Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

I consider my role much more part of the Training and Development industry, more than XR really. I’ve been working hard to provide my audience with the skills, knowledge and tools to help them become proficient and efficient in the jobs they do every day for about 20 years now. XR is an opportunity for me, a platform to deliver through a more current medium that is more engaging than other digital delivery options in the past. It’s my job to make sure I use it appropriately, with the right audience so that they actually LEARN something from the experience.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

The biggest challenge that I’ve encountered in the past several years is determining if one of these solutions is really the best solution for the audience and the content that needs to be shared/covered. There are a lot of requests for training and a lot of my requesters feel that this is the coolest way to deliver “information” and the most current tools to play with. So, it’s obvious to them what the best solution is for their need.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

 In my opinion, the most compelling cases are those that include an element of practice/practical application that can be simulated through multiple scenarios/scenes in a virtual environment.

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why?

 I think the biggest opportunity for XR growth lies in manufacturing and any other industry that relies primarily on manual/hands on labor. Because what they do on a daily basis can be practiced/simulated much better through a digital/virtual simulation. Other industries that rely much more in intangible soft skills aren’t as easily replicated consistently. I hope that makes sense. The hands on process can be represented much more consistently.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

 Because of the advances in the industry and the development of easy to use self-authoring tools, I am very much looking forward to exploring these options. With the structure of our business and the audience that we support, we are much better served using these self-authoring tools that yield a solution that can be published directly to our LMS, and accessed/used without the expense of additional hardware/headgear. I’m excited to see some of these new tools and get a look at the functionality to see which are most user friendly.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

In my role as the CEO of Cleanbox Technology, I have been able to provide insights into the how-tos of a successful immersive technology rollout and share solutions and innovation in smart tech hygiene. Cleanbox is in the relatively unique position of working across multiple business verticals, which gives us a line of sight into the progress and challenges of healthcare, automation, enterprise, entertainment and many other categories.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

The public's knowledge about VR is still quite nascent, and the majority of consumers have never tried a VR experience. Remember when VR/AR were buzzwords the first time? Then the second time? The rather limited experiences of those first few users STILL account for the majority of the average consumers knowledge of VR. This means that re-educating the consumer is one of the biggest challenges to the content developer and the corporate XR champion, alike.

LBVR remains important for the consumer market. One of the great opportunities provided by LBE (location-based entertainment) is the ability to create an experience not easily replicable at home, and most importantly, an experience that showcases the amazing capabilities of the technology. What I think should be at the forefront of strategy in the LBE space is that of delivering high quality content that also does something an alternative technology cannot. That should be the focus of a public-facing VR experience and if done well, that will drive consumer adoption.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

Growth in the healthcare sector represents an incredible opportunity for AR and VR technology. When a surgeon can improve their patient’s recovery rate and minimize opportunity for error; anesthesiologists can reduce the amount of drugs required during a procedure; and chronic pain patients have non-opioid alternatives showing definitive effectiveness, then this is no longer just “VR, AR, MR” technology: It’s now “TECH FOR GOOD.” And everyone wins, from the patient to the doctor to the person holding the purse strings.

AR/VR is being utilized in healthcare environments where hygiene is required and essential, including sports psychology, addiction therapy, pre/post-op surgical, and education.

While entertainment has been the low-hanging fruit of VR usage, I think that more broadly, healthcare, industrial, retail and government use of VR could very well drive the industry to the next level.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

VR-based training programs can help reduce training time and improve employee performance. 

What aspect of VRX 2020 are you most looking forward to?

Which technology and which use case

Adoption challenges and how companies are tracking

Case studies: healthcare, aerospace, DNA

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

My focus is on enterprise XR at scale. We work with companies on end-to-end deployment - scope, integration, hardware, software, middleware, data and resources for development. The goal is to create early PoC wins that move easily from pilot program to scale.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

There is not one clear obstacle, though things like form factor, ease of use and wide adoption are some of the largest contributing factors. This is an evolution – though we are seeing great strides in all these areas with all-in-ones, lighter weight wearables and slow and steady growth in device sales.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

The opportunities are endless depending on the innovation culture and risk profile of an individual company. For any company, it’s possible to deploy immersive training, collaboration, design and visualization tools with out of the box hardware today. For companies on the bleeding edge, we’re seeing advanced integrations with other emerging tech, including AI & blockchain.

