoman weight management project for women with mobility disabilities.
2pm Maggie Sheets with the Disability Policy Consortium of Massachusetts will explain the importance of including people with disability in policy making.

Saturday, November 19

8am l’Arche, an intentional mixed residential community for people with and without intellectual disabilities (presenter still being confirmed).
9:30am Margaret Nosek, professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine, will talk about her research projects in Second Life for women with physical disabilities.
11am John Lester, expert in online communities and former Education Liaison with Linden Lab, will talk about early patient support communities in virtual worlds created by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard.
12:30pm A presentation by Virtual Ability community member KriJon about people with disabilities and 9/11.