Aubrey "Brey" Tucker of Autodesk appointed as Co-Chair of our AEC Industry Committee

We are pleased to appoint Aubrey "Brey" Tucker as Co-Chair of our VRARA AEC Committee.

Aubrey "Brey" Tucker is an Enabler, Technologist, International BIM Speaker, Author, University Lecturer, and Revit Expert with an extensive career with skyscrapers, hospitals, schools, airports and technology implementation for architects, engineers, and contractors. He's a Senior Industry Manager at Autodesk, where he focuses on the Project Delivery global strategy, Common Data Environments, BIM and ISO compliance and the data thread that ties many of Autodesk's cloud and desktop offerings together.

He's been using VR for a decade and AR since HoloLens; loves thinking about what the next immersive interfaces will be, and how design can be experienced digitally. His XR interests were a part of what got him on the corporate innovative technology team at Stantec where he investigated many potential business adoptions of emerging technology like data visualization from siloed data, quantum computing for transportation, AI-object recognition & inference, computational/automated design and many others.

Brey resides in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is additionally a part of the Detroit-Volterra Foundation, UBC SALA, CANBIM and BuildingSMART Canada.

“I’m really excited to rejoin the AEC Committee and be a part of the future of immersive technology implementation within the AECO industries. I love seeing where the innovation takes root and learning what the world is creating in this space. I hope to continue to develop the potential workflows for real-time design reviews, as-built interpretation and immersive decision making. Looking forward to another term with you all; see you at the next meeting!”

— Brey Tucker

Call for Participation! Submit your company for our Storytelling Report! Report to feature best immersive media companies

Submit your info to get featured in our Report here

The VR/AR storytelling industry sector is growing exponentially, as creation engines and game engines are improved to enable rapid immersive content development and delivery. Producers have utilized the COVID-19 pandemic to broaden immersive experiences in areas such as virtual theatre (e.g., ‘Finding Pandora X’), gamified live content (e.g., concerts in Roblox, Fortnite and League of Legends), and virtual location-based entertainment (LBE) (e.g., Metropolitan Museum, Krasner-Pollock House).

The entire VR/AR industry is essentially an exercise in “storytelling,” as virtual experiences deliver a grammar and a narrative structure for educating, informing, and entertaining users/customers/spectators/fans in new ways. The VR/AR storytelling industry is now poised to become a larger part of communications and advertising, edutainment, and enterprise collaboration. What were once utilitarian platforms for enterprise and industrial applications are now broadened to game play, requiring skill sets that are far beyond optical networking, GPU design, or display configurations.

Now, VR/AR storytelling embodies technologists who are as skilled in CAD/CAM, Unreal Engine/Unity, and Blender/Maya as they are in light field optics and field array components. This report will detail companies that embody production, story creation, post-production, transmedia, game development, branded content, advertising and communications, and a host of technical areas that enable the new world of storytelling across the broad VR/AR spectrum.

Deadline to Submit is Feb 19, 2021

Submit here

If interested to Sponsor, email info@thevrara.com

Virtually yours,

Chris Pfaff

VRARA Co-Chair, Storytelling

The United States will invest $11B USD into VR/AR, with a primary focus of military innovation. Get featured in our VRARA Defense & Intelligence Report!

Submit your info for our Report here!

“The United States will be investing as much as $11B USD by 2022 into virtual, augmented and mixed reality training systems, with extended reality becoming a primary focus of military innovation.”[1] 

Those in the Modeling & Simulation (M&S) community supporting Warfighters in the United States Military with training and operational solutions have witnessed some major shifts in the needs of the Department of Defense (DoD) over the past few years; the Covid-19 global pandemic has only accelerated these needs. 

The first is a shift from legacy technology that is outdated, expensive, immobile, and requires extensive time and funding to maintain, to the need for lighter, more agile technology that can be easily updated to remain relevant and deployed where and when the Warfighter needs it at a lower cost. This is where virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (extended reality, or XR, collectively) technology comes into play. We have seen the increase in XR technologies across industry events in recent years. 

