My name is Laurel Papworth and I provide training, consultancy and mentoring on the Metaverse: virtual worlds (VR), augmented reality (AR), decentralised currencies and virtual currencies, gamification, mixed reality (MR) and cross reality (XR).

Bio of Metaverse Mentor, Virtual Worlds Consultant Laurel Papworth

Personal PROFILE: Senior Online Strategist and Director. Named by Forbes™ Magazine in the Top 5 Influencers globally, Laurel taught at the University of Sydney for 12 years and is currently consulting to Government in Australia and Internationally on online communities, virtual worlds, community currencies, ar/vr/mr/XR and gamification.  Laurel has lived in Singapore, taught at Effat University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, studied Arabic in Morocco (Fusha) and her hobbies include rollerskating, mucking round with Meta Horizon, Epic’s Unreal Engine also a little Unity and previously, Blender. Laurel has wasted time played World of Warcraft since 2004. Side activity: creating videos on virtual worlds and currencies for her MentaverseMentor.com.au publishing.  Please note: Laurel currently resides in Sydney, Australia but is aiming to move to Dubai in the next 3 months (by October 2022). 

FinTech and Decentralised Currencies — 2005 – Present Laurel has a patent (from 2005) in decentralised currencies for IoT, followed both BitGold and BitCoin from early days, has a number of crypto wallets back to 2011 and currently runs workshops and presentations on crypto currencies and smart contracts tech eg blockchain, privacy and Zcash and Laurel has spoken on national and global media about the role of Open Banking, privacy and Big Data.  A judge on the Financial Standard “Smileys” (strategy in Fintech awards) Laurel has written a number of articles and appeared on television on the future of finance in a metaverse world. 

Emergent Technologies— 2005 – Present Laurel has worked in virtual worlds since 1998, and has presented on augmented reality (AR) and Virtual reality (VR) since 2011 (The ARE2011 conference in Santa Clara, California to Facebook and Google). From children’s virtual worlds like Habbo (Neopets, Disney’s original Club Penguin) to Dransik (Ashen Empires) and Sony Laurel has consulted with game and virtual world development companies on structure and social engineering virtual space. Theta and Tfuel and other next generation video and entertainment blockchain are of particular interest to her.

Public Présentations and Training — 2005 – Present Laurel has a successful and high profile as a keynote presenter and panellist having sat on panels as an independent expert with senior people from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Vice Chancellors, Prime Minister of Malaysia, and key political figures in Goverment. Excelling in providing commonsense language to technical and engineering communications, Laurel has a Cert IV in Adult Education and is on the preferred trainer list for the Australian Government, working with over 20 Senators and Ministers and their office.

HOBBIES Languages (Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic Fusha, Italian, Spanish, Dutch). Sewing. Online Computer Games (World of Warcraft). Roller Skating and Ice Skating. Dance (Jazz, Hip Hop). Attending Tech Events and Expos for fun. Fitness and nutrition. Travel to unusual places. Geeking out on new tech. 

My Keynote in 2011 on Augmented Reality Communities Online ARE2011

BUILDING AUGMENTED REALITY COMMUNITIES (Workshop and/or Interactive Seminar)
While it is tempting to see single users consuming branded content in the 3rd space, as “community”, there is greater power in building sophisticated networks that can grow and ripple awareness through their social networks. Building, managing, and growing these communities are critical to the success of networked augmented reality projects. Whether a mobile social utility or friends community or a complex AR game the skills required to develop your users are critical. 
There are 12 different steps to building an online community around augmented reality where the “social media campaign” element is only one of the later ones. From Purpose/Value systems to Influencers, from Rituals to Events and Tools to Etiquette, community building weaves engagement and emotion into AR services and entertainment, and can take a small project to an enormous one without having to resort to traditional marketing. Specific community types covered will also include:

Group Activity based – bulding, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Reality
Developer ecoSystems – encouraging API communities
Partner Commitment – Brands building communities on augmented reality
Overlay communities – piggybackin off large communities
Distributed communities – creating content for distribution