From an industry standpoint, these 3 things will positively impact growth:

• Lightweight AIO (All in One) headsets, truly wearable AR glasses with extended field of view and true Mixed Reality. Hololens 1 to Hololens 2 is a great example of wearability and FOV evolution, Oculus’ Quest is a great example of a consumer AIO and HTC’s new XR Plate with pass through capability is moving us closer to mixed reality.
• Consumer fluency with non-gaming AR/VR applications – not a “killer app” – but a suite of useful, engaging tools for communication, creativity and learning. Consumers, after all, are also the workforce.
• The last piece of the puzzle is infrastructure - 5G, cloud/edge, remote/split rendering standards and advanced chipsets like Qualcomm’s XR2 already being put in place to enable spatial computing globally.

We are getting there!

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

Training/Learning – industrial, safety, soft skills and compliance as well as education

Collaboration – Remote meetings, infinite desktop, technical assistance

Design – multi-stakeholder design review, visualizations and iterations

These solutions are more horizontal – but as we look at specific verticals, the use cases multiply exponentially under each of these categories and more.

Which companies do you have your eye on for promising technological advancements in 2020?

There are too many to list! Without mentioning all the hardware companies, telcos, game engines and OEMs which are all working to advance XR, there are several other companies and startups that are contributing to the evolution of this tech:

6D.ai and Ubiquity6 for the AR Cloud

Mozilla Hubs, HTC SYNC, VR Collab MeetinVR and The Wild for collaboration

Neurable & NextMind for brain-computer interface

Labster, SAMALearning, Schell Games and ClassVR for learning

ElevateXR, Immersive Factory & Talespin for Training

Surgical Theatre, OssoVR, DeepstreamVR and Tripp are all working on medical XR solutions

This is by no means an extensive list – it barely scratches the surface. There are many incredible solutions that are already on the market

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

Artificial Intelligence!

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why?

Well, this may sound impossible, but there is no industry that cannot, and will not, be transformed by immersive technology.

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years?

We are still learning the many ways that XR can impact industry, but certainly training, collaboration and design will continue to positively impact large companies.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

I look forward to hearing from enterprise companies and solution providers how they have partnered to create workflow solutions. It’s also exciting to hear about successful deployments at scale and of course any data that supports the efficacy of XR programs.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

XR Immersive Enterprise has great content, excellent demos, but more importantly, it is a place where hardware manufacturers, solution providers and enterprise companies can come together and learn from one another. In this nascent industry, we are fortunate to have such passionate professionals willing to share their stories, challenges and wins for the greater advancement of the tech. I have not missed one of these events globally since my first event back in 2016!

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

I’m a vice-president at Unity and the studio head working out of Unity’s Montreal Office. I lead the development of authoring tools and other XR technologies, which today powers over 60 percent of all AR and VR content worldwide. 

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR? 

Today every enterprise company in the world uses VR, AR and MR, so our challenge at Unity is to ensure that we provide the best tools possible to anticipate and support companies’ needs. 

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level? 

Unity’s roots are in gaming and it’s an industry that will continue to come up with innovative ideas that are adopted across all industries. From an opportunity standpoint we’re already seeing Unity’s XR technology being adopted in ATM (Automotive, Transportation, Manufacturing), AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction), and Entertainment. 

I’m excited about the potential impact that 5G will have on XR. At the highest level, 5G presents two big improvements: low latency and higher throughput. Content will take less time to show up and we can download more content at the same time as we did with a 4G connection. Machine Learning is another big one, as it has the potential to drive computer vision so that the camera on your phone can recognize the world around you. Once this happens, our world will be transformed.

Lastly, I think making XR development easier will be a huge step in the industry. We actually have a piece of technology that we’re working on called Mixed and Augmented Reality Studio (MARS), which gives brands the power to build mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR) applications that intelligently interact with any real-world environment for a deeper sense of presence and context. We think this will be a game-changer. 

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR? 

There are so many amazing things being done across industries for enterprise. Volkswagen is using Unity to train over 10,000 employees in virtual reality, while the architectural firm, SHoP Architects is using our AEC product, Unity Reflect and its augmented reality features, to visualize and build a 73 story skyscraper in Brooklyn. 

Which companies do you have your eye on for promising technological advancements in 2020?

We’re seeing amazing work done by car companies like Audi and Lexus, as well as brands like Gensler, Arup and Skanska revolutionizing the architecture and construction industries. 

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be? 

At Unity, we’re excited to see what our creators do with the Mixed and Augmented Reality Studio (MARS), which gives brands the power to build mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR) applications that intelligently interact with any real-world environment for a deeper sense of presence and context. 

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why? 

