Nina Hoch joins VRARA's Thought-Leadership Team as Co-Chair of our Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee

We are thrilled to have Nina Hoch, CFA join our thought-leadership team and co-chair our Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee.

Nina Hoch, CFA is a Principal at Recalibrate XR, an immersive technology advisory firm. The goal of Recalibrate XR is to shape the future of work and education via adoption of the immersive technologies by: 

• Helping Corporate and Educational clients improve employee / student skills and engagement, increase sales/development, mitigate risks, reduce training time and costs, deepen global teaming and collaboration by selecting and implementing immersive technologies for their training and social interaction programs

• Strategic partnering with immersive technology companies to grow their business/revenue, optimize operations and strategic alliances, and position competitively with potential investors

• Providing XR marketplace research and relevant merger integration services

Nina is a successful executive with extensive background at the intersection of management consulting, financial services, technology, entrepreneurship, and training/education. In addition to her role at Recalibrate XR, she also serves as an adjunct professor at City University of New York College of Technology and a Chief of Staff at Recalibrate Capital, an investment firm focused on using technology in real estate investments. Her prior experience includes working with clients in capital markets, banking, insurance, life sciences, technology, and education sectors, at KPMG, Ernst & Young, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Nina earned her Master of Arts in Mathematics of Finance from Columbia University, Bachelor of Science from Long Island University. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and is a member of the Women’s Bond Club, a network for women executives.

Nina is passionate about future of work and healthcare, global education, diversity and inclusion initiatives and social causes like veterans’ mentoring, domestic violence prevention and healthcare charities. She was a speaker at several industry conferences, and will be releasing her XR podcast soon, so stay tuned!

Congrats to our Pitch Competition Winner: Perception Codes, makers of the Holo-SDK!

Hosted by our VRARA Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee, the winner of our Pitch Competition is Perception Codes!

Perception Codes is a deep tech company specializing in Desktop Augmented Reality (Desktop AR). Desktop AR is a technology, which enables your everyday 2D computers to display 3D contents with more realistic and immersive effects for users.

Come see Perception Codes present at our VR/AR Global Summit ONLINE Sept 29-Oct 1!

Call for Sponsors: Pitch Competition for Entrepreneurs

Our VRARA Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee is organizing a Pitch Competition for Entrepreneurs and we are seeking sponsors for a cash prize for the winning pitch/Entrepreneur!

If interested to sponsor, email info@thevrara.com asap

Also, our next Online Meet is July 13th. The topic will be "How to build a pitch deck" and we will announce and open up the application for the pitch competition.

Ryan Ramkhelawan appointed Co-Chair of our Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee

We are excited to add Ryan Ramkhelawan as a thought-leader to our Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee. Join our next Online Meet! Check schedule here.

Ryan is a serial startup founder turned venture development professional. After taking two medical device startups through FDA, market entrance, to scale and one to exit he joined Start Co. as Director of Acceleration in 2018 and was promoted to VP of Venture Development in 2020. He is responsible for early collaboration between startups and corporate partners in a variety of industries, internal & external business accelerators, innovation scouting services and teaching lean startup principles. Other areas of responsibilities include: development of new products and services, founder coaching / mentorship and networking between startup ecosystems across the globe.

In addition, he is an experienced medical device executive with over 15 years of clinical experience in perioperative services, organ transplantation and human tissue dissection. His business and clinical accomplishments allowed him to become a founding member of the Forbes Technology Council and a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council. Also, he received recognition as Top 40 Under 40 by the Memphis Business Journal and The National Vascular Recognition Award for the longest saphenous vein recovery without surgical error in the nation.

I am ecstatic to serve as Co-Chair of the Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee. I hope to contribute by bringing my experience as a startup founder and providing access to entrepreneurial resources to fellow Members of the VR/AR Association.  

- Ryan

VRARA welcomes Sean Hurwitz, Founder & CEO of PIXO VR as Co-Chair of Entrepreneurship Committee

Sean is a serial entrepreneur with decades of experience building businesses and successfully leading teams. Sean founded PIXO in 2009. In its early years, PIXO built groundbreaking digital entertainment for consumers, including one of the first mobile apps in the Apple iPad Store. As virtual reality hardware achieved viability, Sean recognized the power of XR technologies as training tools for enterprise. Assembling a team of award-winning artists, engineers, and AAA-game designers, Sean and PIXO VR have been innovating state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Training solutions since 2016, offering enterprise fully immersive and interactive learning experiences on a scalable, content distribution platform that’s easy to deploy, use, and manage.

“As Co-Chair of the Entrepreneurship Committee, my goal is to share with membership the practical lessons we at PIXO VR have learned about how to successfully implement VR Training solutions for enterprise use,” says Sean.

As a company, (like many VRARA members), PIXO VR spent significant time developing custom, proof-of-concept, VR Training projects for numerous reference customers, and while those projects delivered real value, they didn’t answer a fundamental question: “how does it scale?” PIXO VR is committed to assisting other developers and the larger enterprise VR community find viable paths forward for their products and services, and helping global business more efficiently and effectively leverage this revolutionary training tool to improve employee engagement and performance, reduce potentially costly errors, and cultivate workplace safety.

As co-chair, beyond sharing his own knowledge and insights on best practices to help other companies “cross the chasm” toward mainstream enterprise VR adoption, Sean also intends to listen and learn from the experiences of others who have endeavored to lead in this exciting and virtually limitless new world of human potential.

Participate in our Entrepreneurship Committee by emailing info@thevrara.com

Join us online March 8th for VR Fitness, Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing!

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**Anyone can attend, including non-VRARA Members! Email info@thevrara.com to be added to the web conferencing call**

If you are an Entrepreneur, Startup, or VC you should attend! This will be an online event via web conferencing on March 8th 1pm est.

Recent trend is many different VR Fitness startups. For this session Ryan Wang of Outpost Capital invited one of the VR Fitness startups to give a short presentation, and will do a Fireside Chat session followed by Q&A.

Ryan will interview Aaron Stantonis, a serial entrepreneur with great track record, founder of QuiVR, and has done lots of research into VR Fitness. He will give a presentation on the VR Fitness overview/landscape/trend.

This event is organized by our Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee that is creating best practices, guidelines, and call to actions for the VR/AR startup founders and venture capitalists community. Topics include but not limited to market trend, new technology development, go-to-market planning, fund raising strategy, etc.