The second shift is from the need for proprietary do-all platforms and programs, developed and run by a single defense contractor, to modern training systems with an ecosystem "toolbox" that the DoD can choose from, made of common building blocks that can integrate with each other into a modular, open systems architecture (MOSA). This openly innovative, collaborative XR training ecosystem requires a secure, digital infrastructure with open APIs/SDK that supports collaboration between companies as well as with the DoD to ensure these systems and the ecosystem as a whole are agile enough to adapt to the DoD’s evolving requirements. This need has been top of mind for DoD leaders reflected in recent US Military strategic documents.

“The U.S. Air Force must work differently with other Department of Defense stakeholders, Congress, and traditional and emerging industry partners to streamline processes and incentivize intelligent risk-taking in support of the warfighter and the Nation. Navigating the challenging times ahead requires effective collaboration among all stakeholders to acknowledge, balance, and share risk over time—now and into the future.”

— Gen. Charles Brown, Air Force Chief of Staff

Based on these shifts, I have a few predictions about the requirements and outcomes for future success of companies with XR products in the Defense sector:

• Optimize For All Users: The needs of the Warfighters must be considered as these emerging technologies are being designed and developed. This means ensuring that the user experience of the XR technology, both hardware and software, is flexible and optimized for all users. Gone are the days where technology that supported only military-aged males was good enough.

• Focus and Collaborate: Companies must continue to innovate, but with focus, to contribute the best products in their specialty, and then partner with other companies whose products are complimentary in support of a greater ecosystem. Whether your expertise lies in development of AR or VR apps, headsets, haptic gloves, AI models, instructional systems design support, etc., we predict that the most successful XR companies will be the ones that focus on what they do best and are able to collaborate well with others to provide even more optimal combined capabilities for the Warfighters.

• Create New Capabilities: Bringing all of these complimentary products and services from various companies together will create capabilities for Warfighters that would not be possible with stove-piped systems. For example, when AR and VR training apps are integrated with a secure, open, agnostic LMS platform via APIs, courses made up of multi-vendor, multi-media content can be curated, student performance data can be stored in a common data repository, and AI models can analyze this data to truly personalize learning, not just within applications, but across them.  

• Enable Rapid Innovation: This XR ecosystem of the future will include a common architecture, playbook, and open APIs, democratizing the ability to support immersive training creation and optimal use of XR technologies (e.g. using AR and VR to train different knowledge and skills as appropriate for optimal training effectiveness) so that Warfighter needs can be met at the speed of relevance.  

Ultimately, this ecosystem and pipeline of XR technology will support cutting edge training and operations and will adapt to the changing needs of the Warfighters because the companies and individuals with the best products who work closely with each other and with the DoD will rise to the top. It is certainly an exciting time to be in the XR field, especially in the Defense sector, and we at Dynepic look forward to working with many of you to Invent the Future! 

Don’t miss the opportunity to be featured in our report. Submit your info here!

Virtually yours,

Christina Padron

Director of Partnerships and Growth

Dynepic, Inc.

Open Call for Submissions: Defense & Intelligence Industry Sector Report

Submit here

You get to be featured in this report for free thanks to sponsorships from ARA and Dynepic!

Given the world’s current pandemic situation with the need for preparedness in a socially distanced world, it is imperative for our Defense and Intelligence community to have the tools to be able to deploy true-scale situational awareness, training and simulations at the time of need.

Our goal is to provide an in-depth report of immersive technology companies currently doing work in Defense & Intelligence that are able to meet the growing demands of M&S, visualization, collaboration, training solutions and beyond.

This report will be published on the VRARA and partner's sites and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K+ subs), Website (20K monthly visitors), at our next VR/AR Global Summit Online, and via our partners.

Submit here

Call for Sponsors for our VRARA Enterprise Forum in March 2021!

