Helping Organizations Understand How to Use AI, the Metaverse, and Virtual Reality for Business Success!
Change Maker translating the Power of the Metaverse/Founder, CEO/Speaker/Author; Winner, Best VR/AR, Mobile World Congress; Finalist, SXSW Innovation Award; Featured: NY Times, NPR
Meet Cortney
Cortney Harding is an in-demand expert as one of the few people who can not only translate the impact of the digital revolution from Web2 to Web3 and its impact on businesses, but also how the Metaverse can become the new frontier to create better and more accepting communities.
A global thought leader, published author, and leading authority on emerging technology and the role of virtual and augmented reality, she is also an accomplished speaker. Cortney is considered a future-facing architect of change as she has a full understanding of what challenges and opportunities exist within the metaverse. She approaches every aspect of her work leading with "what problem can we solve" and "how sustainable is the journey to this virtual landscape," which has led to a host of unique speaking opportunities. These include DAVOS, SXSW, Advertising Week Europe, the Next Web, and Future of Storytelling, among other events.
Cortney is also the Founder and CEO of a transformational VR/AR agency, Friends with Holograms, focused on creating innovative, powerful, and effective experiences for training. Her clients include Walmart, Verizon, Accenture, Coca-Cola, and the US Air Force. She is the winner of multiple awards including “Best VR/AR” at Mobile World Congress, SXSW Innovation Award Finalist, and Top HR product by HR Executive. In an era where many enterprise VR/AR creators lean on outmoded ideas and churn out non-interactive, unrealistic, bland content, Cortney pushes the medium forward by fusing some of the first voice-activated virtual reality interactivity with highly engaging, cinematic content from acclaimed directors who specialize in the medium. She has experience building teams with best-in-class Unity and Unreal developers and producers.
An in-demand academic, Cortney has taught at North Carolina State and Caltech and this year will be teaching at Barnard and NYU, where she will be sharing her one-of-a-kind curriculum. She has also guest lectured at Johns Hopkins, Chapman University, Harvard Business School, and Columbia University. She is also working with Meta to help shape strategy around learning and training in the Metaverse and was instrumental in creating "What is the Metaverse?" - a groundbreaking course that covers all aspects of the Metaverse while exploring safety issues, ethical questions and much more.
Prior to founding Friends With Holograms, Cortney led business development for VR production company Moth+Flame where she worked with AT&T, MTV, and Discovery Networks, and prior to that led business development for several music technology startups as well as served as the music editor of Billboard. She has been interviewed by the New York Times, NPR, and Ad Week, among others, and has written for Billboard, TeenVogue, and the Village Voice. She is the author of three books, including her most recent book on using virtual reality to create social change.
“One of the smartest and most future-focused metaverse speakers I have ever seen!”
– Fortune 100 CMO
Book Cortney as a Speaker
Talks about #training, #virtualreality, #extendedreality, #augmentedreality, and #diversityandinclusion
How often have you read that every company needs a metaverse strategy no matter their intent to jump in full force or quietly sit back to see what their competitors are doing? There is a great deal of conversation around this topic, yet few tangible guideposts for companies to follow. Certainly the time has come for leaders to adjust their mindset and embrace what the journey to this new frontier will look like, while having a full understanding of the pitfalls that could confront them and the myths that have already been sounded. The metaverse can be viewed as a turbulent new landscape, or, the new land of opportunity.
As a global thought leader, published author, and leading authority on emerging technology and the role of virtual and augmented reality, Cortney Harding is considered a future-facing architect of change as she has a full understanding of what challenges and opportunities exist within the metaverse.
Cortney has worked with…
Are you Ready for the Metaverse?
Myths and Realities of the New Frontier
We’re living in unprecedented times with the advances in technology emerging faster than we can even process. Right now, leaders are faced with the dilemma of doing business as usual, or take the opportunities that exist within the Metaverse seriously and act on them. Cortney Harding is considered a future-facing architect of change as she has a full understanding of the challenges and the new thought processes needed to not only exist but also thrive within the Metaverse. She approaches every aspect of her work leading with "what problem can we solve" and "how sustainable is the journey to this virtual landscape," which has quickly positioned her as a unique and informed expert on this topic. For innovators used to a clear path to success, this talk highlights the importance of having an accepting and open mind to what is possible, and the new way of thinking that leaders will need to take their companies and their customers into the future.
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