DigitalSpace Corporation Licensee/Member: Stuart Gold

STUART GOLD

Stuart graduated from the North London Polytechnic with a BSc and diploma in Architecture and became a member of the RIBA in 1980. Early in his career he became fascinated by computers and the completely illogical way they operate and mess with peoples' minds.

In the early 1980's Stuart worked at Cusdin Burden & Howitt (CBH) an architectural practice in London and soon began specializing in Computer Aided Design (CAD). He handled the drawing production of a number of large design projects including King Faisal Hospital in Saudi Arabia and Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge using two Tektronix 4081 mini-computers. Initial work was done using the Tektronix GFM software and subsequently CBH's drafting system which was developed in-house.

After many years of developing and using CAD systems (and especially after being reduced to tears waiting for Autocad to render a drawing on an IBM XT) he left mainstream architecture and CAD to found Info-Quest Ltd.

Info-Quest was primarily an information services company which initially contracted with British Telecom as an information provider for the Prestel Videotex system. At Info-Quest Stuart spent five years developing various systems to do wonderful things with Prestel which was an under-funded service and ultimately somewhat of an embarrassment to BT. Info-Quest clients included Datasolve, Securicor and the Rover Group as well as a number of marketing companies.

After seeing the writing on the wall, Stuart moved into the area of Database development and joined The Graphics Technology Group to work on applications with emphasis on database publishing. In 1989 he joined up with Julian Bauer to form Bauer Gold Associates Ltd where he continued developing database applications. Clients included General Portfolio, Thompsons, Institute of Brewing, Joint Israel Appeal and The Burton Group.

In 1996 he turned to the Internet and began specializing in the provision of data over the Web using back-end database technology. His early work in that area resulted in an early version of a Corporate Portal which he developed for the Chamber of Shipping for use internally and by its membership in the shipping industry.

Also in 1996 Stuart discovered Virtual Worlds technology, met Bruce Damer who was currently working on the Sherwood Forest project, and began collaborating with him on various projects under the umbrella of the Contact Consortium including an international architecture competition for TheU, a concept for a virtual university. Joining Bruce Damer's company Digitalspace in 1998, he worked on connecting the Activeworlds Virtual Worlds platform with a back-end database and developed a concept for an automated 3-d online conferencing system called the Virtual Discussion Room (VDR).

While working for DigitalSpace he designed the Avatars 98 virtual trade show world and developed an associated semi-automated booth production system which was a forerunner of the VDR. In 1999 he was involved in the design of Avatars 99 and organized the conference design team. Avatars 99 saw the introduction of the prototype VDR system that was used for all the speaker breakout sessions.

Also in 1999, together with Jeremy Smith, he designed a virtual HQ (VHQ) which was built by DM3D Studios for a Danish health insurance company which was featured on a CD published by City Visions of Sydney Exhibition Space and also in a college textbook Digital Media: An Introduction.

In 2000 Stuart began development of one of Digitalspace Commons' main products, MeetingPage which is now in the beta testing phase. This is a unique tool for showing real-time presence on the Web, turning a web page into a place for interaction with others, using simple and effective technology with no download or firewall issues. It also integrates Digitalspace's voice communication product TalkSpace™.

Until recently Stuart lived in London with his wife Danielle, their young son Ryan and Stuart's two grown up children . When in 2000 Danielle suggested they go live in the South West, Stuart was looking forward to living in Devon and having all those lovely cream teas. However it seems there was a misunderstanding as he now lives with Danielle and Ryan in Arizona where scones are made of sour dough and they have never heard of cream teas.