We expect 500+ executives from top vendors and end-users/brands, rapid presentations, sessions, and best-in-class online networking! Email info@thevrara.com for more info!

Call for Sponsors for our VRARA Healthcare Forum on Dec 16 (Online Event)

Register here

Email info@thevrara.com for sponsorship opportunities

ONLINE EVENT
Starts 12pm EST / 17:00 GMT

The VRARA Healthcare Forum brings together the best minds in the Virtual & Augmented Reality ecosystem in the medical sector! Meet the top vendors and end-users who are leading in this space!

In addition to presentations and demos, we will have the best-in-class online networking! We will have group networking, plus, a 1-on-1 networking area that will enable you to connect on video with all the Speakers & Sponsors and other executives attending, where you can preview each other's credentials and bio, and talk business!

We expect 200+ executives from leading vendors and top brands/end-users.

Confirmed end-users/brands include: Mayo Clinic among many others!

More info and Register here

Call for Sponsors and Submissions: Defense and Intelligence Industry Sector Report! Deadline to Submit is Jan 15

Submit here

For sponsorship opportunities, email info@thevrara.com

Given the world’s current pandemic situation with the need for preparedness in a socially distanced world, it is imperative for our Defense and Intelligence community to have the tools to be able to deploy true-scale situational awareness, training and simulations at the time of need.

Our goal is to provide an in-depth report of immersive technology companies currently doing work in Defense & Intelligence that are able to meet the growing demands of M&S, visualization, collaboration, training solutions and beyond.

This report will be published on the VRARA and partner's sites and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K+ subs), Website (20K monthly visitors), at our next VR/AR Global Summit Online, and via our partners.

Submit here

For Sponsorship opportunities, email info@thevrara.com

Deadline to Submit is January 15, 2020.

Tesla, UPS, Volkswagen confirmed for our VRARA Training Summit on Dec 3!

We are excited to share with you that the confirmed end-users/brands for our VRARA Training Summit include Tesla, UPS, Volkswagen among many others!

Our Summit will bring together the best minds in the VR/AR ecosystem in the Training sector! In addition to presentations and demos, we will have the best-in-class online networking! We will have group networking, plus, a 1-on-1 networking area that will enable you to connect on video with other executives, where you can preview each other's credentials and bio, and talk business!

We expect 300-800+ executives from leading vendors and top brands/end-users.

Register here

The VR/AR Association publishes an Education Report featuring over 70 companies and startups

Download report

VRARA Education Report 2020

Meet many of these companies at our VR/AR Global Summit ONLINE Sept 30-Oct 2

Foreword by 3D ORGANON

In this ever-changing world, it is urgent that we respond to the growing demand for a wider range of technology-enhanced curriculum. Eager to respond to this demand, we create3D Organon with the promise to continue to cultivate the dynamics for new learning paradigms and advanced medical education.

Based on our experience as qualified medical professionals, we can help healthcare focused audiences land on the best solutions to craft their own use case scenario and make the most out of edge virtual reality (VR) technologies.

Available in VirtualReality (VR), MixedReality (MR),Augmented Reality (AR), desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, 3DOrganon turns into the most advanced Extended Reality (XR) anatomy platform. Given that the world is witnessing one of the most pivotal moments in the last few decades the unhindered delivery of education seems to be more than imperative. We are ready to address the arising challenges regarding the new reality created due toCovid-19. This is a momentous occasion to overcome limitations and benefit from the high value potential enabled by virtual reality technologies.We can guarantee continuous delivery of healthcare education in safe environments in real time that suit both on-campus and remote users.

We have focused on driving anatomy to new levels and allow a broad spectrum of health professionals, practitioners, educators and learners to access our meaningful learning content from their own devices regardless of their location. By supporting various forms of online learning modalities we facilitate profound understanding of the functions of the human body, through an extensive knowledge-base of anatomical definitions and a plethora of highly-detailed 3Dmodels offered. Our app covers more than 10,000anatomical structures organized in 15 body systems, and over 550 detailed animations of body actions of muscles and organs all of which add significant value to the medical and healthcare education.

