Tom Furness

For 57 years Tom Furness has been pioneering virtual and augmented reality technology development and applications in medicine, education, design and entertainment.  Prior to 1989 Tom spent 23 years working for the United States Air Force developing virtual interfaces for advanced military aircraft.  Since 1989 he has served as a professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Washington and is the founder of the international family of Human Interface Technology Laboratories at the University of Washington, University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand) and University of Tasmania (Australia).  He is the founder of the Virtual World Society (www.virtualworldsociety.org), a non-profit dedicated to linking minds and hearts through extended reality technologies to lift humanity.  He holds 26 patents and has been active in spinning off 27 high tech companies.  He is a fellow of the IEEE and considered to be the ‘grandfather of virtual reality’.