HIE 2025 Spanish Session

 On Sunday April 6 the final session of this year's Hypergrid International Expo was all in Spanish - with voices from around the world - from Barcelona to Puerto Rico, and of course we also had the magnificent retelling of the Four Worlds of the Hopi people, who came into contact with the Conquistadores. 

AnaMari Maggi

The session was beautifully introduced by Ana Maggi,  who speaks Spanish, French and Italian, so is a little bit of a symbol for our multilanguage event. She first introduced Xirana Oximoxi, author and artist, from near Barcelona. Xirana has been exhibiting her art inworld for a long time, both in SL and in Opensim, on her region on Craft, called Karnac. Her talk then was all about inhabiting two realities and making art in both, it's a story of hard work and practical challenges to overcome, so it was both an autobiography and a bit of a how-to speech. Very interesting! Remember, all the sessions of HIE were filmed and streamed live on our HieExpo Youtube channel and you can see the Live session in our archive - in coming days, there will be all the individual talks on the same channel.

HIE 2025 Italian Session

 The Italian session this year was dominated by educators and what a thrill to hear them speak with such optimism and enthusiasm about their passion for teaching and for technology.

The Italian session was moderated by Lorenza Colicigno, who is herself an educator and whose sim NoiLab on craft is a magnet for any thoughtful hg traveler.

Our first speaker was Luciana Mattei. She teaches primary school in Latina, Italy. Her project unAcademy is an absolute joy - she is teaching children not only science, and English, but also all about their digital identity. Luciana's joyful approach to her work is infectious, and the whole audience felt the thrill of seeing how she has combined the virtual school in Craft-world, with the concrete school, in the real world.

If you missed her talk, remember you can watch all the sessions of HIE on our Youtube channel, HIE Expo. Use the Settings button to get the auto generated subtitles for your language.

Hie Is Underway!

 Yes, the Hypergrid International Expo 2025 is well and truly launched! Yesterday from 11am SLT we had three wonderful hours of live singers. First up the one and only Zoree Jupiter - follow her on Facebook!  and here's her performance schedule, so you know when and where to catch her concerts inworld. SHe sang a divine set perfect for our international event, with a bit of everything from fado to We Are Family... couldn't have been better. Thank you Zoree!

As you can see we had a great cohort of Dinkies at the party - you can see behind them, the Group joiner boards... what are they for? During our 2 day conference, beginning today, Saturday 5 April, the talks are given in German, French, and then tomorrow in Italian and Spanish. If you don't speak all these languages, no worries, we provide subtitles in English, Italian, Portuguese, French German and Spanish throughout the event, in Group Chat... just join the group for your language, and during the event the subtitles will show up in your IMs. Magic!

Following Zoree, we had a power hour of songs from the 80s with Khiron Ametza as always pumping up the mood of the party and getting us all singing and dancing at home as well as inworld! Khiron, a soprano singer from Brazil, has a great repertoire - a good way to keep in touch with what she's up to is to fave her page on Facebook .

The party continued into a third hour, as people came and went, about 60 plus attended the musical evening, many of them took full advantage of the inworld ability to stay by the singers and dance like crazy, while at the same time camming out into the Expo and pick up LMs, Notecards, and the many many freebies donated by a multiplicity of grids and individuals. We have 130 publicity booths at the HIE Expo this year, and there truly is something for everyone in that wonderful miscellany!

Our final singer was the wonderful Wolem Wobbit - here's his YouTube Channel, be sure to subscribe! A native of Germany, with excellent English, Wolem is a bluesman, a guitarist of great talent, a songwriter and of course a great singer. His original songs are all hits, or ought to be - they have heartfelt, thoughtful lyrics - his latest composition which he played for us is all about the Hypergrid, and the importance of a sense of community and acceptance in this ever more divided and hateful real world. 

Thanks to our wonderful singers, and to everyone who attended the Opening event for HIE 2025 - hope to see you all at the Conference, today starting at 9am SLT (6pm in Europe)  Saturday 5 April and tomorrow 6 April!

HG Address: grid.hgsafari.org:58002:HIE

Setting up the Expo

The park that surrounds the auditorium for the Hypergrid International Expo, or 'HIE' for short, isn't the biggest expo park in Opensim, or the one with the biggest builds, but it is chock full of fun and diversity every year.

HIE Auditorium 

The Conference part of HIE happens in April - from the opening party on Friday April 4, through two days of talks in French, German, Italian and Spanish, with subtitles provided, if you don't speak those languages.

But before that, and after it also, we have a huge expo where everyone in Opensim, whatever their language, can participate, with a simple booth, like a market stall, where they can tell everyone about their grid, or their sim, or their project. 

Everyone is welcome, there is no charge to participate in this event, and your booth can be simple or more complicated, as you prefer, keeping in mind the need to maintain reasonable levels of lag on the sim.

Booth News!

 The next Expo is in April 2025 but we're gearing up already to create the Expo park full of publicity booths where you can let the community know about your grid, your region, your projects. As always there is no charge to participate, and all are welcome. 

This year we have an innovation - Petlove Petshop has prepared a series of how-to videos - in seven languages! Congrats to her for all her hard work, and for the seven narrators - Rosa Alekseev for Portuguese, Minord Loup for French, the German one is narrated by Loru Destiny, and we have Akasha Kokuu for Japanese, Karima Hoisan for Spanish , Lux Tergeste for Italian and James Atlloud for English - thank you all so much for participating!

While it's true that AI makes translations easier these days, authentic language speakers can't be beaten especially when you've got specific jargon like the kind of specialized terms which we use on our virtual platform. Plus it's fun to emphasize the beauty of our multi-language society.

Just to give you a flavor, here's the Japanese one, you'll see the others on our Youtube Channel.

The idea is to make it as easy as possible for people of all languages to participate, and to answer the frequent questions about what's needed when making a booth - where to get one, who to give it to when finished, what limits there are on the way you can mod it. Please, share these videos with anyone you think ought to be represented at HIE, and with all your friends. Liking and commenting on the videos also helps us to get the message out there by 'feeding the algorithm' so if you can, do your part to help us out.