Users are free to toggle between body systems, view, review, hide or fade structures, run interactive clinical anatomy quizzes, self directed study, and communicate queries with text and voice chat systems. Under the circumstances enabled by immersive technologies, sessions facilitate deeper immersion, stronger memory imprints and longer retention.

Hundreds of prestigious institutions, such as universities, hospitals, military units, associations, museums, libraries, and high schools have entrusted our app to drive leaps in learning. 3DOrganon aims to bring the world closer. For this reason, its extensive knowledge-base of anatomical definitions is available in 15 languages: English, traditional and simplified Chinese, German, Italian, Spanish, Georgian,Polish,Portuguese, Latin (terminology), Russian, Ukrainian, French, Greek, and Thai.DeepQ, the healthcare department of the tech giant HTC and a strategic partner of3D Organon, has the exclusive distribution of the platform in the Asia region to turn the dream into concrete reality.

Despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, we can offer the requisite building blocks for optimized learning and training possibilities with minimized costs. A virtual reality ecosystem seems to be the safest conduit to predict a brighter outlook for medical education.

We had better not miss out on the opportunity.

Virtually,

Dr. Athanasios Raikos

CEO, 3DOrganon

Dr. Panagiota Kordali

Director, 3DOrganon

Dr. Sana Farid of Munfarid appointed Co-Chair of VRARA Healthcare Committee

We are thrilled to have Dr. Sana Farid, a General Surgeon, Co-Founder & CEO at Munfarid, President MENA Chapter, and Co-Chair Healthcare Committee to provide her thought-leadership to help accelerate the industry for us all.

Dr. Sana Farid is a zealous Healthcare provider, she is a General Surgeon, Educator, and strives to utilize Futuristic Technologies to improve Healthcare practices.

As a co-founder of Munfarid, Dr. Sana leads one of the pioneers and spearheading XR companies in the region. Munfarid is an elegant concoction of dedication and empowerment via disruptive intelligence. Discovering and implementing revolutionary Immersive applications for Educational, Training, and Healthcare industries.

Her ingenious vision led to the foundation of the VRARA MENA Chapter helping to expand, reach, and connect ingenious XR experts and enthusiasts.

At her new role as Co-Chair of the Healthcare Committee, Dr. Sana aspires to augment the scope of XR in patient care, impacts the lives of millions in developing countries, builds industry standards for XR in Healthcare, and make the world a better place.

“Immersive Tech, intelligent connectivity coupled with human interaction are opening new doors for major revolutions in the Healthcare industry, from hands-on training, clinical skills development, patient education, and awareness, as well as therapeutic uses. The future of healthcare is technology-oriented.

We are truly living in revolutionary times for healthcare thanks to the advent of digital health, and to drive such innovations, the VRAR Association is working incessantly, bringing the global XR communities closer together enabling a robust and fruitful interaction between like-minded entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts and a chance to learn and acquire knowledge from each other.

Our mission at the Healthcare committee will be to spread the knowledge and developments in healthcare which will usher the real era of the Healthcare industry” 

- Dr. Sana Farid

VRARA Healthcare Report 2020 featuring 50 companies and startups (Download Report)

Download report

Healthcare Report 2020 downloads

This Healthcare Industry Sector Report includes a wide range of companies and startups and the kinds of customers they serve, showing how impactful their VR and AR solutions have become to healthcare customers.

Given the world’s current pandemic situation where there are travel restrictions and the increased need for remote and virtual healthcare (i.e, virtual clinics), training and the reskilling of millions in the workforce, it is now more important than ever for companies to have healthcare ready, easy to deploy digital solutions. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have proven to show value within many critical healthcare verticals including training, surgery, wellbeing, etc.

There are plenty of other examples and predictions that demonstrate the importance of VR and AR to forward-thinking healthcare in the immediate future. Successful trials (and increasing number of deployments) of VR and AR in healthcare are getting the competitors of early adopters companies to start recognizing that they may be missing out on the real strategic advantage they can achieve.

