Paige Dansinger 8/23/26 Paige Dansinger 8/23/26

Garden: In Full Bloom

Garden: In Full Bloom is an immersive XR Women Museum exhibition that explores what it means to grow into your fullest, most authentic self. Featuring 20 international artists, the virtual garden uses emerging media—from digital sculpture and animation to AI and virtual reality—to create a shared ecosystem of transformation, identity, imagination, connection, and possibility.

Christine Hobbi 8/16/26 Christine Hobbi 8/16/26

The Immersive Work Coming Out of Africa Right Now — And the Women Building It

African women are quietly redefining the global XR landscape and the industry hasn't caught up. From Judith Okonkwo, who built Lagos's first VR lab in 2016 and grew it into a multi-country network, to Diana Njeri's XR Girls Africa, which turns rural Kenyan women into hosts (not just visitors) of the metaverse, this piece spotlights a wave of immersive storytellers and builders across Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Their work is winning international awards, yet remains absent from major showcases like Venice Immersive. The gap isn't talent, it's distribution and gatekeeping. The message: Africa isn't emerging in XR. It's already here.

XR Women 8/11/26 XR Women 8/11/26

Anyone Can Build a VR World Now - Starting from Zero

For five years, worlds were what I asked other people to build. I'm dyslexic and low-vision, so the usual on-ramp — learn Unity, learn C#, learn 3D — wasn't a hill, it was a wall. Then I stopped trying to learn the tool and started describing the dream. Here is the seven-step path from zero to a published XR world, with no prior knowledge and not one line of code I typed myself.

XR Women 8/4/26 XR Women 8/4/26

Feeling in the Way

Where in your life do you shrink yourself without even noticing? A trip to a coffee shop for something cold on a hot day turns into an unexpected lesson. It's a warm, personal reflection on the tiny ways we make ourselves smaller — and an invitation to stop.

Tracie Yorke 7/27/26 Tracie Yorke 7/27/26

A Different Kind of Immersion

When most people hear the word immersion, they think of headsets and virtual worlds. But this summer, Tracie Yorke’s experience became something more—a different kind of immersion shaped by community, place, and meaningful human connection at the iLRN Conference in Athens, Greece.

Through presentations, shared experiences, and unexpected opportunities to connect with scholars and local experts, the trip became a powerful reminder that learning extends far beyond technology.

XR Women 7/20/26 XR Women 7/20/26

Immersive Storytelling, Shared Across Borders

Judie Alson joined the XR Women Global community in the ENGAGE platform to share work on how immersive storytelling can drive social change and foster empathy across cultures. Standing as an avatar alongside an international audience of avatars representing eight countries—from the UK to Brazil to India—the experience revealed that the real immersion wasn't just in the technology, but in the shared experience of stepping together into each world. This is the story of how a 360-degree presentation, a playful virtual canary, and a generous global community demonstrated why immersive media matters.

Julie Smithson 7/14/26 Julie Smithson 7/14/26

Visiting BURNERSPHERE: Burning Man Without the Dust

BurnerSphere brings the creativity, culture, and community of Burning Man to life in virtual reality—no desert heat or playa dust required. Created by XR Women's Athena Demos and Doug Jacobson, this immersive experience lets you explore digital twins of iconic art installations, then step through portals into 360-degree videos recorded on the actual playa, seamlessly blending reconstructed models with real-world moments.

Julie Smithson 7/7/26 Julie Smithson 7/7/26

Roundtables Are Where the Real Work Begins

XR Women's roundtables aren't panels — they're working sessions. Here's how honest conversations about access, funding, and leadership in XR and AI are turning into real action, accountability, and change across the industry.

Sophia Moshasha 6/30/26 Sophia Moshasha 6/30/26

Why Meta's Kylie Jenner Partnership Could Be a Turning Point for Women in Wearable AI

Meta's partnership with Kylie Jenner is more than a celebrity endorsement — it's a signal that wearable technology is finally asking a different question: not "how do we get people to care about tech?" but "how do we make tech fit the lives people already live?" For those of us advocating for more women in XR and emerging technologies, that shift in thinking is an encouraging sign.

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Christine Hobbi 6/23/26 Christine Hobbi 6/23/26

AWE Long Beach 2026: What It Means for Women Shaping the Future of XR

AWE USA 2026 showcased a pivotal moment for spatial computing, with major hardware announcements from Snap (consumer AR glasses), XREAL (the AI-powered AURA headset built with Google and Qualcomm), and fashion-forward partnerships between Google's Android XR team and eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. The event's "humans at the center" theme — combined with gesture-based wearables and embedded AI — signals a clear shift toward XR that is more accessible, stylish, and inclusive. For women in XR, the move away from bulky, male-coded hardware toward design-forward, lower-barrier devices represents real progress toward a more representative industry.

Christine Hobbi 6/15/26 Christine Hobbi 6/15/26

When Governments Pull the Plug: What the Claude Fable 5 Shutdown Means for XR Women

This week, the US government pulled the plug on Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — cutting off global access overnight with no warning. For XR Women building at the intersection of spatial computing and AI, it's a wake-up call: the infrastructure we depend on can disappear in an instant. Here's what happened, why it matters, and the questions our community needs to be asking.

Christine Hobbi 6/9/26 Christine Hobbi 6/9/26

Know Your 3D: What Every XR Creator Should Understand About Splats, Meshes, and Photogrammetry

Choosing the right 3D method — whether a hand-built mesh, photogrammetry capture, or Gaussian Splat — determines what learners can actually do in your XR experience, not just what they can see. This post breaks down all three, shows how they work together in a real immersive training scenario, and explains why XR creators need to be fluent in each. With Apple bringing Gaussian Splatting to 300+ cities in iOS 27 and capture tools already in your pocket, there's never been a better time for XR Women to lead in this space.

Christine Hobbi 6/1/26 Christine Hobbi 6/1/26

When the Virtual Gets Personal: The Social Side of VR

This blog explores the social science behind human interaction in virtual reality, drawing on the research of communication scholar Bree McEwan.

Paige Dansinger 5/26/26 Paige Dansinger 5/26/26

Growing Community Through Play: Prototyping Belonging in XR

XR Women member, Tink, helped by play-testing the first prototype, Community Garden in Horizon Worlds.

Christine Hobbi 5/19/26 Christine Hobbi 5/19/26

The Future Just Landed on Your Face: Google's Project Aura and What It Means for Women in XR

XREAL and Google Showcase Project Aura at Google I/O 2026

Christine Hobbi 5/12/26 Christine Hobbi 5/12/26

Free Claude Certifications - and Why XR Women Should Get Them Now

I just added three Claude certifications to my LinkedIn — for free — and it took less than a day. Anthropic's online academy offers Claude credentials and AI Fluency courses, and they're open to everyone. Whether you're new to AI or already using it in your XR workflow, these courses will sharpen how you think about and work with it.