• http://tinyurl.com/thetechvirtual
• http://thetechvirtual.org/projects
• http://thetechvirtual.org/june-4-summit/keynotes-summit-on-digital-democracy-in-exhibit-design
• http://thetechvirtual.org/projects/graduates/
• http://thetechvirtual.org/blog/archive/2008/08/12/winners-of-the-ucantu-competition

Launched in November 2007, The Tech Virtual started with a precise vision - leverage the interactive qualities of Second Life to create a space where designers, thinkers, educators, students and people of varying backgrounds could meet and create museum content. As of January 2008, seven museum exhibits have been installed which resulted directly from the project (http://thetech.org/testzone/). The Tech Virtual is the primary development platform for for the upcoming Digital Arts - Music - Games Exhibition, and has also been used to generate design challenges for the Tech Challenge series for youth (http://thetechvirtual.org/projects/tech-challenge. Throughout these programs, the mission remains to utilize Second Life as a collaborative space in which big plans can be made for real results in the real world. To our participants, there's nothing 'virtual' about the feedback, networking, and impressive learning that is happening through this platform. Experts can reach skilled builders, visionaries can reach talented scripters, and people of many diverse interests can reach the museum in a way never before possible. In this way our museum has been 'open sourced' - and the community attracted by Second Life provides an ideal community for just this type of collaboration. As a destination inside Second Life, The Tech Virtual also provides an outlet for Second Life exclusive exhibits through the virtual museum at The Tech sim. Three floors of interactive exhibits and tutorials extend the museum in this project which is just as experimental as it is interactive. Together with the development sims (The Tech 2 and The Tech TG) we have been able to accommodate many types of content creation over the past 12 months. Funded by a grant from The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The Tech Virtual is the largest museum presence we know of in any virtual world. Over the past year the project generated significant interest by Paris-based ICOM (International Council of Museums) in the form of articles in their international newsletter, hosting International Museum Day during May 2008, as well as generating in-person inquiries from museums such as the Finnish science center Heureka and the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center. In December 2008, the Tech Museum and the Tech Virtual team partnered with the MIT Museum, Stanford Media X, New Media Consortium and a host of others to produce the 2-day "Program for the Future" conference (http://www.programforthefuture.org). Based on the emerging topic of collective intelligence and the work of Doug Engelbart - who is perhaps the single most important visionary of our time in the field of collaboration - this event was shared with a vast online audience primarily through Second Life. Should we be chosen as recipients of the Linden Prize, the award funds would go towards continuing the program in the form of award funds for exhibit designers who successfully generate an exhibit installed at our museum.