Foreword by 4dmed.ltd

I picked up the phone and heard my long-time client Sam say, “How do I slow down the clients coming in? I can’t keep up!” As we know that this virus has forced us to stay at homes and medical students, doctors and trainees are not able to go to their respective places. It is not just about the medical field, this pandemic has affected all without any discrimination. During these hard times, we are providing efficient ways to train the healthcare professionals. 4DMEDLtd is medical software and medical device Development Company that designs interfaces for the health care education research.

With the help of this platform, you will pass through these tough times.We have used the VR technology to help the VR industry achieve its target of training people. 4DMED has created a library so that people can achieve best health program for their environment. Cloud has started two programs; one is to train the surgeons virtually via senior trainers and the other is to train junior trainees, nurses and medical students. 4DMED products includes a simulator which offers double screen feature to keep the trainees engaged and help them learn quickly.Complete surgeries can be practiced at increasing levels of difficulty, so that the trainees get all the experience. 4DMED has also designed a software suite of virtual reality for the medical training sector. It will help reduce the human error and will assist the VR industry.

This virtual reality platform created will help the seniors with improved mental health as well as physical health due to continuous movement of body while usingVR. Discussions among the seniors will provide residents with much useful information; which is necessary for a happy community.4DMED advanced software and hardware technology will help medical professionals to experience real life surgical simulation. VR headset and touch sensor helps the user to interact with virtual operation rooms. This real life experience fills the communication gap and also increases the decision making of the medical staff.

4DMEDoffers a wide range of simulator technologies depending up on the objectives of respective medical professional. This virtual technology creates a realistic training environment for the medical professionals. We are playing our part for the VR industry by using the virtual reality technology to teach different universities and colleges from around the globe. It includes universities of Canada, USA, Europe, Asia, and Middle East. The purpose of using this technology to assist people in training and making their lives normal during this rough time.AugmentedReality and Virtual Reality have proven to show value within many critical healthcare verticals including training, surgery, wellbeing, etc.

Dr Nevil Chimon

Director of 4DMed ltd

Foreword by Dark Slope

THE FUTURE OF LEARNING IS IMMERSIVE. This belief is at the core of Dark Slope’s Involve XR platform; a technology that has been built to empower instructors and training organizations to migrate their scenario training programs in to the virtual world.

It is impossible to ignore the ways our world has transformed seemingly overnight. Entire industries have had to contend with what we’re now referring to as our new reality. We’ve heard the phrases “pivot,” “adapt” and “innovate”more in the last four months than cumulatively over the past two years. Alongside this up heaval we have seen how the pandemic has single handedly accelerated the adoption of ‘emerging’ technologies like VR and AR. Most importantly we have caught a glimpse of how these technologies can play a critical and transformational role in up skilling today’s workforce and in training the next generation of health care workers.

Immersive learning will revolutionize how we train for high-risk jobs in the healthcare and safety fields, and how we most effectively arm doctors, nurses and first responders with critical skills best learned through practice. Dark Slope’s InvolveXR empowers training organizations to extend their offerings into VR and AR, allowing them to train remotely in live virtual classes with live ICU,ER, de-escalation, and other critical skill scenarios.

We recently announced our partnership withTheAmerican College of Chest Physicians(CHEST). Basedon CHEST’s curriculums we’re set to develop a complete virtual reality training program on intubation techniques and best practices that will be made available through our learning platform InvolveXR. Of course, airway procedures and intubation are topics at the forefront of critical care training right now, and we hope our technology can play a role in equipping critical care workers with skills and protocols they need to better combatCOVID-19.The training itself consists of live virtual scenario training, in fully immersive and interactive ICU environments with a trainer and other live learners present. Physicians and other critical care workers will engage with dynamic, team-based, true-to-life training scenarios on intubation procedures.

