XR for Business

Any good XR startup needs someone to invest in their world-changing idea before they can start changing the world. The GFR Fund is one such investor group, and this one in particular has cultivated an impressive portfolio of XR up-and-comers. Managing partner Teppei Tsutsui drops by to share some of his investing strategies. Alan: Welcome to The XR for Business podcast with your host Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Teppei Tsutsui. For the past decade, Teppei has been the managing partner of the GFR Fund, and he’s led several key investments in acquisitions in Tokyo, including GREE’s acquisitions of open feet and Funzio. Teppei is currently leading the GFR Fund in San Francisco. You can learn more about the GFR Fund by visiting gfrfund.com. Teppei, welcome to the show, my friend. Teppei: Oh yeah. Thank you for having me here. Alan: It’s my absolute pleasure. You guys were one of the very first companies to start investing in the virtual and augmented and mixed reality s

We’ve had a lot of people from a lot of different industries on XR for Business, and many of them have espoused how much things are going to change when the world finally has a global 5G network to work on. Well, in today’s episode, we have one of the folks responsible for laying the groundwork for that network — Nokia’s Sandro Tavares — on to talk about how that’s coming along. Alan: Thank you for joining the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Sandro Tavares, and Sandro is with Nokia. He has more than 20 years of international experience in the telecoms industry, with the past 18 working with the Nokia family of companies. He’s had several key roles that have been integral in shaping the latest evolution steps in the mobile industry and communicating these advances to Nokia service provider customers around the world. He is currently the Head of Mobile Networks Marketing, a position in which he leads a global team foc

Getting started in AR marketing and virtual try-ons can be tricky for enterprise, especially if — like Walmart or Amazon — you’ve got hundreds of thousands of products to model and host. Or, it could be easy, with the help of services like Seek, which hosts 3D content like YouTube hosts videos. CEO and founder Jon Cheney drops in to share the details. Oh, and Alan gets a spaceship. Alan: Thanks for joining the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Jon Cheney from Seek XR. I’m really, really excited to have Jon on the show. We traveled all through China together, pitching to rooms full of Chinese investors. And it’s been an amazing experience. Jon is the CEO and founder of Seek. They’re a leading provider of web-based augmented reality for e-commerce brands. I just found this out about him: he’s a composer as well, for films. SeekView is his web-based product built for e-commerce brands. They’ve won several busine

Chemistry is a tough subject. You could memorize the periodic table left and right, but it can still be hard to actually picture what’s going on at the microscopic level when atoms collide. Director of Business Development for MEL Science, Kai Liang, says that’s the beauty of their VR chemistry kits – it brings the learner down to the atomic scale to see it for themselves. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Kai Liang. He is an amazing global world-trotter, travelling around the world promoting virtual and augmented reality for education. He’s a deep expert and practitioner of VR and AR education and industrial solutions in the global marketplace. He’s currently the acting director in a number of different companies, including world-class VR education content company MEL Science as their director of business development, leading VR education company Smart Stone Technologies, and the co-founder and VP of a leadi

If you want to master something, teach it.” That’s the old adage, and at Circuit Stream, the thinking is teaching XR helps you develop better solutions, too. Founder and CEO Lou Pushelberg created Circuit Stream courses to give companies the power to educate and empower themselves, and just make the whole XR ecosystem stronger. Alan: You’re listening to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Lou Pushelberg, founder and CEO of Circuit Stream. Circuit Stream’s story began in 2015 with Lou traveling around North America, connecting with developers, designers, and creators, pushing the boundaries of immersive experiences. Rather than try to build the next big application like everyone else, Lou saw a bigger need for education and training that could help propel the industry forward. From this journey, Circuit Stream’s 10-week online course emerged. Their education platform has reached over 25,000 students. They’re a Unity authorized t

Regular listeners know that folks like Alan and his guests attend a number of XR-related conventions, events, and symposia. Well, one — VR Days in Amsterdam — is right around the corner! Festival director Benjamin de Wit drops in to talk a little bit about what there will be to see — and what attendees can expect to take away — from this year’s lustrum shindig. Alan: My name’s Alan Smithson. In today’s show, we speak with the one and only Benjamin De Wit, founder and co-producer of VR Days Amsterdam, celebrating their fifth anniversary. All this and more on the XR for Business Podcast. VR Days is a three-day conference and exhibition on virtual, augmented, and mixed reality content, creativity, and innovation, running from November 13th to 15th in Amsterdam. Today, we discuss the speakers, exhibitors, and festival that make up the most incredible event known as VR Days. Benjamin, welcome to the show, my friend. Benjamin: Well, thanks for having me, Alan

