The U.S Army announced the winners of the inaugural Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge at the 2010 Defense GameTech Users' Conference. The open competition challenged virtual world developers to create unique and innovative simulation and training analysis solutions for a variety of federal agencies including the Department of Defense.
"We were amazed at the number of submissions [24] for this first year" said Tami Griffith, the creator of the challenge.
The challenge cleared the way for small and individual developers to showcase training ideas that the government may not have considered to support any kind of training or analysis a Government agency may require, from language skills to combat.
The Army received submission from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada and made use of a variety of virtual worlds: such as Second LifeAc"Ac, Active WorldsAc"Ac, Teleplace and 3DInternet. Entries were then divided into four categories: Collaboration, Skill Building, Instruction and Visualization.
The winners of the first annual FVWC are:
Grand Prize:
Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge, Dr. Cynthia Calongne, Mike McCrocklin, Andrew Stricker and the Air University
Collaboration Category (Government/Gov Contractor):
1st - Vet Advisor Virtual Room, Dan Frank and 3-Wire System
2nd - I-Room, Austin Tate and OpenVCE
3rd - Army Family Support Center, Jaque Davison and VR4YourPC
Non-Government category:
1st - Imagine, Kevin Simkins and 3DInternet
Skill Building Category (Government/Gov Contractor category):
1st - Chicken Chase, Dana Moore and BBN
2nd - Virtual Border Crossing Simulation, Ken Hudson and Loyalist College
3rd - Play2Train, Dr. Ramashsharma Ramloll and Idaho State University
Non-Government Category:
1st - PIVOTE, David Burden and Daden
2nd - Tredpro Fusion Fire Systems, Aaron Buley
3rd - Hyper-Reality, Kevin Simkins and 3DInternet
Visualization Category (Government/Gov Contractor Category):
1st - Virtual Power Station and Grid, Thomas Stead and Shawnee State University
Non-Government Category:
1st - Breakdown, Jeremiah Isbell
2nd - Datascape, David Burden and Daden
3rd - Tactical Situation Visualization, James Stibbards
Instruction Category (Government/Gov Contractor Category):
1st - Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge, Dr. Cynthia Calongne, Mike McCrocklin,
Andrew Stricker and the Air University
2nd - iSched - Virtual World Training Scheduler, Alexander Gosslin and the ADL CoLab
Non-Governent category:
1st - Virtual Training Partners, Mark Jankowski
2nd - Learning to Model in Second Life, Dr. Cynthia Calongne
3rd - Immersive Learning Environment, Donelle Bunch-Sydow
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