Veda Shastri

Veda Shastri is a documentary filmmaker and immersive video journalist. She is currently a producer of The Daily 360 at The New York Times where she handles international coverage in 360 video. She recently produced the series “Genocide’s Legacy” as well as an interactive from inside Fukushima, Japan. Veda co-produced a VR documentary, “Return to Chernobyl” for PBS Frontline, which released in April 2016. She was a news producer at CNN-IBN in New Delhi, India for 5 years.

Harry McCracken

As technology editor for Fast Company, Harry McCracken is based in San Francisco and spearheads coverage of major platforms, from the world’s largest tech companies to hot startups in emerging categories. His cover stories for the magazine have included profiles of Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Satya Nadella, and Marissa Mayer. He previously spent two years as an editor at large for Time magazine; was the founder of Technologizer, an award-winning website about personal technology; and served as editor in chief of PC World, the world’s largest computer magazine. McCracken is a winner of American Business Media’s Timothy White Award. He was honored as one of Min’s 21 Most Intriguing People and appeared on Folio’s Folio 40 list of media movers and shakers. TechRepublic said he was the #1 techie to follow on Twitter, and Kiplinger Personal Finance named him as best tech gadget guru. He’s appeared on CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The History Channel, and other media outlets and partnered with Dateline NBC for an investigation into PC repair. A graduate of Boston University, McCracken lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Marie.

Thomas Seymat

Thomas Seymat is one of the two current residential fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism. During his fellowship, he will develop a tool to gather research on how audiences respond to 360 videos and other VR content. Before coming to Missouri, he was the VR editor of Euronews where he led the implementation of an innovative immersive journalism workflow and orchestrated the production of 145+ 360°/VR experiences since June 2016. He also has trained journalists and spoken at conferences throughout Europe, and is an ambassador of the Journalism360 initiative.

Prior to this role, he supervised Euronews‘ live-blogs operations, produced data-visualisations, and reported on European news. He has received a journalism award from the European Commission in 2009.

Sarah Hill

Sarah Hill is the CEO of StoryUP XR and an interactive media tech professional with 25 years building successful platforms. Her company, StoryUP, makes “Heal-ium”, the world’s first mobile VR/AR channel controlled by a brain-computer interface. Hill is a former interactive TV news anchor/Journalist for the NBC, ABC, & CBS affiliates in Missouri. A national Edward R. Murrow, NAB Service to America, and 12 time mid-America Emmy award-winning storyteller, she spent decades reporting about the world’s negativity and trauma in 5 continents. She started working with AR filters during live TV newscasts in 2011. Hill creates with a variety of XR inputs including BCI, heart rate variability, and respiration trackers. She’s passionate about the transition of storytelling to ‘story living’ and XR’s effect on wellbeing. An alum of the Missouri School of Journalism and former adjunct faculty, her reporting has taken her team around the globe capturing stories about the human spirit in the Amazon, UAE, Congo, Guatemala, Zambia, and China.  StoryUP’s roots are in virtual travel for Veterans. In 2015, Hill’s team built a program called “Honor Everywhere”, that uses Virtual Reality to allow aging Veterans the opportunity to see their WWII, Vietnam, Korea, & Women’s Memorials.

Pete Pachal

Pete Pachal is Mashable’s Tech Editor and has been at the company since 2011. As Mashable’s lead voice on tech, he directs coverage on everything from smartphones to self-driving cars to social networks. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete has been a tech journalist for almost two decades, starting at Sound & Vision magazine, creating and running the tech blog DVICE (now part of Syfy Wire) for NBCUniversal, and serving as the News Director of PCMag. Pete has been featured on Fox News, The Today Show, Bloomberg, Fox Business, The Daily Show, CNN, CNBC, and CBC. Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King’s College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.