The v-Business Sandbox was built by members of IBM's virtual universe community. This is a 100% volunteer effort to develop a virtual world for the purpose of understanding how we can better assist and develop vritual worlds for business.

The Virtual Universe Community or VUC is a group consisting of over 5000 individuals across the world in IBM today.

Every IBMer that is present within any Virtual World or Virtual Universe must comply with the IBM Virtual World Guidelines.

The community is responsible for moving IBM into a range of new and profitable industries from the creation of Virtual World Cell Based Mainframes to 24 Hour Virtual Service Desks staffed by avatars around the globe.

History

The Virtual Universe Community was officially launched on September 12, 2006 in conjunction with the IBM Innovation Jam. This component of the Jam was a self-organized collaboration and brainstorming event and was referred to as a 3D Jam. 130 IBM employees collaborated on ideas in the virtual world of Second Life.

On November 14, now 400 members strong, the Virtual Universe Communities idea they had logged in the innovation Jam was voted number 1 out of 50,000 entries. The CEO of IBM Sam Palmisano and Irving Wladalsky-Berger presented the results in the world's first virtual town hall.

The community grew rapidly and was now close to 1000 members and a new organization was formed.  The community celebrated their first year anniversary on September 12, 2007, and today the VUC is over 5000 members strong.