TORONTO, April 12 — Using a massively multiplayer game platform to engage its citizens and showcase the country internationally, Virtual Canada is a virtual country built by a government. An initiative of enormous scale in both the real and virtual realms, the project connects seven Canadian museums, the Canada pavilion in Japan, and Canadian schools and public users in an international network of virtual landscapes and exploration of themes.
Participating museums hosting a CyberExplorer interactive console include: Science World in Vancouver, Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Montreal Science Centre in Montreal, Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, and Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife.
For home and school users, the free Virtual Canada software is available for download.
The project creator is Toronto-based I-Mmersion, a developer of group interactive experiences and co-creative virtual spaces. Virtual Canada was commissioned for Expo2005 by Canadian Heritage and is part of the new Expo2005 Canada Interactive Network, a public virtual space created to engage Canadians in an exploration of Canada's theme at Expo2005, Wisdom of Diversity, as well as other themes.
The Canada Pavilion, where Virtual Canada is featured at Expo2005, was voted among Top 10 must-see pavilions, and the only national pavilion among them. The pavilion houses three CyberExplorer units — large interactive stations with touch screens and large plasmas — in the public presentation area. It also offers a VIP version in the upstairs lounge, complete with a live video conference connection to the Canadian museums.
All schools in Canada — numbering almost 8,000 — are invited to participate in Virtual Canada by building virtual class exhibits.
Virtual Canada supports 3,000 simultaneous users and 10,000 registered users.
In addition to creating school galleries, schools are also invited to find partner schools in participating communities and to organize a live event with them via video-conference through their local museum. Each of these participating museums has a CyberExplorer unit, similar to the ones in the Pavilion in Japan, through which the live events are experienced.
