New Hawaii Chapter of the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Association (VRARA) Launches

HONOLULU, HI - The Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Association (VRARA) is proud to announce the launch of its newest chapter in Hawaii.

"We are thrilled to be expanding the presence of VRARA in Hawaii and to be able to offer our members and interested parties in the state access to the resources and networking opportunities provided by the Association" said Jordan Oliver, Vice President (VP) of the VRARA Hawaii Chapter. "The virtual and augmented reality industry is rapidly growing, and we believe that Hawaii has the potential to be a leader in this field. We are excited to be a part of that growth and to support the development of this industry in the state."

"We are excited for this new chapter in Hawaii to tap into our global VRARA community of 60,000 professionals to support Hawaii's growing tech sector through knowledge sharing and key connections." said Kris Kolo, Global Executive Director of VRARA.

The Hawaii chapter will be led by: 

• Matthew King II, Managing Director of HEMexperiences.com, a VR and immersive experiences company, as Chapter President

• Jordan Oliver, Consultant and Esports Manager at HPU Esports Arena as 1st Chapter Vice President, and 

• Albert Fung as 2nd Chapter Vice President and VR Specialist.  

They will partner to promote the use of virtual and augmented reality technologies in various industries and sectors, such as education, healthcare, tourism, and entertainment. 

King shares, "I look forward to building our chapter goals which includes 

1. creating a powerful Hawaii eco-system to collaborate, network, and succeed;

2. provide an environment where members and invitees can confidentially share new ideas, meet potential supporters, users, investors, and connect universities directly with innovative industry allies;

3. and share the spirit of Aloha physically and digitally, from Hawaii to the World and beyond."

For more information about the VRARA Hawaii Chapter, please contact Hawaii@thevrara.com or visit  https://www.linkedin.com/company/vrara-hawaii-chapter.  

VRARA Hawaii Chapter - Launch Event

Date: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 

Time: 5:00 PM  9:00 PM

Host Location: HPU Esports Arena 

1 Aloha Tower Drive, Honolulu, HI 96813

To receive an invite to attend the launch event, please request online at

https://forms.gle/ss3hnEVFtvkr2scw9.

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About the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Association (VRARA)

The VRARA is a global organization that aims to promote the growth and development of the virtual and augmented reality industry. Founded in 2014, the organization has grown to include a diverse range of members from various industries and sectors, and has chapters around the world. The organization connects and collaborates with industry leaders working in the virtual and augmented reality space, globally.

Hawaii Chapter Executives

Matthew King II:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewkingii 

Jordan Oliver:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjoliver 

Albert Fung: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thealbertfung

SPONSORS

• https://hemexperiences.com 

• https://www.hpu.edu/esports/arena.htm

Innoactive Launches VR Training Visionary Roundtable

participating corporations…

TL:DR - On November 18, 2019, VR/AR Association Germany moderated a full day roundtable on Enterprise VR learning . Representatives from Transportation, Energy, Logistics and Aviation attended to better understand the challenges and benefits of scalable immersive training

First a Little Background

VR training for employees has numerous benefits which is convincing more and more companies to consider the technology as it evolves and awareness grows. However, Virtual Reality is still novel to most workplaces and therefore not as easily integrated into standard training procedures. Adopting VR comes with its challenges and hurdles just as regular innovation does. How can we fix this? Consequently, we have decided to help tackle this problem by uniting like-minded peers who are at the forefront of discussing VR in their organisation. Together with HTC and Unity and the support of VRARA, Innoactive has launched a platform for industry professionals which gives them the opportunity to exchange best practices. We decided to create our VR Training Visionary Roundtable

Structure of the Event

The main discussion is in the form of a classic roundtable which gathers a group of like minded visionaries from different industries. By doing so, we unite them to exchange about overcoming VR training adoption hurdles together. The moderated roundtables are designed to open a discussion amongst participants to help them overcome VR Adoption hurdles. These hurdles include difficulty with hardware roll out, content distribution and permissions, funding, workers safety issues and much more. As a result of listening and engaging with industry professionals, the community works together to solve these hurdles.

The Roundtable also incorporates “demo” sessions at the end of the event. During these sessions, participants can try out each other’s VR training solutions. As well as this, a dedicated Best Practices Instance on the Innoactive Hub aggregates the VR Trainings and allows all the Event Community members to access and try diverse applications.

One Final Thought

The next step of the VR Training Visionary Roundtable includes a workshop for storyboarding and calculating business cases. This gives participants the opportunity to get inspired before designing their next Virtual Reality training. In doing so participants can also learn new ways of estimating the value of a business case.

From VR Training Newbie to Rollout Master in 4 Days

https://www.vr-training-summit.innoactive.de/

Top Ten Announcements from this year's VR/AR Global Summit

Forbes has written that our Global Summit is “one of the year’s most anticipated conferences”. Well, having travelled to Vancouver for the 2nd edition this year I was just blown away. From attendees to speakers to exhibitors, this gathering lives up to our mission of educating, connecting and promoting our ecosystem!