In this precarious time virtual simulation is emerging as a key pillar of support for healthcare workers, offering realistic experiences in safe, remote environments, effectively expediting the deployment of new skills and protocols, while reducing costs for simulation training. With all the healthcare industry challenges this year has brought, the responses to XR training has been reassuring. COVID-19 has underlined our belief in the massive potential of virtual learning and the ability to use these technologies to create amore skilled healthcare workforce, delivering better patient outcomes.

Raja Khanna

CEO, DarkSlope

Call for Participation in our Education Report for immersive solution. Call for Sponsors!

Submit here

Given the world’s current pandemic situation with school closures and the increased need for remote and virtual education (i.e, virtual classrooms), it is now more important than ever for companies to have education ready, easy to deploy digital solutions.

There are plenty of other examples and predictions that demonstrate the importance of VR and AR to forward-thinking education in the immediate future. Successful trials (and increasing number of deployments) of VR and AR in education are getting the competitors of early adopters companies to start recognizing that they may be missing out on the real strategic advantage they can achieve.

This report will be published in early Sept and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K+ subs), Website (20K monthly visitors), at our upcoming VR/AR Global Summit Online, and via our partners.

Submit your company and Education solution info here by Aug 20

LBX Immersive sponsors VRARA Education to produce a resource guide

We are thrilled to have LBX Immersive sponsor VRARA Education.

LBX Immersive is looking forward to working with our Education community in order to help highlight use cases and encourage innovation in education.

LBX Immersive believes we must improve access to VR and AR for both faculty, students and developers. As affordability continues to be a barrier to expanding VR and AR in research and in the classroom at both universities and in secondary schools.

LBX Immersive and VRARA will play a role in highlighting the current and potential role of VR/AR in education and publish and present a resource guide for educators, faculty, and developers to access grants, as well as strategies to bring this valuable resource into the classroom and other learning environments.

To get involved email info@thevrara.com

Submit your Immersive Healthcare Solutions for our Industry Report, sponsored by 4DMED

Submit your company/solution info here

Deadline Aug 11

It’s free to submit and feature your company & solution, thanks to the sponsorship from 4DMED

This Healthcare Industry Sector Report will include a wide range of companies and the kinds of customers they serve, showing how impactful their VR and AR solutions have become to healthcare customers.

Given the world’s current pandemic situation where there are travel restrictions and the increased need for remote and virtual healthcare (i.e, virtual clinics), training and the reskilling of millions in the workforce, it is now more important than ever for companies to have healthcare ready, easy to deploy digital solutions. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have proven to show value within many critical healthcare verticals including training, surgery, wellbeing, etc.

There are plenty of other examples and predictions that demonstrate the importance of VR and AR to forward-thinking healthcare in the immediate future. Successful trials (and increasing number of deployments) of VR and AR in healthcare are getting the competitors of early adopters companies to start recognizing that they may be missing out on the real strategic advantage they can achieve.

This report will be published in Aug and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K+ subs), Website (20K monthly visitors), at our upcoming VR/AR Global Summit Online, and via our partners.

Submit your company/solution info here by Aug 11

Dan Ayoub of Microsoft appointed Co-Chair of our Education Committee

Join our Education Online Meets here

We are thrilled to have Dan Ayoub Co-Chair our Education Committee and provide his thought-leadership to help accelerate the industry for us all.

Dan Ayoub is the General Manager for Education at Microsoft. He oversees the development and execution of products and strategy aimed at using groundbreaking technology to improve learning outcomes for students of all ages around the world, with a focus on STEM Education, Higher Education, AI, and AR/VR.

Dan has over 20 years of AAA game development experience, and is passionate about the power and importance of education and ensuring that technology remains accessible to every human being on the planet. Based out of Seattle, Dan leads a team of passionate developers and educators working to shape the future of educational technology.

“I am thrilled to take this role as Co-Chair of the Education Committee for the VR/AR Association.