It's always the case that XR is great for trying out or testing situations where mistakes are expensive or dangerous, or there's only once chance to get it right. This is why VR has been used in space travel since the 1980s. The same is true of manufacturing, automotive, and AEC today. For example, we see XR being used in automotive for design and manufacturing, reducing error, speeding up iteration time, and all the way through the customer journey to visualization and point of sale. Infinity has a life-sized version of its QX50 that potential buyers can customize. It’s much cheaper, faster, and more interesting than having to keep all color options in stock. SHoP Architects in Brooklyn is using Unity for visualizing what will be the tallest building in Brooklyn—again cheaper, faster, and better than any other medium out there.

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years? 

Throughout the entire product life cycle from design through manufacturing, marketing, and after-sales service.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition? 

It’s hard to pick one, but the individual case study presentations should be interesting and compelling. 

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

I’m interested to see first-hand what our creators are doing. We have so many customers individually speaking at XR Immersive Enterprise and it’s always exciting to hear what new ideas they have.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

- I work in learning design, and I’m exploring ways to use emerging tech to create more engaging, immersive, and innovative experiences. XR has been a big area of focus for me in the past year.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

- I see the industry rising to the next level when hobbyists can create customized XR experiences more effectively. Currently there are a few easy to use tools, but these have limitations that cannot be overcome without being a developer. The moment a fully fledged visual editor to develop XR experiences becomes mainstream, the industry will be much more accessible and the size of the talent pool will increase substantially.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

- Currently, the most compelling use cases to me for XR experiences are where the experience is either unsafe or expensive in real life. For example, introductory training on heavy machinery is an area where XR could thrive. Another compelling application is on demand content: imagine an Air Conditioner Technician who can access 3d models and animations that document troubleshooting processes for the exact model of air conditioner he or she is working on.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

- Visual scripting. Right now there are plenty of platforms that allow developers to build fully fledged XR experiences, but none of these are exactly intuitive or accessible for those who don’t know how to write code syntactically. However, once visual scripting becomes more powerful and mainstream, hobbyists will be much more capable of building custom applications. As more people begin developing these experiences and the community becomes more diverse, the level of innovation will naturally rise thanks to the diversity of thought and experiences of the creators.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

- I’m interested in seeing how other organizations are applying XR technology to impact their business. This knowledge will be huge when it comes to gaining executive buy in for initiative proposals.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry.

I’m Principal Analyst at SuperData, A Nielsen Company. We have provided market intelligence on both the consumer and enterprise side of the XR industry since the arrival of modern VR headsets. I’m involved in the creation of our market estimates and projections and help turn our data into actionable insights for industry stakeholders.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

On the consumer side of the market, early VR devices were either expensive and cumbersome or offered a compromised experience (e.g., Google Cardboard). The launch of robust standalone devices like the Oculus Quest finally started to fix this issue in 2019. 

In the enterprise, the main issue has been getting stakeholders to see the potential ROI that could come from adopting XR. Once companies get over the initial barrier, however, they’re likely to continue using XR and increase their investment going forward. 

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising?

Improvements in standalone devices are making XR feasible for a wider range of business use cases. For example, not every VR employee training program needs high-end PC headsets. It is becoming much easier to develop and deploy VR training solutions to greater numbers of employees than ever before.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

I’m interested in hearing about interesting new use cases for enterprise XR. What are the cutting-edge applications haven’t even considered yet?

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

I’m most looking forward to spending quality time meeting the people doing interesting things in the XR space. The focused nature of the event means any interaction is likely going to be a valuable one. 

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

My main job is consulting with companies about digital transformation, but I’ve also been writing about XR for Forbes for the past three years. In addition, I’ve written two books on the topic Metaverse (2017) and Convergence (2018). I’m an adjunct faculty member at Champan University in Orange, CA.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

The scale of change required.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

Enterprise XR is hitting an inflection point and the foundational pieces are falling into place, with training and simulation modules coming on line for a great number of verticals.

Knowledge capture and remote intelligence will also power the next generation of front line workers.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

There are so many. 

• Training and simulation. 
• Remote human experts and AI powered just-in-time knowledge (AI) transfer. 
• On the consumer side, we’re going to be seeing holographic light field technology coming to a vehicle near you.

Which companies do you have your eye on for promising technological advancements in 2020?

I would leave out too many if I tried to answer this question with any depth, but I will say I am grateful to Facebook and Microsoft for being all in and taking monumental risks on this new technology. Apple will surely make a significant contribution as well. There are a number of smaller companies making great strides. Snap IS mobile AR. I like what PTC is doing with digital transformation. And Magic Leap, which popularized the idea of spatial computing, deserves credit as well. Magic Leap has pivoted to enterprise and is tailoring its new 2021 spatial HMD to those needs.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

5G, along with what Qualcomm calls “Boundless XR,” which is a method for dual processing to increase speeds for mobile cloud based, or partially cloud based, VR.

