Jon Watte, Virtual World Expert

Jon started programming at the age of ten, on a Z-80 based computer named "ABC-80." After evolving through a variety of micro- and mini-computer platforms through the '80s, and attending the master's of computer science program at KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, Jon moved from the arctic winter to the sweltering summer of Austin, Texas, where he worked on CodeWarrior products for game consoles and the alternative "BeOS" operating system. One thing led to another, and Jon combined his love of music and video with his love of systems programming, and took the reins of the media group at Be, building a foundation for low-latency, high-throughput multi-processing computing on desktop computers. After Be was successfully sold to Palm, Jon moved to help build avatar, networking and simulation technology for the There.com virtual world, a job which then led to a position as CTO of enterprise virtual world provider Forterra Systems, where he contributed to the future of virtual worlds for entertainment and business. Currently, Jon is enjoying adding some exciting new technology to power the spectacular growth of the connected entertainment company IMVU, Inc, which is powered by an amazing collection of user-generated 2D and 3D content. Jon also moderates online forums on game development and networking for Microsoft XNA Creators and independent game developer site GameDev.net, and has published both code and articles that help power several successful games, both independent and published.