Having spent years working in the space, I see everyday the transformational power of our medium on education and the potential it has to change lives through improving outcomes for learners around the world. I look forward to working with the Committee and the rest of the community to continue to learn, to help bring the power of this technology to more and more people, and to help drive development efforts in the space”

— Dan Ayoub

Next steps for VRARA Universities & Colleges Committee, and Welcome Jon Gress as Co-Chair

See the latest VR & AR solutions at our VR/AR Global Summit ONLINE Conference+Expo Sept 16-18

We are thrilled to announce Jon Gress (see bio below) as Co-Chair for our University & Colleges Committee. 

Join our next Online Meet on July 1st!

“I’m very excited about the amazing progress I’ve seen in the VRARA and all the incredible people, talent, events, meetings and developments. I’d be pleased to co-chair the Committee and look forward to helping the VRARA continue to lead these exciting new immersive technology industries to a future of excellence.”

— Jon Gress

Feel free to email Jon with your ideas for projects or research for the Committee.

About the Committee

This committee shares and creates best practices, guidelines, and call to actions for university curricula and research relating to VR and AR. We meet every month online (next Online Meet is July 1st) to present recent case studies, projects, research, and enable a forum to discuss common problems and solutions. We have published a Report that features over 40 institutions that teach VR/AR. Plus, the active participants get preference to speak at our chapter events and Global Summits.

Jon Gress Bio

Jon Gress is the Academic Director, The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School at Universal Studios, Orlando, FL

With over 30 years of experience in motion picture, visual effects, immersive media technologies & production, Jon Gress has been on the cutting edge of digital production technologies since their beginnings. He has trained thousands of filmmakers and visual effects artists from all over the world, who have gone on from his training to secure jobs in top visual effects companies and have worked on blockbuster movies and award winning television series including:

24, 47 Ronin, Almost Human, Ant Man, Assassin's Creed, Captain America, Conan The Barbarian, CSI, Die Hard, Dredd, Fringe, Game of Thrones, GI Joe, Godzilla, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Harry Potter, Hawaii Five-O, Hugo, Iron Man, James Bond, John Carter, Life of Pi, Lost, MIB 3, Mirror Mirror, Narnia, Need for Speed, Oblivion, Olympus Has Fallen, Oz, Pacific Rim, Pirates of the Caribbean, Riddick, RIPD, Serenity, Snow White and the Huntsman, Spiderman, Stolen, Superman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Terra Nova, The Avengers, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Expendables, The Fast and the Furious, The Great Gatsby, The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, The Hobbit, The Hulk, The Hunger Games, The Mechanic, The Twilight Saga, The Walking Dead, The Wolf of Wall Street, Thor, Titanic, Total Recall, Transformers, White House Down, Wolverine, X-Men, and many many more).

Jon is an active member of The Visual Effects Society, a published Pearson Higher Education author ("Digital Visual Effects & Compositing", the complete college curriculum textbook & instructor’s guide used in colleges all over the world), has been a regular writer/columnist for motion picture industry trade publications and has produced, directed and supervised hundreds of motion picture, television, VFX and cutting edge interactive multimedia & immersive productions (for institutions ranging from small independent to Fortune 100) since 1998.

Jon brings to The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School at Universal Studios, Orlando FL decades of expertise, research and development in cutting edge visualization technologies such as 3D Stereoscopic Imaging, 3D Photogrammetry, 360 & 180 VR photo/video, 3D motion tracking, capture & motion control, the integration of these into a the real-time visualization, VR, AR, MxR & Virtual Production development for Motion Pictures, Games, 3D Visual Effects and Fully Immersive Virtual Experiences.

Announcing new Leadership for VRARA Training Committee: Emily Smits (Canada), James Watson (Europe), Marlo Brooke (USA)

The VR/AR Association is thrilled to announce new co-chairs for our Training Committee. This committee creates best practices and guidelines for the VR/AR Training industry sector. The committee meets every 2 weeks online to present recent case studies, projects, research, and is forum to discuss common problems and solutions. Plus, the active participants get preference to speak at our chapter events and Global Summits.