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why?

Medicine, Aerospace, Automotive, Warehousing and Logistics, Plant Management, Maintenance (aftermarket), Pharma, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years?

Training and simulation, knowledge capture and digital transformation

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

Knowledge capture, Digital Transformation, Process Intelligence, Computer Vision, AI

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

Always great to reconnect with colleagues and meet new ones. People are the killer app ;) 

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

Our role in the industry is to help companies get even more value from their digital assets! Theorem Solutions have been in the world of 3D CAD since the 1990s helping our customers collaborate with their partners and supply chains through the exchange of their 3D CAD assets. With XR we are now taking this even further! With our extensive 3D CAD knowledge, and through leveraging our partnerships with all of the professional grade vendors (PTC, Siemens, Dassault Systèmes and Autodesk) we are now providing 3D solutions in Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality. We are helping our clients collaborate and get further value from their existing 3D CAD assets, but now in context, and at full-scale!

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

I think that the biggest challenges in the adoption of XR is understanding the value of XR, and knowing how to extract it. There are many businesses that feel they should be starting an XR project, but don’t know how to go about it. There are many options to consider, the first of which is doing something in-house or finding an expert partner. Even choosing a partner causes challenges; who is the right one? You must think about your long term plans before you start, as it is easy to get in to technical debt. Creating a one-off experience is great to achieve buy-in as it is tangible and the best way to get people enthused by XR is to try it and to see the value for yourself. But, this may come at the expenses of not being able to re-use what you created. At Theorem, we are both 3D CAD and device neutral. So, not only can we read all of your existing CAD assets and make them available to you in XR, we won’t force you to use one device over another; we will work immersively in VR and MR, and collaboratively at the same time, if you want! This is great if your plans, or use cases, change

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

The most compelling use cases right now are training and/or providing work instructions for complex tasks. At Theorem Solutions we have created 2 specific applications to assist here. Guides provides the ability to break apart an assembly at any level within the product tree and to author instructions on how to put it together, or take it apart, depending on what your requirement is. This can be used in conjunction with CAD overlay which will “snap” the 3D geometry to the physical product and then highlight on the product what you need to do next. These are real game-changers, particularly as the capability is so easily scalable. You can snap the geometry to any product that you have the 3D CAD for! Moreover, with Guides whilst you can use our authoring tool to write the instructions, if you have already done this in JT snapshots, or in a CREO sequence then we will read the source file, without any post processing!

Which companies do you have your eye on for promising technological advancements in 2020?

Most exciting piece of tech (now that we have it) is the Microsoft HoloLens 2. We have started to explore the new capabilities that this provides and it is exciting to see how other companies/people will start to exploit the power of the device. My favourite feature to date has to be that you are no longer tied to the “pinch” gesture of it’s predecessor. Being able to interact with the UI in a far more natural manner will truly unlock the potential of the device; it is so much more intuitive!

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years?

I think that the enterprise will first start to see benefits in using XR by providing training and/or providing detailed work instructions. It is a far more natural way to learn, as the information is provided to you in a way that reduces cognitive load; our brains like to see things represented in context to the natural environment, at full scale and in 3D; people are not computers! This means that your workforce can become more competent, much more quickly. Moreover, not only is it far more cost effective, but it is also safer too. If your business entails working in an environment where your staff might be at some level of risk, it is far better to ensure that they have done their learning in a safe environment. They will be far less likely to hurt themselves and/or damage your potentially expensive equipment/assets.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

My role is to spread the potential of XR technologies in the enterprise world. Since I joined Virtualware thirteen years ago, I’ve seen the evolution and growth of the industry from almost nothing to what it is today. Immersive technologies, specially VR, are mature enough to be part of companies’ day to day basis.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

I have seen the most innovative and real use cases in training, marketing and disease treatment. For instance, GE Hitachi is becoming more competitive by introducing large-scale collaborative VR simulators in their training programmes, Biogen International is enabling memorable customer experiences at congresses through multi-user VR or Kessler Foundation who is transforming neurorehabilitation research by using VR-based systems.

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why?

Automotive, Transportation, Aerospace or Energy industry as well as the Health sector, are facing important economic and regulatory challenges where they need to design and deliver their products in a safety, faster and better manner. XR technologies can really help them overcome these demands.

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years?

