League of Worlds 1 was held in Helsinki in October 2004.

When the conference was originally proposed in Atlanta, there was a long discussion about the format. There was a general consensus that people did not see the value of the usual kind of conference in which people read from a written paper while screening excerpts from the paper as a PowerPoint presentation. Would it not be more efficient, and more enjoyable, to receive the papers a month in advance; read them ourselves; and then meet up to debate the issues that were raised?

This was the format that was agreed, and the organisers (who were Owen Kelly and Camilla Lindeberg) received the papers; distributed them; and then organised them into loose themes. Each panel at the conference had two, three or four members, whose papers touched similar topics. Every member had five minutes to remind the others of the theme of their paper. The bulk of each session was a general discussion, chaired by a moderator but involving everybody in the room.

Tuesday October 5th

  • 19.00 Opening Reception

Wednesday October 6th

  • 09.30 Welcome to Arcada Nova: Henrik Wolff, rector
  • 10.00 Why are we here? an introduction: Owen Kelly
  • 10.30 Panel 1
  • 11.45 Panel 2
  • 13.45 Workshops - session 1 (end 19.00)
  • 14.15 Discussion & demonstrations 1

Thursday October 7th

  • 09.15 Workshops - session 2 (end 12.45)
  • 09.15 Panel 3
  • 10.30 Panel 4
  • 11.45 Panel 5
  • 13.45 Workshops - session 3 (end 19.00)
  • 14.15 Discussion & demonstrations 2

Friday October 8th

  • 09.15 Workshops - session 4 (end 12.45)
  • 09.15 Panel 6
  • 10.30 Panel 7
  • 11.45 Panel 8
  • 13.45 Thinking ahead: an e-journal
  • 13.45 Thinking ahead: a conference
  • 13.45 Thinking ahead: online education
  • 15.30 Workshops - final presentations
  • 16.30 Imagining the League of Worlds
  • 18.00 Mystery Tour
  • 19.15 An official Pleasure Zone

From the standpoint of a traditional conference the timetable may look rather empty. In the end it proved to be too full. There had been some fear that people would not find enough to say to each other, but in the event sessions overran and some sessions continued late into the evening.

The workshops took the form of demonstrations of simulations and virtual worlds that people were using.

A number of decisions were taken during the final session Imagining the League of Worlds. There is a separate page that lists the decisions made at the conference.

Among the decisions was the creation of a mission statement for the League of Worlds that appears in its final form on the About page.

Attendees

The following people attended:

1 Roma Angel
2 Lanre Arcada Balogun
3 Bernard Brainoo
4 Steven Bronack
5 Ursula Drees
6 Aaron S. Ellis
7 Henry Ericsson
8 Albert Ip
9 Greg Jones
10 Alexander Fohgrub
11 Mikael Kall
12 Liza Kurylova
13 Roni Linser
14 Robert Muffaletto
15 Naghmeh Najafabadi
16 Dick Riedel
17 Tiina Räisä
18 Robert Sanders
19 Tore Ståhl
20 Carl Swanson
21 John Tashner
22 Franklin Wanzi Nganje
23 Bettina von Wienecke
24 Carl Wegelius
25 Owen Kelly
26 John Packalén
27 Lars Lundsten
28 Henrik Wolff
29 Johnny Biström
30 Niki Weckström
31 Jutta Törnqvist
32 Camie Lindeberg

25 multimedia students from Arcada observed sessions, and participated in documentation.