There is a range of membership levels defined in membership options from free social level participation to various levels of sponsor or partner participation. Sponsorship will be used to fund the resources provided to working groups at different levels of activity. IMA has three branches: Research, Development, and Working Group branches - each supports the others. Working together through intersections in science, technology, and innovation, IMA focuses on community. To see the relationship in a broad sense, take a look at this diagram:

Each member plays a role at IMA and benefits of membership include but are not limited to:

1. Opportunity to actively participate in the research and development of open source code projects.

    

2. Opportunity to actively participate in the development of IGI standards specification to facilitate the integration of Hypergrid (HG) capabilities of existing forks of Open Simulator code.

    

3. Opportunity to actively participate in the development of new safe, secure, production grade in-world virtual economy technology.

    

4. Opportunity to actively participate in community philanthropy associated with Creative Commons content.

    

5. Opportunity to actively exhibit at the annual IMA Expo at no cost – with the exception of social members who may exhibit for a fee. This is not an annual community conference. It is more like a trade show. At this event, members will have exhibit booths to showcase and/or present their latest activities. Expo attendance is free.

    

6. Opportunity to actively participate in research and development Working Groups in any category. 

    

7. Opportunity to conduct research under grant opportunities with or as non-profit organizations with IMA providing grant administration.

    

8. Opportunity to network community connections to get advice, raise profiles, benefit from positive influences, increase confidence, gain experience, and make new friends.

    

9. Opportunity to participate in broadening the market for virtual world technology through unifying efforts. Members can assist existing open source developers in updating their code to resolve: known security issues associated with intellectual property, HG travel, and grid asset/login security.

    

10. Opportunity to generate interest and participation in related research and development projects.

     

11. Opportunity to generate referrals/increased business or employment opportunities for members.

     

12. Opportunity to partner members to share in any IMA net profits which can then be used philanthropically by the members.

     

13. Opportunity to learn new ways of building, scripting, and world creation through members only seminars given by the top professionals in the Virtual World Community. We will also be teaching members about how to work with and implement Lean Six Sigma in all that we do.

     

14. Opportunity to help change the world in many positive ways through virtual worlds, virtual reality, and synthetic environment technologies.

Let's move the technology forward then build the Infinite Metaverse together. Join Us!