Shengri La

Shengri La™  is the trademarked name Fashion Research Institute uses for its virtual world regions.  Currently, Fashion Research Institute maintains grid presence on four grids, including ScienceSim, the OpenSim-based grid hosted by Intel Corporation; InWorldz; FRI’s own OpenSim-based FashionableGrid™; and regions in Second Life.

Shengri La began as a research experiment in collaborative working space, to assist with communication between Fashion Research Institute and IBM Research during this official research agreement. Fashion Research Institute is focused on the $1.7 trillion apparel industry, and the Fashion Research Institute team continues to focus its efforts heavily in areas including fashion design education, fashion merchandising and marketing, and licensing of virtual content such as avatar apparel between grids.

The Shengri La regions in ScienceSim focus on performance development and testing, with large-scale, complex regions being provided as part of Fashion Research Institute’s official research agreement with Intel Labs.  These regions generate data, which Intel engineers analyze and evaluate and use as a test case against which new developments can be tested.  In addition, these regions serve as a test site for new educational explorations into new ways to use OpenSim for educational efforts, including connecting OpenSim-based regions to the existing  web 2.0-based content repositories such as Wikis.

The Shengri La regions in the Fashionable Grid are regions behind our firewall where FRI’s Black Dress Design Studio is sited, and where most of the work of design and development for both real life apparel, and virtual goods avatar apparel, occur. Increasingly, Fashion Research Institute is moving its educational efforts and explorations to this grid, which will server as the backbone of the coming diaspora of content creators.

Shengri La: Where dreams come true.