Presentation given at "Aging in America", Las Vegas, NV - March 2009. Matt Ganis

1. Building Livable Communities in Secondlife A Project of the Westchester Alliance for Livable Communities

11. Second Life is a Virtual World A Virtual world is an online environment where the residents are avatars that represent the individuals that are participating online. Users of virtual worlds design their environments and often their avatars as well, from gender to clothing and hairstyle, and control how those avatars communicate, move, create things, and interact.

15. What does it look like?

19. Avatars (people) are diverse

23. Judging Information The presentation that received the highest score, as determined by the judges, will be declared the winner. Judging was based on: Creativity - 25% Originality- 25% Feasibility- 25% Quality of Presentation- 25%

27. Contestants Manhattanville College, Purchase NY Pace University, Pleasantville & New York City Campus Monroe College, New Rochelle Campus

33. Bedrooms were constructed with low beds for easy entry

34. While maybe not cost-effective, elevators and ramps were installed in several of the homes rather than staircases

35. Some of the larger homes included rooftop gardens and greenhouses

37. Video

38. IMPORTANT ! This project was NOT about Technology It’s about changing the perspective of our young people. By providing a contest where they need to understand and think of the issues as they relate to the elderly, we hope that the lessons they’ve learned here (in the virtual world) will go back with them into the real world - causing them to pause and think when they plan new cities, build homes or engineer new solutions for our daily lives.

39. What’s Next