XR technologies are and will be impacting in companies’ competitivity. If you are able to bring out the best in your workers, design your products faster and better and engage your audience like never before, you are ready to overcome present and future challenges.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

I’m looking for people who really want to get themselves to the next level by introducing VR solutions in their daily basis. Don't wait any longer, VR is Now! Let’s build a business case and bring your vision to life so you can become a VR leader.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

I see myself as a creative thought leader within the XR industry. I have a diverse skill set that can allow me to create, educate and evangelize the progress of XR technology. I am a firm believer in innovation and willing to constantly learn and improve on all aspects of life and creative endeavors. I have a specific point of view on XR technology that can have an impact.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

The first challenge is the awareness of how XR is used within and outside the organization. We still have a gap in understanding that XR is no longer a novelty. In terms of Marketing, the second challenge is connecting VR or AR experiences to revenue. The results have been to use VR and AR to engage and immerse customers that result in a positive recognition of our company being a leader in new technology. Once ROI is figured out, I believe the adoption will rise significantly.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

In terms of VR, the idea of employee training has been in the forefront of our company. We can now put employees in virtual real life situations where they can complete tasks without the fear of making mistakes. When a mistake happens during their current job duties, the results can be very expensive. A virtual simulation can be repeated many times which helps them retain information, gain confidence and is memorable. The overall result will be more confident, trained, efficient, productive employees that are less prone to mistakes.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

I am interested to see what happens in the mobile industry with 5G wireless technology for mobile devices and wearables. If more data information can be streamed and transferred at a faster rates, XR content be even more engaging and complex.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

I am most interested in hearing about anything to do with the future of the XR industry. This would encompass hardware, software, trends and how investors see the industry. I am looking forward to how others come up with creative solutions with XR technology. 

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

Networking and sharing my experiences and expertise with others that have a passion for XR technology. My biggest hope is that someone in the audience can be impacted and inspired.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

My role at R²DataLabs is to build out an innovation ecosystem for Rolls-Royce. To identify technologies and companies that can have an impact on our business, both now, and in the future. As part of our Digital Transformation journey we need to embrace emerging technologies and work out how they can be applied to our business.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

The biggest challenges are also the biggest opportunities. The bridging of the “physical to digital” divide as I like to call it. Largely it is cultural, it is embracing something new, and in many cases something that may have been described as science fiction not very long ago. Technology and access to compute power enables us to do today what we could only have dreamed of yesterday.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

 I always look at how technology can be applied. Innovation is not always a big new idea, but how capabilities can be applied to existing challenges.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

 One of our (humans) biggest asset is our ability to visually see something and convert that into instructions our brain can act upon. But out ability to focus on a task, and do it repetitively is not. We are creative, we are good at taking in disparate pieces of information, processing it and acting on it. VR/AR/MR enables us to enhance our existing capabilities, and perhaps also offload some of our capabilities to machines.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

Portability and bandwidth (5G?)

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

Looking forward to discussions about how these technologies are being applied across industries and sharing examples and learnings.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

I work at the Simulator Program (http://simpeds.org) at Boston Children’s Hospital in the engineering department. Generally, we provide simulation based training programs to practicing clinicians, so they can stay current, learn new things, and practice medical procedures in a safe environment. We generally work with medical mannequins, live actors, and live action simulations.

My role is to help SIMPeds produce and procure VR training simulations, for exactly the same purpose. The first step is to create self-contained VR SIMS that allow clinicians to sharpen critical skills on their own time, without instructor support. The next will be implementing online multiuser simulations so we can deliver training SIMS at a distance. Also looking into AR as a means of extending the physical simulations we do. Lastly, I engage with the technical and medical communities to do our part in advancing the state of public and professional knowledge of training simulations in XR.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

Chicken and egg problem. We respond to requests from the clinicians, they don’t know XR well enough to ask for it, and until we show it to them, they won’t know. Working on outreach, but that’s difficult because they have no time. I can’t tell a nurse who is busy saving lives to come try a headset. At least not until s/he’s good and ready!

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

I’ll give just one category: VR is a powerful hypnotic usable for a range of psychological and even some physical therapies. It can be used to treat PTSD, ADHD, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and much more. You can even use it to distract children from some painful therapy.

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why?

Training and maintenance for all types of machinery in a range of industries. This is clearly visible in the talks and demonstrations at conferences like yours. VR has proven itself to be great for design and training with machinery starting with aerospace in the 80’s and well proven in the automobile industry of the 2000’s. VR training techniques have had a long time to develop and prove themselves. Now they are suddenly available to everyone, readily transferrable to training or maintenance of any type of machinery. Most exciting, many of the same principles developed in VR can be used in mixed reality or AR. Look at the work of “Scope AR” as a good example.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

Simply put, I want to see how other industries are getting good ROI from XR for training, then see how we might apply it to the medical training we do at the hospital. 

