Melbourne's X Media Lab will hold a conference August 10-12 at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image called “Digital Worlds: Social, Virtual, Mobile,” to showcase virtual worlds, social networks and mobile communities. The event will also feature a Professional Day, including the opportunity for designers of online worlds to nominate their own projects for consideration by professional mentors-- and there's a considerable list of mentors in attendance. From X Media Lab's site:

International Mentors include world renowned film-maker and co-founder of Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation, Shekhar Kapur (Director of “Elizabeth"); Dr David Liu, CEO of Beijing’s Cyber Recreation Development Corporation, and the world’s most ambitious virtual world project; Dale Herigstad, 4-time Emmy Award winner, including the first Interactive Emmy; Francisco Cordero, the General Manager of Bebo, the UK’s largest and fastest growing social networking site; Kamar Shah, Nokia’s world-wide head of Marketing; Kevin Anderson, the Head of Blogging and Interaction at The Guardian newspaper; Marcelino Ford-Livene, Head of Interactive Advertising for Intel’s Digital Home Group (Los Angeles); Director of London’s SMARTlabs, Lizbeth Goodman; Martha Ladly, for ten years the Editor and Producer at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Multimedia and now the Director of Toronto’s Mobile Experience Lab; Australian Film Commissioner Tom Kennedy; Telstra Big Pond’s General Manager of Innovation, Jason Romney; Liz Heller, Founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based marketing innovators Buzztone; Brian Gruber, Founder and CEO of Fora.tv; and Stuart Knight and Nicholas Dryden, the founders of Xtaster.com, the UK’s funkiest music community.

We are also deeply proud that the Lab will include a delegation of the Chairman, the Founder and CEO, and the VP Technology from the Cyber Recreation District in Beijing, the biggest digital media industry government investment in China.