Ask someone with enough experience with 360 filmmaking (like Alan), and they’ll tell you — it’s not always been a user-friendly undertaking. From exporting to editing, making great 360 content could definitely be a chore. Insta360 Marketing Director Michael Shabun visits the podcast to explain how their products try to make the process seamless for all 360 filmmakers. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Michael Shabun from Insta360. He’s the marketing director of Insta360 and leads North American marketing strategy, partnerships and communication efforts. Michael specializes in helping overseas brands build their presence in North America. Previously to joining Insta360, Michael led the Business Development Team for DJI — that’s the crazy drone company in North America — where he was instrumental in moving the company into the public spotlight through a series of strategic partnerships with entertai

In the late 19th century, Eadweard Muybridge – to win a bet – took several pictures of a horse in motion, and in the process, basically invented film. It was a brand new way to experience media, and it changed the world. Radiant Images hopes to do the same with an investment in 360 video production, and VP Michael Mansouri drops in to explain how. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Michael Mansouri, co-founder and vice president of Radiant Images. Michael is known as one of the industry’s most knowledgeable, inventive, and passionate technologists. Born into a family of filmmakers, he has produced and directed several high impact documentaries, most recently for the United Nations Geneva Summit for Human Rights. His documentaries help raise awareness of human and animal rights violations around the world, to provide a voice for the voiceless. He’s been always interested in the overlap of film and technology, so he c

Paul Travers has been in the XR business long enough to remember the early headsets, which were not exactly elegant in design – he describes one of his early models as a football helmet. But today, Vuzix has managed to shrink a ton of XR potential into sleek, sexy sunglasses that would look good on any goth noir vampire slayer. He chats with Alan about the advantages of svelte headsets, from military applications to making driving safer. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Paul Travers. Paul is the founder of Vuzix and has served as the president and chief executive officer since 1997. Prior to the formation of Vuzix, Mr. Travers founded both e-Tek Labs and Forte Technologies Inc. He has been a driving force towards the development of products in the consumer market. With more than 25 years experience in consumer electronics field and 15 years experience in virtual reality and virtual display fields, he is a nationally recognized indu

Nuclear energy is no joke, and to train to work in the field can be risky and costly… unless you’re training in a virtual environment. That’s the kind of technology Shachar “Vice” Weis, co-founder of VRAL, has been developing for the last several years. Alan and Vice discuss the pros and…well, are there really any cons to non-radioactive training simulations? Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is a great friend, Shachar “Vice” Weis. He’s a software developer with 25 years experience. He’s worked in many fields and disciplines, from ancient mainframes to tiny system-on-chip units. Vice has extensive experience with 3D frameworks, game development, robotics, UX design, and automation. He has broad the R&D experience from managing an R&D in a startup environment, to developing enterprise solutions in HP Labs and leading an R&D team in the Israeli Navy Computer Center. Vice’s worke

If YouTube is the world’s compendium of videos of cute cats and unboxings, then the Sketchfab platform is well on its way to becoming the equivalent cultural database of user-generated 3D objects. CEO Alban Denoyel discusses the origins and the future of the service with Alan in this episode. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Alvin Denyuel– I screwed it up already. How do I say it? Alban: “Deh-Noh-Yell.” Alan: “Denoyel,” OK. Today’s guest is Alban Denoyel from Sketchfab, the world’s largest platform to publish and find 3D content online. Imagine it’s like the YouTube for 3D. Prior to Sketchfab, he worked for four years in the 2D world of photography. He loves making 3D content with photogrammetry or VR sculpting. He’s a graduate from the ESSEC Business School in Paris, France. If you want to learn more about the wonderful work they’re doing, you can visit sketchfab.com. Alban

Thanks to the power of computer technology, you can browse the contents of a book you might like to buy online, without ever touching a physical copy of it until it’s already been bought and delivered. Wouldn’t it be neat if you could do that, but with real estate that doesn’t even exist yet? Recent Auggie winner Emily Olman thinks so, and she drops by to tell Alan all about how volumetric capture and photogrammetry will make that possible. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is a great friend of mine, Emily Olman, CEO and co-founder of SpatialFirst, a prop tech startup and creators of PlaceTime, a mobile immersive property visualization application bringing spatial computing to real estate. Prior to this, Emily founded Hopscotch Interactive, a 3D VR marketing service company, to accelerate the adoption of new media and technology for property marketing using reality capture. She spent her career monetizing new media and deve

One of Alan’s favourite XR experiences was running into a room at the Royal York Hotel, filled with 200 people, all deathly silent and hooked into VR headsets. It may sound like a Matrix prequel, but it was actually a demo of PwC’s VR platform. Jeremy Dalton — the author of this anecdote — stops by to talk about mass VR technology. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Jeremy Dalton. Jeremy leads PwC’s Virtual and Augmented Reality Team, helping clients across all sectors understand, quantify and implement the benefits of virtual and augmented reality technology. As part of his mission to educate, connect, and inspire, he’s also a member of the World Economic Forum, Virtual and Augmented Reality Global Future Council, and sits on the Advisory Board of Immerse UK, a cross-sector network for businesses, research and educational organisations in the immersive technology industry. Jeremy is also an advisor for

