Linda Stone has been a leader in the effort to create both community and content on the computer, specifically focusing on improving human social interactions in cyberspace. She created and now directs Microsoft's virtual worlds team which develops technologies for the construction of social environments that really work on a human level.

Char Davies is the creator of Osmose, an incredible virtual environment described as a digital meditation space. An artist and director, Char is currently the director of visual research at Softimage in Montreal.

Gail Williams has been called a gardener of community in her role as director of conferencing for the Well, perhaps the most infamous and influential on-line community in the world.

Mark Pesce is an Internet visionary and co-creator of VRML (virtual reality modeling language). What started as a vision of 3D information on the Internet has blossomed into the reality of a true cyberspace under his guidance.

Sandy Stone defines her research as "the traffic in the boundaries between art and technology," which includes interaction theory, cyberspace, virtual systems, gender and sexuality. She is a performance artist and teaches at the department of radio-TV-film at the Univ. of Texas at Austin.

Bruce Damer is a pioneer of avatar cyber space and an expert on the subject of virtual community. He has helped create forums for the emergence of virtual worlds including the Avatars '97 Conference ocurring Oct. 22-24, in San Francisco. Bruce will moderate our discussion.