There’s strength in numbers and Joh Orengo knows that, as he’s one of the people behind XR Nation. XR Nation is the most important and biggest hub for extended reality (XR) related companies in the nordics. We interviewed Joh to see how the situation of extended reality is in Finland and internationally, what kind of cool stuff people can achieve with these new technologies and what’s in the future of XR Nation.
Tell us something about you
I’m a Puerto Rican living in Finland for 12 years now. I came here for university where I met my future wife and decided I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Now I’m the CEO and Founder of Spatial8. I’ve been part of the XR scene since 2018 when I joined the AR startup Grib. Before that I used to be an English teacher at the University of Helsinki for about 6 years but decided to switch careers. It was time for a new challenge. But for what I’m doing now ‘challenge’ is a bit of an understatement.
What does XR Nation do?
XR Nation is a modern business ecosystem of XR companies from across Europe. (It’s the auxiliary name for Spatial8). We offer consultation through workshops to help educate brands about the technology and how it might be able to help them meet their business goals. We then connect them with the best companies for content creation and other services and AR or VR products. We also run an internal market where ecosystem members can buy and sell their products and services, some of which are not offered publicly, to each other at member rates.
How many members do you have?
54. We’re the largest ecosystem of its kind in the Nordics, and once we hit 71, we’ll be the biggest in Europe.
What are some business cases that came out of the ecosystem?
We have a partnership with Telia to run their content creator ecosystem for their “AR by Telia” platform. A number of our business cases come from that pipeline. For example, one of our members, Make Helsinki (now Healthware International) created AR recipes for some of Valio’s dairy products. Another example is MeKiwi creating a fun face filter for a Finnish taxi company that wanted to promote the change of its phone number. Apart from the AR by Telia business cases, we have several municipalities approaching us to take part in various XR-related projects.
How’s the XR panorama in the Nordic countries and especially Finland?
Finland is an exciting place to be for XR. We have one of the best startup ecosystems in the world. There are active XR communities in Helsinki and other cities, like Jyväskylä and Oulu. Not only is Finland’s gaming ecosystem top notch but now we’re making a name with VR games like VRKiwi’s Cave Digger, one of the most popular games for the Oculus. We have a new photonics association and startups like Dispelix and, of course, Varjo pushing the limits of XR lenses and Mixed Reality headsets. AR companies make a lot of noise, too. Grib has won multiple awards for its 3D modelling software and Immersal was recently acquired by the Swedish company Hexagon for its mapping technology. Anarky Labs is also creating a revolutionary AR interface for professional drone pilots.
If we look at the rest of the Nordic-Baltic region there is also a lot I could say. Here is a snapshot. Flow’s popular VR meditation software utilizes Iceland’s nature as its backdrop. Norway has quality research and practical applications about immersive learning coming from local universities and the VRINN business cluster. Sweden has a heavy hitter in Vobling that’s part of the publicly listed entertainment conglomerate Bublar. Denmark is home of MeetinVR, one of the best virtual collaboration platforms out on the market today. Estonia’s Wolf3D has recently released a hub for its cool cross-platform avatars, and the EdTech startup Futuclass creates quality courses for teaching math and science in VR. Some XR, media, and gaming ecosystems joined together in Lithuania to improve business and innovation. Latvia also has a young and exciting XR community helmed by the founders of Overly, an experienced and creative AR company creating its own platform. I can go on, but then it wouldn’t be a snapshot. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of outstanding work coming out of the region.
Which field uses XR technology the most? Which ones will see an increase in XR use?
If we look at Augmented Reality, marketing and advertising is a good entry point for a brand to see how the technology can be used to attract customers and gain insights into their behavior. This could be the beginning of a broader “XR strategy”. A company like the dairy producer Valio, for example, who I mentioned earlier could also utilize ‘enterprise AR’ for maintenance and operations as well. While AR advertising might be the ‘low hanging fruit’, AR, especially as headsets improve, is really showing its capabilities and will continue to be used more and more in warehouses and factories and on the farms.
A place of great interest for us in particular is VR for learning and training. VR has been applied to training in the university and R&D setting for decades now. Entrepreneurs and creators should not only be aware of the foundations they are building on but also could avoid some wasteful mistakes by learning our history and getting to discuss with the early innovators, who are still very active in the field.
On top of that, we in the Nordics and in Europe more generally could benefit from learning about what our neighbors are up to as well. In XR Nation’s network alone there are three companies producing complementary 360/VR platforms that could be used for training. We don’t see that as a bad thing. What can be done in this situation and what role can Spatial8 play? We’d like to explore that. We believe the Nordics have a chance to really push ahead in VR training.
What kind of XR events are being held?
I’m the founder and co-organizer of AWE Nite Northern XR (previously known as AWE Nite Helsinki). It’s a branded meet-up under Augmented World Expo (AWE) designed to bring the XR communities in the Nordic-Baltic region (collectively known as ‘Northern XR’) closer together and showcase the companies coming out of the ecosystems. One of the meet-ups focused on XR for fashion. My business partner Teemu Ollilainen and I saw that there was so much interest in that topic that we decided to explore what we could do in the field.
I brought together two of that meetup’s participants, Olesja Hännikäinen and Krista Jäntti, and together we came up with Exthereal, the company behind an online conference that brings the XR and fashion worlds together. Our first event, which MeKiwi will be taking part in, will be early this December and sponsored by Accenture and Microsoft. More information about the event will be coming soon!
What goals do you have for the future of XR Nation?
We are currently changing brands to Spatial8. While we began with XR Nation, its community, and their AR and VR products and services, we aim to adapt that model for blockchain technology companies. We need to embrace the technology that could one day make us obsolete and learn how to adapt it wisely.
That is what ‘spatialate’ means, to improve something or solve problems through the judicious application of emerging technologies. And it doesn’t stop at Blockchain.
A data wing is also in the works. As part of that wing we hope to build stronger bridges to the AI ecosystems in Finland, the Nordics, and the rest of Europe. S8 also works with Kaira Clan as our gateway to the Finnish IoT ecosystem.
These are some examples of the emerging technologies and companies that we are bringing together to help better educate the market, solve business problems, and promote innovation.
In short, we want to spatialate the world.