It’s a bummer when you’re shopping for just the right item, but the store is out of stock, and the website only has a 300×300 jpeg to go by. Plattar’s platform is to help those retailers have digital twins ready in AR for their customers to experience, whether at home or in the shop. Founder and Aussie Rupert Deans braves the epic time difference to chat with Alan in Toronto about the platform’s goals. [Complete Transcript Coming Soon]

Alan, along with his wife Julie, are members of the VR/AR Association, and as such, one of the annual XR gatherings they look forward to most is the VR/AR Global Summit in Vancouver, which is just a few weeks away (Oct 31-Nov 2). Alan has the event’s executive producer, Anne-Marie Enns, on to talk about what attendees can expect on the show floor this year. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is a great friend of mine, Anne-Marie Enns, the executive producer of the VR/AR Global Summit, coming to Vancouver, Canada, October 31st to November 2nd. And I am super excited to announce that both my wife Julie and myself will be speakers at it, and it’s hosted by the VR/AR Association, which we are also members. She’s served as the executive producer for the show for two years and previously was the producer of the CVR, the Consumer VR Show, also hosted in Vancouver. She’s the founder of Pulled In Productions, a live event produ

Regular listeners have heard plenty of stories from Alan’s numerous adventures at Augmented World Expo. In today’s episode, we go to the source of all those tales, with AWE’s co-founder and executive producer, Ori Inbar — just ahead of this year’s summit. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. I am super excited to have our next guest today, Ori Inbar. He’s a world leading expert in the field of augmented reality industry, and he has devoted the past decade to fostering the AR ecosystem as an entrepreneur, advisor, and investor. He’s the founder and managing partner for Super Ventures and the CEO of AugmentedReality.org, a nonprofit that produces Augmented World Expo, the top industry conference for AR since 2010. To learn more about what he’s doing, you can visit augmentedreality.org and awexr.com or superventures.com. Ori, welcome to the show, my friend. Ori: Thank you, Alan. It’s awesome to be here.

It wasn’t long ago that the concept of having a personal relationship with computers was the stuff of science fiction — everything from HAL 9000 to V’Ger posited a far-out future when that would start to happen. Well, according to Mike Pell — author of THE AGE OF SMART INFORMATION — that time is now. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is somebody absolutely spectacular. Mr. Mike Powell, he is the head of the Microsoft Garage and the author of “Age of Smart Information,” a new book about how artificial intelligence and spatial computing will transform the way we communicate forever. Find the latest on Mike at futuristic.com and excerpts from his new book, at theageofsmartinformation.com. Mike, welcome to the show. Mike: Thank you, Alan. My pleasure to be here. Alan: It’s so exciting. I was gifted your book actually by a good friend of mine, John Bizzell. And we had lunch and he’

Alan is always ready with an interesting XR anecdote or two on this podcast, but even he has a source for interesting XR tidbits. In today’s episode, he brings that source to him – XR journalist and consultant, Alice Bonasio. They end up chatting about the principles behind the idea that XR is an “empathy machine.” Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Alice Bonasio, the technology writer for Inside VR and AR. Alice is a technology writer/producer/consultant with a particular interest in the immersive space. Over the past 15 years, she’s combined a career in freelance journalism, contributing to outlets such as Wired, Quartz, Fast Company, Playboy, Upload VR, Ars Technica and many others. She’s advised a broad range of companies, from startups to major corporations on their communications and digital strategy. She’s currently the editor-in-chief of Tech Trends, a news and opinion website she founded i

Unlike in nature, ideas in enterprise don’t grow or perish by the laws of natural selection — survival of the fittest — but rather, which ideas are communicated and understood better at the early stages. But not every good idea is best expressed on a whiteboard. That’s why Gabe Paez developed The Wild — a digital collaborative space designed to help teams workshop designs and ideas in a VR environment. Alan: My name’s Alan Smithson, the host of the XR for Business Podcast, where we interview industry leaders in making technologies in virtual, augmented and mixed reality. And today’s guest is Gabe Paez. Gabe works at the intersection of engineering, design, and business. He’s the founder and CEO of The Wild, and immersive collaboration platform for teams to experience their work together, from anywhere in augmented and virtual reality. The Wild enables spatial design teams to ideate, review, share, and present in cross-platform XR from the same room or acr

All the world’s a stage, but in AR, that’s a stage we’re still building. Visualix is hard at work building that stage with their street mapping technology, which will one day help make everything from digital maps to Pokémon Go a whole lot better. Co-CEOs Michael Bucko and Darius Pajouh drop in to discuss their technology with Alan. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s episode is with two amazing people from a company called Visualix. Michael Bucko and Darius Pajouh are really, really passionate about analytics and teleinformatics. Michael is a CTO and co-CEO of Visualix and has a computer science/teleinformatics background, he worked as a data and software engineer and founded many companies before. At Visualix he does packaging, partnerships, and technology, as well as make sure that Visualix has the best tech team in the world. Darius, on the other hand, is the co-founder and also co-CEO. He studied physics with a specialty in no