Starting the Open AR Cloud journey

Today on the 18th of October we are launching Open AR Cloud (OARC) at AWE EU in Münic.

In June 2018, a group of individuals from around the world came together at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) Conference in Santa Clara, sharing a dream and great sense of responsibility. A new wave of technology with the power to capture and combine “real” physical environments with digital content was poised to forever change the way people see and interact with the world and each other.

These new Mixed Reality experiences were clearly and quickly outgrowing the local, temporary AR experiences of the past, and it was clear that to reach their full potential, they would be increasingly powered by and reliant upon complex “Augmented Reality (AR) Cloud” infrastructure, a term coined by Ori Inbar, founder of AWE and Super Ventures in a blog post published in September, 2017.

Recognizing the potential of the AR Cloud, the individuals attending AWE were drawn together by a common sense of excitement and urgency as they sought to ensure it was on a trajectory towards improving our lives, the economy, and society while protecting individuals rights and privacy. They knew of the need to actively steer clear of the risks and dangers AR cloud solutions could pose if left to develop unchecked.. The group came to the consensus that they should form a new organization, Open AR Cloud, focused on creating a community with the goal of advancing the state of AR cloud technology while actively addressing its potential personal and societal issues.

What is the “AR Cloud” and why is it such a big deal?

The most fundamental function of AR Cloud technology is providing AR devices with their precise position and orientation relative to the physical world by matching what they observe through their cameras with a 1:1 scale representation of the world stored in the cloud.

• By doing this, AR Cloud services can provide a scaffolding for a new programmable space that is persistently attached to our three-dimensional surroundings, available to any user on any platform. It will allow us to “paint the world with data” and share virtual experiences that appear as if they exist in our physical reality.

This technology naturally extends beyond AR to domains such as autonomous vehicles, robots, and IOT but is likely to have its greatest impact as the next major platform for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) through AR devices blurring the line between real and virtual experiences.

Some of us see this as the beginning of a new era, opening up a shared programmable 3D layer over reality where humans can find new ways to explore, create, play, learn, work, share knowledge and express ourselves. Even though the technology is new, interacting with 3D space can feel much more natural to our innate capabilities than the flat screens and tablets we tie ourselves to.

Why is privacy a major concern?

AR Cloud location services provide their value by observing the surroundings of users and matching them with a 1:1 scale model stored in the cloud. There are several ways to achieve this, unfortunately, some methods could cause an extreme intrusion and violation of the privacy of any individual or place in the range of the devices’ sensors.

It is technically plausible that a service provider could design systems that can sense the identity, location, physical context, and behaviors of any individual in the sensor range of an AR device connected to the cloud. If such a service was used by a large percentage of people across the globe, the system could be capable of near total real-time 3D and auditory surveillance of every individual on the planet. The one in control of such a system could, in theory, automatically analyse the data in real-time and use it for any number of potentially terrifying purposes.

We find such a scenario totally unacceptable. Unchecked and wanton access to data on this scale should never be allowed to unfold, neither legally nor in practice, if we want to preserve our inalienable rights to privacy and freedom. Therefore, we have formulated a “Privacy Manifesto for AR Cloud Solutions”. The manifesto describes the principles we insist every actor operating within the AR sector stand behind and uphold.

It is only when everyone in the industry upholds and abides by these principles that we can expect individuals to feel safe when they or other individuals nearby make use of systems connected to the AR Cloud.

The trajectory towards AR Cloud solutions we would like to see

We believe the most effective antidote against harmful scenarios is to develop an open AR Cloud ecosystem together, based on open standards for interoperability, open source software, open data, open R&D and the respect for the privacy and dignity of every individual affected by this technology.

We are on the right track if the most frequently used parts of the future AR Cloud ecosystem are characterized by being open, accessible, transparent, truly interoperable, and providing distributed control of data. The ecosystem needs to be controlled by users, communities, and many small entities rather than being centralized and monopolized.

Working together to tackle some of the toughest technical and societal challenges will ensure we have enough rocket fuel to reach escape velocity and allow us to push beyond isolated and feeble attempts that have little to no impact. We believe this approach is the fastest way to develop AR Cloud to a level where the true potential of the technology can materialize. We hope our efforts will ensure this technology reaches as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and brings with it the amazing benefits we know it can offer.

