Case Summary

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sought to establish more direct interaction with public and private sector partners, citizens, and other members of the NIH community. Second Life, the virtual world filled with avatars, creates opportunities for members of the NIH community to become more accessible, laying the groundwork to strengthen intergovernmental interaction and virtual collaboration. They can leave messages, access information, or converse with someone from the agency—all while being immersed in the environment.

Business Challenge

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sought to establish more direct interaction with public and private sector partners, citizens, and other members of the NIH community. Continuous communication is critical to the NIH's mission of assisting the medical and scientific communities from around the world to improve health, save lives, and investigate ways to prevent, treat, and cure disease.

Approach Taken

The NIH chose to use Second Life, a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its "residents", to communicate directly with citizens, other government agencies, and private sector partners. Government organizations have begun using Second Life for citizen outreach and collaboration. This creates a new type of e-government merging both citizen outreach and function with the ability for anyone to talk to anyone else. The Second Life location, created to represent the NIH, is available for registered users to visit. Users can leave messages, access information, or converse with NIH representatives or other users within the network. NIH compliments these virtual meetings with face to face discussions making the community even more robust.

Results Achieved

Second Life, the virtual world filled with avatars, allows members of the NIH community to become more accessible and may provide the initial contact to strengthen intergovernmental interaction and virtual collaboration.