The new c0-chairs are:

1. Emily Smits, Modest Tree (Canada)

2. James Watson, Immerse (Europe)

3. Marlo Brooke, AVATAR Partners (USA)

EMILY SMITS, COO, MODEST TREE

Emily Smits is the Chief Operating Office at Modest Tree, a Halifax software company that focuses on providing XR training for enterprise clients and is the creator of the Xplorer software for rapidly creating collaborative XR training and sales presentations. Modest Tree has worked with leading organizations to transform their customer sales and training through the use of virtual and augmented reality. Modest Tree is a North American Microsoft Mixed Reality Partner. 

Over the past 9 years, Emily has worked with the company through its continued growth, providing operational leadership.  Emily holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Laurentian University and is a designated accountant (CPA-CMA) and Project Management Professional (PMP).  Emily has been the Vice-Chair on the Digital Nova Scotia Board for the past 3 years  and is passionate about VR/AR technologies, bringing advanced digital solutions to the enterprise, and supporting entrepreneurship. 

JAMES WATSON, CMO, IMMERSE

James started his career in digital marketing and innovation over 20 years ago. The past 7 years he seen him work with companies including Major League Baseball, Shell, and DHL, to identify and deliver enterprise VR solutions. Currently, as Chief Marketing Officer at Immerse, he is working across industry sectors to help drive the adoption of enterprise VR training.

“Virtual Reality is enhancing human performance in ways that were once unthinkable. Today, it is transforming the way we learn, explore and interact. As a frontrunner in training and education, Immerse recognised this potential early and focused on developing an open platform to help companies increase their ROI from VR training.”

Immerse is the technology company behind the industry-leading virtual reality platform, Immerse VEP. Built for enterprise from the ground up, the platform helps companies create, scale and deploy VR training and maximise their ROI. 

Some of the world’s largest companies use Immerse VEP for training and assessment. They include firms as wide-ranging as Shell and GE Healthcare to DHL. While these companies come from a diverse mix of sectors and industries, they all have one thing in common: they recognise how VR training can increase their efficiency and want to extract the most value from it.

MARLO BROOKE, CEO, AVATAR PARTNERS

Founder & CEO of AVATAR Partners, Inc., an innovative woman-owned business serving Military and Commercial markets through the Extended Reality Ecosystem. AVATAR develops advanced Training Solutions and Software to improve Employee Safety, Corporate Profits and Drive Local, US-Based Business growth. Products include Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality productivity tools, Video and Interactive Multimedia Instruction (IMI) and Nex-Generation Visual Technical Manuals (NGVis). I am honored to lead the most talented, innovative team of employees in our industry, innovating cost-effective, practical, best-in-class solutions to our customers.

Call for Participation: Future of Work, Remote Collaboration, Remote Work (Enterprise Report). Report is already supported by RE'FLEKT

If you want to be featured in this report, fill out this form (deadline to submit is July 1st)

If you are interested to sponsor this report, email info@thevrara.com

THANK YOU to RE'FLEKT for already supporting our efforts with this report!

Given the world’s current pandemic situation where there are travel restrictions and the increased need for remote work, remote assistance, training and the reskilling of millions in the workforce, it is now more important than ever for companies to have enterprise ready, easy to deploy digital solutions. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have proven to show value within many critical enterprise verticals including manufacturing, architecture, engineering, construction, energy and the utilities sectors.

This report will cover the current global situation and how customers are deploying Enterprise solutions like remote assistance, guided workflows, remote collaboration, and training programs to improve productivity, reduce errors, increase learning retention, and decrease service resolution times.

The report will feature companies specializing in VR/AR for B2B Enterprise solutions. The report will be published in early Sept and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K emails), Website (20K monthly visitors), at our upcoming VR/AR Global Summit Online (10,000+ attendees) in Sept , and via our partners.

Our last Enterprise Report featured over 100 companies. See more and get a copy here