Help shape the journey with us!

For this endeavor to reach its goals we need the talent, creativity, wisdom, resources, and hard work of dedicated people. If you are interested in taking part in this historic journey, then please join us!

Join us as a member, a contributor to a working group, partner organization or as a sponsor of projects, activities and events. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Founding Partners

AWE, AugmentedReality.org, Arvizio, Shape Immersive, Perey Research, PointMedia, ContextGrid, Ludenso, Norkart, SuperVentures, Verses, Xperiel, YOUar, Kartverket, ITS-Norway, AWE Company, Aromni, Open Geospatial Consortium, RA’pro, Imagine360, Hansel, Immersal, Gfi informatique, Geenee, XR First, XR Circles, IFE Institute for Energy Technology, ArCortex, WaypointAR, Stambol, Upcoming Media, IPKeys Technologies, You Are Here Labs, Arilyn, Kluarc, Atlatl Software

Founding Members

Jan-Erik Vinje, Managing Director @ OARC, Lead dev, Norkart
Colin Steinmann, CFO & Secretary @ OARC, Product Lead, YOUar
Steven Swansson, Gov. Board Member @ OARC, Dir. of Partnerships, VERSES
Christine Perey, Gov. Board Member @ OARC, Director, Perey Consulting
Ori Inbar, Gov. Board Member @ OARC, Co-founder, AWE & Superventures
Arka Bala, Gov. Board Member @ OARC, CEO, Context Grid
Alex Hertel, Gov. Board Member @ OARC, CEO, Xperiel
Alex Chuang, Chair of Adv. Board @ OARC, CEO, Shape Immersive
Dave Lorenzini, Adv. Board Member @ OARC, COO, YOUar
Yohan Baillot, Adv. Board Member @ OARC, CEO ArCortex Consulting

