Image by Beth Kanter


As an adjunct to the Second Life / Real Life mixed reality event that TechSoup will be producing on July 18th, the Ethos Roundtable will be holding a mixed reality gathering based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Ethos Roundtable is an informal group of people who are interested in using technology tools to support positive social change.  We meet once a month, usually in the same location as (and just prior to) the Boston 501 Tech Club.

But next Tuesday's meeting will be special:

A Second Life gathering
Tuesday, July 18th, 6:30 pm (eastern time)
TechSoup's satellite office on Second Life

The event will feature an introduction to Second Life. John Lester, community manager at Linden Lab (the company that created and runs Second Life), will  be with us in Cambridge, and will present a tour of this online community and demonstrate for us how Second Life can be used for educational and nonprofit purposes. .

The event will simultaneously occur both virtually (at TechSoup's satellite office on Second Life) and in real life (in Cambridge, Massachusetts). We will be displaying audio/video footage of both environments to show participants in both locations what is happening at that time.

If you'd like to join us, you're very welcome! Because the Cambridge event starts at 6:30 pm eastern time (3:30 pacific time), it will be possible to attend it and then stay on for the TechSoup event at 9:00 pm eastern time (6:00 pm pacific time).

In order to find the Ethos Roundtable meeting in virtual reality, log on to Second Life.  Click on the blue map button at the bottom of screen. In the Find Region field, type TechSoup.org (include mature regions), click Show Location and then click Teleport to go there.

Registration is free to create your Second Life account and avatar, but you will need to provide your mobile phone number or credit card (which will not be charged).

If you are interested in learning even more about nonprofits in Second Life, please join the Tech Soup Second Life Google Group.

Special thanks are due to Bob Doyle of skyBuilders for opening up his amazing headquarters to the Ethos Roundtable for this event.  It's an education just to be in the same room with him, and a revelation to see the technology that he's running in his lab.

This article was originally published in my blog, "Technology for the Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector," under a Creative Commons  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License.