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

I work for a Biotech that, like most companies, is always looking for better ways of doing our work. Thus, it’s my responsibility to help my company find ways to use XR to improve our output. So far, that’s included scientific education, review of molecular structures, architecture, and multi-dimensional data visualization. We don’t take any use case for granted and if XR can improve it, I’m trying to get my company involved.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

I think the education gap of what the “point” of XR is still pretty large, and many people don’t take it seriously still. This is one of the bigger issues (though it has become much better recently). It is a pretty significant hurdle to get people to give it a try even if the use case is clear.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

The training opportunities for complex, dangerous, or costly tasks seem like the perfect place for XR. Simulating difficult or dangerous scenarios in a completely safe and controlled environment fits XR’s strengths and has clear cost savings and value added.

Which companies do you have your eye on for promising technological advancements in 2020?

I’m watching Nvidia after I read an article that they were working on cloud renderings of AR content and transmitting the data to glasses over 5G networks. That would be huge in making glasses lightweight and consumer-friendly. This will probably be more of a big deal when there are more accessible glasses on the market (Apple, perhaps?).

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

I can’t wait to see what everyone has been working on for the last year, and to hopefully catch some new use cases that I haven’t seen.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

I’m the Executive Director of the Augmented Reality Enterprise Alliance (AREA), the only global, membership-funded non-profit alliance dedicated to helping accelerate the adoption of Enterprise Augmented Reality (AR) by supporting the growth of a comprehensive ecosystem

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

The AREA only focuses on Enterprise AR and one of key strategic pillars the members are working on is overcoming barriers to AR adoption. The AREA has a number of committees focusing on:

• Marketing (promoting the AR industry)
• Research (funding and organizes research programs that are defined and agreed upon by its members)
• Human factors (Developing, evaluating and providing feedback and guidance about current HF principles, research protocols and methods)
• Safety (Identifies, classifies and prioritizes AR safety risks and develops risk reduction recommendations)
• Security (Identifies, classifies and prioritizes AR safety risks and develops risk reduction recommendations)
• Requirements (Defining and managing the global set of enterprise AR requirements)

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

There are many great opportunities and development for innovation but the important part is that the innovation creates benefits for the customers who buy the technology. It’s important, especially in the enterprise AR ecosystem, that there is a focus on return on investment (ROI).

The three things I would like to see is:

1. Improvements in wearable technology to really enable hands free working
2. Focus on solutions that overcome the barriers to adoption / make it easier to companies to deploy
3. Solutions that can offer more than one use case so reducing the cost of ownership for enterprises

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

In enterprise AR, two use cases are gaining most traction (mainly because of the clear ROI)

1. Remote Assistance – connecting to an expert to get support / help solve a problem
2. Step by step guidance – helping workers to efficiently complete complex tasks and support training of new staff

I’m also seeing a growing trend in collaboration use cases.

Which companies do you have your eye on for promising technological advancements in 2020?

The AREA is a neutral organisation and supports all technology and organisations in the AR ecosystem. I would like to see technological advancements in wearables (there are some excellent AREA members working in this space) and tracking technologies. Being able to recognise objects (without the need for AR trackers).

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

Can I name two 😊

IoT and AI – the AREA recently completed a research project about these complementary technologies and when the work well together then can provide real insight of ROI for enterprises.

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why?

I get asked this question a lot, and my honest answer is that I see growth in all industries as many of the use cases (problems) are similar. Many industries make and maintain products so remote assistance and step by step guidance is relevant to all.

The AREA has members in the Aerospace, Oil and Gas, Utilities, Healthcare and Pharma to name a few.

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years?

In many areas, improvements in design, manufacturing, maintenance, decommissioning will all benefit by using AR technology.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

Meeting new people and catching up with old friends. Helping to push the ecosystem forward

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

My role is to ensure that Thomson Reuters Learning adopts these advancing technologies to help us articulate an innovative learning methodology using changing media tools to meet the needs of today’s learner and learning models. In addition, I am looking to expand our digital learning capabilities through creative storytelling that breathes life into course curriculum through various technologies such as AR and VR.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

The biggest challenges I see currently is finding the right use case for your current business and how to scale that use case so that it can become a viable product.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/ MR industries what would it be?

