Humanity is on the verge of reconstructing mass production and communication, starting with the widespread use of the Internet. Smartphones, 3D printers, and now, virtual reality are adding to this momentum of changing the way we do things. As a society, we are encouraging individuality by supporting others to create and share their ideas with others around the world.

Virtual reality is an infinitely large stage where anything and everything is possible; Hypatia is but one particular medium. We at Timefire are creating more than just a game; we are offering a space where people choose what to do and create. It is from the power of our imaginations that we forge the tools, symbols, elements, and sounds that shape human culture.

In Hypatia, people will find an environment for exploring and creating all aspects of their potential. This ranges from music, art, education, mentoring, crafting, and exploration. In this virtual city we will not only be the creators but the curators of our emerging world of digital virtual art. Community, camaraderie, and creativity are imperative to Hypatia. We are relying on you, the players, to create the vast dynamics of this city’s culture.

We’ve all heard of the child prodigy who goes off to M.I.T. or Yale to explore their genius and earn a degree before they’re able to drive a car. On the other hand, there are those living in small towns or are cautious about allowing their children to roam the big city alone. So what do we do when we think our child could truly excel if only they, too, had the opportunity, were in the right place, or we had the resources?

We bring the mountain to us.

In a time of over-crowded public education, underfunded teachers, programs in the arts being cut, and rapidly advancing technologies that are driving the jobs of tomorrow, parents must make a choice on how they will give advantage to their children.

Hypatia will be that choice. We are the big city. We are the campus of the future where students will, in effect, be attending prep school for their university experience. In the space of Virtual Reality, humanity is going to build the cities and campuses of the future. Virtual Reality will be a place where culture, history, science, and community come alive.

It is most often the exploration and roaming of the world around us that lead curious minds to the hallowed halls of higher education, where one starts to truly encounter the luxury of finding knowledge. While most anyone can now attend college, the question remains: what will one do with their degree? It still holds true that specialized knowledge is a requirement to participate effectively in the workforce, but it is also now true that a broad spectrum of skills and social networking is essential to success.

In another age, many of us found our networking skills and social abilities on the streets where we grew up among our neighbors and throughout our community. These days, kids are driven everywhere, their days are managed, and their isolation can often be suffocating. One very important skill we are failing to learn is how to relate to a community and build a dialogue with those in our immediate vicinity, and yet it is becoming ever more obvious that we need a global reach in our hi-tech world.

Again, it will be in Hypatia and places like it where the social fabric of the community will be restored. Our local towns, cities, and states often cut off our exposure to the kind of communication and thinking that is driving job creation, which propels humanity forward. Like it or not, society evolves, and either we go with the flow, or we find ourselves trampled underfoot by the march of progress.

One of the goals of Timefire is to offer Hypatia as a tool to foster a new age of self-education. We are the spearhead of crowd-sourced teaching and learning. We predict that the United States must focus its attention on raising the intelligence and cognitive abilities of roughly 30% of our working-age population in the next 10-15 years in order to remain globally competitive. Our current education system may not be up to this herculean task. We must look to new methods that can catapult the minds of millions that have been allowed to lie fallow for far too long.

In the fall of 2015, 7.7 million adults over the age of 25 were attending university (NCES). What of the other 50+ million people who are falling behind the requirements of our modern workforce? Those working adults can neither afford the tuition, time away from family, or time away from their current low-paying jobs to participate in higher learning. This is where a radical experiment in immersive learning may point the way forward. In light of the glacial pace at which large systems bring change to society, we need a new system that can rapidly deliver results. We believe that Virtual Reality is that medium and teaching device.

Is our solution going to be a panacea? We can’t know with certainty but it is a serious step forward. Self-education through virtual reality will help a country right its listing ship against competitive countries in a battle for information.

William Shakespeare once said, “All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players.”

In his day, the majority of humanity experienced their stage from the perspective of the plot of land they farmed. A couple of hundred years later, the players found themselves in the cities where the stage was a factory floor. More recently, many of us found ourselves in some form of service industry performing for an audience of hungry and thirsty patrons who’d just come from a shopping spree at the mall.

The march of time, though, waits for no man or woman. Our stage is changing; it is transmogrifying.

With this change, our roles as players are going to once again be something quite different. This difference will be as significant to us as though Mr. Shakespeare had gone from witnessing his age to being teleported onto a jet flying from his merry-medieval England to 21st-century America from one day to the next.

Virtual Reality will be that disruptive. It is our new stage. And you are the player, the actor on that platform, an inhabitant of a new world. This alternative reality emerging from our imaginations is nothing less than a universe that will require our exploration. The difference with this age of discovery is that one need not be wealthy, an adventurer, or one of the lucky ones chosen to be an astronaut. All we must do is don a pair of VR glasses, have a powerful enough computer and download the app.

Some will say this will be an expensive proposition. Does anyone think it was cheap to go to the moon? Do you know that it typically costs more than $45,000 per person to go up Everest without a guarantee of reaching the top? Have you priced a penguin-watching trip in the Antarctic waters lately?

What is the value to us humans to see new things and have unimaginable experiences?

We are entering an age where almost anyone will be able to virtually participate in nearly any activity humans can dream of. The cost of entry is not free or cheap. But it’s never been free to enter the theater, eat a great meal, or travel the world. The difference is going to be that we are removing the barriers that have only allowed those of privilege to embark on humanity’s greatest adventures.

We recently had a question posed to us by @ExplorAVR in the Twitterverse regarding how we are tackling architecture theory for community building in Hypatia. Seems like a fair question that deserves more than a Tweet back, so here it is.

Before theory comes experience.

The founder of Timefire grew up in Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona, but went on to spend a decade in Europe before embarking on traveling the breadth of the United States. He pulls his inspiration from firsthand knowledge of the environments that define these lands. Forty years of observation and study formed the seed of what would be planted as the architectural cornerstone of Hypatia.

With life, we explore curiosity. From curiosity, knowledge can grow. Knowledge evolves until the wisps of wisdom alight our way.

From the historical decisions and serendipity that have built our most beloved cities to what is being written and talked about right now, these, too, are our architectural drivers. Hypatia is a reflection of what makes a city interesting and, hopefully, fun. We are taking heavy influence from the quaint corners that seem to universally delight travelers from around the world, such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice, Zurich, and Osaka, to name but a few.

Next up are the ten design principles for Livable Communities as identified by the American Institute of Architects: 1. Design on a Human Scale, 2. Provide Choices, 3. Encourage Mixed-Use Development, 4. Preserve Urban Centers, 5. Vary Transportation Options, 6. Build Vibrant Public Spaces, 7. Create a Neighborhood Identity, 8. Protect Environmental Resources, 9. Conserve Landscapes, 10. Design Matters.

But we alone are not the ultimate voice and curator of what drives humanity’s architectural curiosity, and so while we will have a heavy hand in the development of the first phase of Hypatia, this city will evolve, as cities do, with the help of others who contribute to the design and building of a community. Over time, even the sacred halls that were the foundation of our city will be torn down and replaced by the crush of progress.

Until that moment comes, though, we will encourage others to take inspiration from their influences and dreams to join us on the virtual canvas to paint a new reality. So grab your sketchbook, brush up on your Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei, Moshe Safdie, Zaha Hadid, and Tom Wright, then join us to create our virtual city from the shared vision of artists from around the globe.