OMI elects new chairs

The Open Metaverse Interoperability (OMI) group recently elected new chairs. Jesse Alton, aka mrmetaverse, one of the founders of OMI was re-elected, and Bernelle Verster, aka indiebio, was elected as a new chair.

OMI was started in 2021 as a grassroots group interested in all the components that make the metaverse a reality. The group is home to a diverse group of people passionate about interoperability, accessibility, systems of systems integration, useful AI agents, music in the metaverse, fashion in the metaverse, virtual worlds and curating the history of these in the virtual worlds museum, avatar builders, extending game engine usability for metaverse applications, through example extending glTF specs and V-Sekai, and more (here is an example of our members on the github notes of a community meeting).

Bernelle is a researcher and joins with a focus on physical world interactivity with game worlds, including digital twins, geospatial interoperability, and particularly incorporating urban resource flows into the metaverse and exploring digital community governance. Being a member of OMI has meant meeting people with complementing skill-sets and experience, and Bernelle is excited to grow the group and extend these benefits further.

Jesse is passionate about open interoperability, and extended reality. His interest is in helping founders incorporate open protocols for interoperability in their products and business models. He is the co-founder of MagickML which is an agent creation tool. In parallel, he runs AngellXR to support and grow the wider community to make the open metaverse happen.

OMI actively collaborates with other groups relevant in the area. OMI is included as a research body of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) where we are called the Metaverse Interoperability Community Group. OMI also actively collaborates with the metaverse makers (M3), the Open Metaverse Foundation (OMF), OMA (OMA3) and other groups, and has a voting role in the Metaverse Standards Forum (MSF). OMI membership of the MSF in particular offers a way for individuals to have a say in a corporate membership institution.

OMI welcomes everyone. Members of OMI are encouraged to bring their own projects and passions, and any level of experience or interest is welcome. Get in touch via Discord or join our W3C mailing list. Our recent meetings are recorded and archived in github.

• Category: Blog