Virtual Classrooms could help bring AR to the individual learner to enhance the learning experience. We are working with two companies to bring this experience to our learners. Brand3D has brought their 3D AR experiences to Kaltura to work inside the Virtual Classrooms. While the instructor controls the 3D model, the learner and the instructor can discuss a more detailed and robust element with the AR experience through the virtual classroom. In addition, the instructor can still continue to teach with power point, PDFs, images, videos and many other documents but now with an enhanced learning experience of AR. (see example of AR within the virtual classroom here)

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years?

XR will have the greatest effect on enterprises going forward by helping people understand complex topics and provide a more valuable learning experience. Employees will retain more of what they’ve learned and customers could be have a better understanding of the products they want to purchase.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

I’m really looking forward to discussing change management techniques and how to help our organization and customers understand the major benefits of using XR including knowledge retention.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

I’m very excited to meet and network with what I think is a growing community of innovators and people that are forward thinking.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

As part of my role, I lead design & strategy for the Wayfair consumer-facing 3D and AR experiences on App.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR? 

Usability and creating an intuitive experience that is not limited by technology. With XR not only are we defining new paradigms of interaction, but we're also blending the lines between physical & digital environments, creating a new transitional space and experiences that people are not accustomed to just yet. With the technology still evolving, it will take some time before we arrive at a place where there is a common language for interactions & transitions between the physical and digital mediums.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level? 

Design, design, and design. The one area that seems to have the most potential to help take this technology to the next level is experience design. I will expand on that with two examples below...

Mainstream adoption of the technology has been slow, one of the contributing factors is usability, or how intuitive and easy to use are the interactions with the technology be it the App or the experiences in the VR/AR headsets. We are blending the lines between physical and digital worlds, new language of interactions needs to be defined to create experiences and transition as the end-user switches between the two modes seamlessly so they can remain oriented. 

We also need to consider how we're defining the role of each of those modes and creating meaningful spatial interactions, i.e. when is it relevant to switch to XR vs. analogue or a mobile device or an "old fashioned" website? We need to consider the human experience and use technology in an intentional way for the biggest impact, and for what it would be most effective from a user experience perspective, understanding their needs, fears, & expectations.

With the introduction of AR glasses, we need to consider how that integrates into the everyday human experience. It is an exciting new innovation, but for designers, it comes with a responsibility of usability and ethics. For now I will keep with the theme of usability. The questions here are, how are we addressing usability, privacy, & accessibility issues. What is relevant content & interactions for the AR glasses vs. the other connected devices?...etc. For designers this is a very exciting time where we have an opportunity to truly augment the human experience as we keep the human-centric perspective in mind that connects the physical & digital worlds.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR? 

The most compelling use cases are always the ones where the technology is used in a relevant and meaningful way to solve a human problem, without getting in the way, and not for technology's sake but for the benefit of the end-user. VR is an immersive experience and we should consider the limitations it imposes on the end-user and their interactions within their physical space and with others. AR, on the other hand, is blended with the physical environment where we should think about the end-user interactions with their AR device, other connected devices, and their physical environment & context in which the person is using the technology. There are many good examples out there in retail, healthcare, gaming...etc. I will reference two use cases with my current employer Wayfair. 

We opened our first physical retail store back in August. With over 14 million products in our catalogue, you can imagine, there is no physical space large enough to fit all our products. We chose to leverage VR as a means to expand our physical footprint into the digital environment, allowing our customers to view products in VR, as well as design their dream room in Room Planner 3D, which they can then view in VR to get a sense of the scale and what it would feel like to live in that space.

The second example is our development of View in Room experience. One of the challenges of purchasing furniture online is getting a sense of the scale to understand if the item will fit in one's space. We leveraged AR to help our customers visualize the products in their space, to get a feel not only for the scale, but also for how it might look with other products they already have in their space.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be? 

I am very much looking forward to what we can do with AR glasses. Technology is most successful when it augments what we can do without getting in the way. AR glasses have the promise of bridging the gap between our physical and digital environments in a more natural way. Having to hold a mobile device to use AR is limiting and unnatural. Not to mention, we can only hold up that device to view AR for so long, our arms have limitations too. Using AR glasses will augment our everyday experiences with a layer or a veil we can choose to apply as needed, rather than a device that we have to hold in front of us. The possibilities we may dream are endless!

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why? 

I see opportunities for XR across most industries, just a matter of how we integrate the technology in a relevant and meaningful way for each use case. I don't see it from the perspective of the technology or industry, but more about the end-user and if it will add value to their life by leveraging this technology, whether as a means of accomplishing a task, finding their way, being entertained, connecting with others...etc.

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years? 

With continually growing user base, it will be great to start seeing the business impact XR can deliver through the differentiated experience and end-user value it provides.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition? 

