Speaker Bio Matt Whitbourne is a Senior Inventor at IBM and European Manager of the Extreme Blue summer internship scheme, enabling top talent students to work for IBM on technical incubation projects. This recently led to Extreme Blue winning the award for 'Over 250 Employees, Best Short Term Placement' at the National Council for Work Experience Awards 2007-2008. Passionate about innovation, Matt is involved in numerous projects and schemes within IBM to ensure the best ideas can be taken from the grass roots of the company to drive business value. Recently he has also become involved in developing strategy for using virtual worlds as a means of engaging high calibre candidates in careers at IBM, and has delivered education sessions on the subject to students, academics and government representatives. For more information you can visit Matt's blog at mattwhitbourne.blogspot.com Session: Beyond the hype of Virtual Worlds: A Recruiters Guide With so much media attention regarding the use of Virtual Worlds, such as Second Life, as a potential platform for recruitment, what is the truth behind this new technology? Over-hyped media gimmick or the next evolution of the web? This sessions will explore how virtual worlds are being used by IBM and the industry as a whole to engage people in the job market, using real case studies, giving recruiters tips for running their own events and exploring the potential of what this technology may hold for the future. .