So without further todo here is my Top Ten list of announcements at #VRARGS

1. Lenovo launches their developer program for ThinkReality and A6 headset with inaugural workshop.

2. While Niantic couldn't make it official at the Summit and only hinted at some big news, you can see the results of their first Beyond Reality Developer Contest

3. XRSI's Enterprise Level Information Security Framework for the XR domain coming in Q1 2020.

4. Launch of the VRARA Women’s Committee with DC Chapter VP Sophia Moshasha and Global Summit Producer extraordinaire Anne-Marie Enns to helm it.

5. The Vancouver office of Microsoft introduce their in-house on-the-job training application for Hololens 2 that is fully-integrated with their Dynamics 365 CRM/ERP platform.

6. EPIC & VRARA sign MoU for industry collaboration on immersive hardware standards and advisory mandates.

7. Cathy Hackl joins Aurea Award Jury for immersive tech entertainment award at Europa Park in January.

8. 6D.ai to launch AR Cloud app on iOS. Register for with Apple Testflight to get beta access already

9. 8th Wall launch a brand new WebAR cloud editor and hosting web app.

10. World Bank showcase their immersive safety initiative for Latin American schools. Image below, but not official online links yet…

Jimmy Vainstein from the World Bank onstage

Recap of Vancouver Chapter event, VR/MR Beyond Gaming

Another sold out Vancouver chapter event took place on February 23rd at the TELUS Garden Flex Space, provided by TELUS PureFibre Team.

This event, VR & Mixed Reality: Beyond Gaming, was focused around the practical usage of the technology and the ways we expect it to disrupt wide range of industries and in our daily lives. Kharis O’Connell, author of Designing For Mixed Reality, led the keynote speech on Practical MR/VR and Designing for the Future. He explored the possibilities of integrating mixed reality in businesses and our daily lives, as well as potential limitations and ethical boundaries.

Following the keynote, Kharis moderated the Fireside Discussion with five virtual and mixed reality experts including James Rout (Associate Vice-President of Education Support and Innovation at BCIT), Charla Pereira (Senior Interaction Designer at Microsoft), Wren Handman (Future Scribe at Hammer & Tusk), and David Gratton (CEO at Work at Play).

The rest of the night consisted of networking, bites and sips, and demos. Our attendees were immersed in four different demos from CognitiveVR, LNG Studios, LlamaZoo, and Build Direct. CognitiveVR showcased eye tracking VR analytics compatible with the new FOVE headset, and LNG Studios showcased GoogleEarth view for HTC Vive. LlamaZoo and BuildDirect showcased their demos on Microsoft HoloLens. LlamaZoo demonstrated mixed reality anatomy of a canine heart, whereas BuildDirect showcased a demo for interior designs.

We're proving that Vancouver has a huge appetite for VR/MR and is only growing. The chapter is excited about upcoming events as well as other initiatives that will help us to continue to cultivate Vancouver as a global VR/AR/MR hub.

A special thank-you to all of our sponsors who made this event possible: Entax Consulting, TELUS PureFibre, BCIT, Voyer Law.

Written by Laura Ryu

Photo Credits to Josue Pacheco @josuedev

Boeing, US Postal Service Inspector General and Aisle411 Talk the ROI of VR and AR for Enterprise

Boeing, the US Postal Service Inspector General and Aisle411 took the stage at the first VR/AR Association Chapter Event in St. Louis on February 11th. Nearly 100 attendees turned out to Venture Cafe to see live augmented reality and virtual reality demos, and hear from some of the leaders who are building and deploying solutions in the market.

John Chicoli who oversees training systems at Boeing discussed how his team is using the latest VR technology to save potentially millions of dollars, while at the same time enhancing training programs. The power of new VR technology allows Boeing to perform training exercises that previously costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and months to build, and now execute for hundreds of dollars and days to build. 

Lisa Nieman of the US Postal Service Inspector General discussed how their team is deploying augmented reality experiences to physical mail - which leads to more engagement and more sales for marketers. Ms. Nieman also showcased how the USPS is looking to leverage augmented reality for their workforce, with the implications potentially saving tens of millions of dollars annually.

Matthew Kulig of Aisle411 demonstrated some of the latest applications of Google's Project Tango technology and how brands and retailers are using the technology to create more engagement, more traffic to their aisles, better customer service, and ultimately more sales.   

Also attending the event were several new technology, design, university and journalism organizations that are transforming the VR and AR market. StoryUP VR, based in Columbia, MO was demo'ing some of their VR journalism, taking you on an emotional ride all over the globe through their immersive storytelling. The University of Missouri (MU) attended the event and is preparing to launch a VR lab to facilitate research and development coming out of the university. And new start-up MojiLab based in St. Louis, MO with recent funding from Cultivation Capital attended the event. Mojilab creates 2D, 3D and VR shortform content optimized for social media. Mojilab's technology has been used by the likes of Fast Company, and likely many more to come. 

Overall, the energy at the Chapter event was off the charts and I'm looking forward to our next St. Louis Chapter event in April -- stay tuned!

Below is the opening remarks presentation:

VR/AR Association - St. Louis Chapter Event - Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality from Nathan Pettyjohn