How others are tackling the issue of security & privacy.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

Learning from all the different perspectives on the topic of XR, seeing how others are applying it, what challenges they face, and what new opportunities to consider.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

XR solutions architect, experience designer, product owner, and product evangelist for the first scaled VR deployment across a mid-tier supplier (2010).

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

People with no XR experience buying devices and hyping then failing delivery of capabilities seen in polished XR marketing videos. Harms perceptions of XR and damages the field's brand, which then has to be overcome by those of us creating practical solutions.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

First, OEMs not marketing solutions that would clearly be unsafe or satisfied by non-XR technologies (smart phone, smart watch, tablet, even standard desktop displays) with less friction. Second, the creation or emergence of an interface paradigm for XR devices similar to how Apple's multitouch paradigm for tablets and smart phones facilitated those devices becoming general purpose. Last, accelerated content creation. I think it was in an INDE podcast where a contributor summarized, "XR is three things: Hardware, software, and content." The first two are fairly mature. Content creation remains a significant barrier.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

Design for Manufacturability/Assembly analysis. Training.

Which companies do you have your eye on for promising technological advancements in 2020?

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Magic Leap. With quality, well-funded companies like DAQRI, ODG, Meta, and others going under or being acquired, it seems large companies (or small companies backed by large companies) is where advancements will emerge.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

AI, toward object recognition and real-time tracking to eliminate the UX friction and use case limitations of SLAM.

In which industry verticals do you see the biggest growth opportunities for XR? Why?

Consumer: Gaming, because China is making such big investments in that space.

Enterprise: Aerospace and Defense, because systems are large, complex, expensive, and low volume, making training and design analysis bigger problems.

Where do you see XR having the greatest effect on enterprises in the coming years?

Same as years past because we haven’t yet resolved these needs:

VR: Design analysis and new operator training.

AR/MR: Assembly and repair operations.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

Scaled XR deployments of any kind. Take a few seconds – you’ll only need a few – to consider all of the years of XR technology advancements versus the scaled XR deployments. It’s time to flip that ratio.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

Hearing other people’s stories.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

My role is one of practitioner and consultant. Half of my time is spent in consulting internal divisions in our manufacturing company with regards as to how problems they face might be addressed through the implementation of augmented and virtual reality. Secondly, I source and build and implement these solutions in to our training rooms, factories and operations.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

One of the biggest challenges I face is hesitancy to enterprise-class solutions. More stakeholders than I predicted are content with sub-standard, consumer-grade technology solutions that they attempt to use to solve problems. While some one-off, consumer solutions like FaceTime or videos can be of value the enterprise-ready solutions that we should take advantage of are far better suited for complex and varied use cases.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

Devices definitely have to mature. There are many consumer-like devices that are great for a classroom setting but cannot be used in a factory or industrial setting.

In your opinion, what are the most compelling use cases for VR and/or AR/MR?

Remote expert and workflow assistance are in huge demand. In manufacturing, machine up-time is key. Anything that helps maintenance and repairs in keeping machines running longer and get repaired faster will be key in my industry in the near future.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

IoT/connected-machinery is something that I look forward to capitalizing on soon. The ability to pull real-time machine data from the cloud to use in MR applications will help us out greatly.

What key topics are you most interested to find out more about at XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition?

The use of Web XR is a big one for me. How we can reduce the barriers of adoption for AR will be of importance to my efforts, and I believe, all of our efforts.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

In my role I don’t have a lot of other professionals to bounce ideas off of and find out what their experiences have been. Which vendors are performing, which platforms are excelling and which trends are advancing are all things I look forward to discussing with my peers across other enterprises.

Tell us a little more about your role in the XR industry

I am an XR evangelist that provides thought leadership around the application and implications of this technology both now and in the future from a business / customer (not sales) perspective.

In your line of work, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing in the adoption and use of VR/AR/MR?

Majority of solutions do not have enough enterprise features to work well within enterprise ecosystems and from a XR technology perspective there is still allot of learning to be done at the most senior levels of organizations.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and innovations arising? What three things do you think will take the industry onto the next level?

• Design Standards and more detailed work across the community on best practices in experience design.
• For AR simple, comfortable, enterprise ready, socially acceptable HMD’s.
• Plug and Play Content libraries and advancements in codeless authoring.

If you could name one complementary technology that will help grow the VR & AR/MR industries what would it be?

Machine Learning and AI.

What aspect of XR Immersive Enterprise: Global Online Edition are you most looking forward to?

I am really looking forward to networking and learning more about what is going well along with lessons learned from others implementing this technology