Webinar recording: XR Solutions for Businesses and Education in the New Normal

The Consulate General of Finland, together with the City of Helsinki and Kuittinen Consulting, hosted a Virtual Seminar showcasing virtual employee training projects and XR conference platforms by Finnish XR companies Zoan, 3DBear, 360Mediahouse, and Immersal on November 24th. Finnish XR expertise is making its way to New York also via new accelerator program by Microsoft and WarnerMedia in December 2020.

A bearded person wearing a VR headset and a safety reflector vest in the middle of a circular staircase
Image: Trying VR at Oodi Library, Helsinki. Jussi Hellsten / City of Helsinki

Finnish government has made a substantial investment in virtual reality industry over the past few years: Business Finland, the Finnish trade promotion organization, has funded dozens of VR startups. Among the most notable is Varjo(Link to another website.), which has created the most high definition VR visor in the world, utilizing technology that detects the direction of the eye.

Last year, we had the first Finnish XR accelerator in New York and two companies presenting their projects at the event were part of that program: Zoan(Link to another website.) and 3DBear(Link to another website.). Both of them have signed up important international customers over the past year, including the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum here in New York.

In November’s event, 360Mediahouse(Link to another website.) discussed its innovative cross-platform conference system. Zoan showcased two VR projects made for Finnair: safety training for flight personnel and ground personnel training simulator. 3DBear presented its online teacher coaching system already used by several New York schools. Immersal(Link to another website.) focused on its ambitious platform enabling sharing AR experiences in large spaces with a high number of simultaneous users.

The new Finnish accelerator program kicked off in December 2020 by Microsoft and WarnerMedia, both of whom have opened new XR Centers in Manhattan, offering a great opportunity for the Finnish XR industry to get up to speed with what the leading corporations in the space of XR are up to.  

Webinar Recording

Full recording of the webinar is available on the Embassy's YouTube(Link to another website.) channel. 

Agenda

Welcoming words

Webinar moderator Henrik Helin, CEO, 360Mediahouse

Opening remarks

2:06       Consul General of Finland in New York, Ambassador Mika Koskinen
4:47       Tero Kuittinen, Kuittinen Consulting

Companies present

6:30       360Mediahouse, Henrik Helin, CEO

16:23    Zoan, Antti Lähtevänoja, Head of Education, Global Sales & Business Development

24:51    3DBear, Mitch Weisburgh, COO, 3DBear US

35:26    Immersal, Anttoni Vesterinen, CEO

Microsoft Garage XR Accelerator Makeathon with Business Finland in December 2020

The Microsoft Garage XR Accelerator is in progress as a virtual event on MS Teams from December 7-18, 2020 in partnership with Business Finland(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) and hosted by Microsoft Garage(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)

The goal of the Microsoft Garage XR Accelerator Makeathon Program is to connect Business Finland startups to the New York City startup ecosystem, to provide exposure to the methods and means to grow their ventures, to introduce them to potential collaborators and partners, people and entities who are engaged in similar pursuits through the vehicle of a Makeathon.

The participating companies from Finland are: Anarky Labs(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window), Awesome Crowd(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)MeKiwi(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) and Sense of Space(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) and the Makeathon is hosted by Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky.

The intended result is that participants not only learn something but are able to move an idea forward that will help them with their startup. The virtual portion of the program in December 2020 includes a weeklong session hosted by Microsoft Garage, followed by a week hosted by Columbia Access Fund and WarnerMedia Innovation Lab.