The VR/AR Global Summit ONLINE took place June 2-4, uniting thousands of attendees across the VR/AR industry along with dozens of tech firms, over 300 speakers, and dozens of virtual booths.
Themed “The Time Is Now”, the summit featured hundreds of companies across verticals such as healthcare, defence, remote working, entertainment, education, and e-commerce, and others, at the fastest-growing event for extended, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (XR/AR/VR/MR) solutions.
Opening Statement on the XR Industry
Kris Kolo, Global Executive Director of the VR/AR Association, kicked off the event in an opening speech welcoming attendees, and noting the immense challenges and opportunities for VR/AR.
The summit later segued into a “Burning Questions” forum with some of the biggest names in the sector.
Tom Enrich, Vice-President at 8th Wall, Anne Aloha Ward, Futurist and Chief Executive Officer at CircleClick, Amy Peck, Chief Executive Officer at EndeavorVR, Lawrence Rosenthal, Partner and Creative Director at CubeXR LLC, and Alan Smithson, Co-Founder of MetaVRse, held panel discussions on the future of VR, AR, MR, and XR.
Mike Boland, Chief Executive and Chief Analyst at ARtillary Intelligence for AR Insider, moderated the forum talks.
The panel also touched numerous verticals such as non-fungible tokens, data security and privacy, AR technologies for retail and e-commerce, and other potential revenue opportunities, among others.
VR/AR and the Future of Defence
XR Today attended sessions with Sarah Garvis, Founder of Northrop Grumman’s HIDDEN system, who unveiled the US aerospace and defence firm’s latest military AR solution on Thursday.
HIDDEN combines massive advancements in AR headset designs, thermal imaging, and direct topographical scanning of battlefields streamed directly to headsets, allowing soldiers unrivaled detection and protection against opponents while in combat.
In a further session, John Cunningham, Head of Government Solutions at Unity Technologies, spoke with Robert Kleinhample, Vice-President of Immersive Technologies at SAIC on Thursday, on how game engine technologies could be used in immersive military training exercises.
Such immersive training solutions would allow soldiers to train in extensive sandboxed computer-generated reality (CGR) battlefields created with bespoke conditions and parametres, offering militaries unparalleled preparation for real-world combat conditions, Kleinhample explained to audiences.
When asked by XR Today about how the defence industry could keep up with training talented coders in the Unity platform, Mr Kleinhample explained companies like SAIC relied heavily on skill upscaling.
Further Information on the VR/AR Global Summit ONLINE
The massive summit featured brands and exhibitors such as Unity, Lenovo, IEEE, Healium, Librestream, and many other sponsors, many with their own virtual booths to liaise with attendees.
Execs from top tech firms across the industry such as Google, HP, Facebook, Bentley, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom and numerous others also held talks on the sector’s rapidly changing landscape.
One-to-one “speed networking” interactive meetings allowed guests to connect with global firms and their executives via five-minute interactive sessions.
Following the successes of the VR/AR Global Summit ONLINE, the VR/AR Association is set to launch a Fall 2021 European Edition of the event September 29 to October 1 this year, with similar groundbreaking attendees delivering their insights to the industry.
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