Playing With Reality – Episode 5

Digital Twins are one of the most interesting technologies today attempting to recreate real life systems and processes in digital versions. These are mirror worlds which not only play with reality, they are trying to recreate it with true fidelity. But where did these technologies come from? Who were the early pioneers? And what does it mean to make a digital copy of something tangible and real? From automotive, to aerospace and even entertainment industries, Digital Twins are some of the most exciting and genuinely useful technologies to get widespread hype in recent years. In this episode of Playing with Reality, we look to discover more about their past, present and future.

Today’s Guests

Timoni West

Timoni West is the vice president of Product, Digital Twins and AI at Unity, a company whose cross-platform game engine Builds real-time 3D projects for various industries across games, animation, automotive, architecture. She’s been there for over 7 years, and over that time she has worked to lead advanced product development for spatial computing tools. Now she spends her time focusing on ensuring that the tools that Unity creates are available to all.

Karen Willcox

Karen Willcox is the Director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at UT Austin. Before this, she spent 17 years as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Through her research, she produces scalable computational methods for the design of next-generation engineered systems, and she is currently working on projects for institutions as prestigious as the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Research Laboratory, amongst many others. Earlier this year, Karen was invited to give a TEDx talk on the potential of digital twin technology – watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzfMLYw_-Ps.