Michael Vogt, Developer, Freelance Media
Simon Hobbs, CDO, Arcade Ltd
Jon Meggit, CEO, Arcade Ltd
David Jeffords, Community member
Mit Dave, Product Lead, Scapic Innovations Pvt Ltd
Vit Goncharuk, CEO, Augmented Pixels
Santosh Satti, Technical Architect, QuaQua Experiences Private Limited
Bjørn Remseth, Staff software engineer, Telenor Digital
Stephen Radachy, Software Engineer, Target Coproration
Siyao Zheng, CTO Seengene Inc
Kihyun Park, Product planner, Samsung mobile
Paul Gullett, Director, Workplace
Jean Francois Kitchiguine, VR/AR Consultant, Kitchiguine.com
Gabriel Rene, Founder & Executive Director, Verses
Harald Manheim, CTO, Ludenseo
Tore Abelvik, Head of section, Norwegian Mapping Authority (Kartverket)
Trond Hovland, Managing Director, ITS Norway
Srinivas Krishna, Founder, AWE Company
Afonso O’Neill, ARIA Chief Instigator, AROMNI
Theo Lagendijk, CEO, Platipus
Andrea Baldini, CEO, AR Market srl
Arnaud Vromman, Software developer, Keystone Solutions
Denise White, Co-Founder & CEO, SPATIALx Ltd
Chris Papenfuss, Software engineer (MR) / teamleas (MR), Individual
Ant Hagan, Creative Director, Aug-it!
Marcel Pütz, Software Engineer, Netlight
Urh Lednik, Head of Development, TROIA
Andre Selton, CMO Plattar
Maarten Slaa, CEO, Aryzon 3D B.V.
Mark Solis, Co-Founder, Reality Devs
Stephan Pascall, Managing Director, Europlan UK Ltd/ WEKIT ECS Ltd
Brigitta Zics, Head of Postgraduate Department, WEKIT ESC / Ravensbourne University London
Lasse Hedegaard Hansen, Phd. Fellow, Aalborg University
Paul Lefrere, Director, Workplace
Gal Dvir, Film director, Freelance artist
Waël Chanab, President, Imagine360
Emerson Sgura, Director, Avrengine.com
James Jackson, Principal Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Labs
Kevin Zell, IT Consultant, Netlight Consulting GmbH
Guido Nardo, CEO & Co-Founder, Vision Lab Apps Srl
Philipp Schultz, Project Manager, SBB Swiss RailwaysSenior
Emily Olman, CEO, SpatialFirst
Nicholas Myers, Developer, IBM
Aurelian Mihai, Student, Unibuc FMI
Jakub Warchoł, Co-Founder & CTO, Hansel
Jan R.Benetka, PhD Research Fellow, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Adam Salmi, Founder, Maker Clinic
Solaris Nite, Founder, 3DIQ Inc.
Werner Schirmer, Senior Researcher, Free University of Brussels, Department of Sociology
Ronald Christopher, Director, Kluarc
Tobias Kammann, Mixed Reality Pro, augmented.org
Patrik Johansson, Business developer & visionary, ÅF Infrastructure AB
Erik Kjems, Associate Prof., Aalborg University
Aura Virgolici, Capability Team Manager, Metro Systems Romania
Felix Woelk, Prof, FH-Kiel
Capm Petersen, Head of Product, Verses
Lukasz Siemaszko, Co-founder, Hansel
Sergey Panin, President, Found
Odd Martin Rognerud, Student, NTNU
Anders Horne, CTO, Pointmedia
Roy Arents, R&D Engineer, Netherlands Aerospace Centre
Benjamin Vallestad, Application Development Analyst, Accenture
Max Kruf, Technical Artist / Game Programming Student, BUAS (Breda University of applied sciences)
Taras Gurko, Cofounder, Virtual Reality Laboratory Far East LLC
Eugene Hardesky, Student, Far Eastern Federal University
Joe Boyle, CTO, Spatial First, Inc
Kellan Cartledge, AR/VR Developer, Kilograph
Joanne Bacharach, AR Practice Lead, PTC
Evgeny Nikolaenko, Student, FEFU
Dicky Iskandar, Lead AR & Interactive Game Developer, Shintavr.com
Maykel van Miltenburg, R&D Engineer, Netherlands Aerospace Centre — NLR
Jørgen Storm Emborg, Technical Director, COWI
Maksym Tsymbal, Founder & AR/VR Developer, PeAR
Kim Baumann Larsen, CEO, Dimension Design
Nico Zink, R&D Simulation Expert, NLR — Netherlands Aerospace Centre
Paul Chippendale, Senior Researcher, Fondazione Bruno Kessler
Eric Prince, CEO, cimmerse.com
Marius Sekse, R&D Director, COWI AS
Robert Karpinski, Web Frontend Developer, digitalPRAXIS
Georgios Loumos, COO, COMIC
Dominik Friedel, Business Development Manager, e-shelter
Francisco Almeida, Senior Research Analyst, IDC UK
Alan Smithson, CEO, MetaVRse
Wil McReynolds, CTO, MetaVRse
Kristi Hall, Owner/Investor, KKMHFT
Dulce Baerga, CEO, River Studios
Amir Bozorgzadeh, Cofounder & CEO, Virtuleap
Jay Van Buren, CEO, Membit.co
Eugene Kim, Entrepreneur, Columbia Business School
Tamara Bowman, Technology Innovation Lead, Acccenture
Anna Zhao, Chief Learning Designer, DNA Learning Club
Trisha Srivastava, Business Operations, Refinitiv
Mathias Gilson, CTO, RB2.io
Michael Hall, Owner/Investor, Self
Luke Peterson, President, Geenee, inc
Jesper Bendix Sørensen, CTO, Epiito A/S
Sean McGuinness, Research & Development Project Engineer, Kingspan
Julien Casarin, Head of eXtended Reality, Gfi Innovation, Gfi Informatique
John Daly, Program Manager, IPKeys Immersive, IPKeys Technologies
Håvard Røste, Project manager/Cluster manager, VRINN VR cluster, The Hamar Region Development and VRARA Norway
Michael German, Technical Director, CommScope (commscope.com)
Mohammad Al-halahlah, Studying computer systems engineering, Palestine Polytechnic University
Carlos Collazos, CCO / Founder, C+8 Design / VR Tours
Mark Spivey, Founder, Xwisee
Lansenou Camara, Application Engineer, Netherlands Aerospace Centre
Shuhong JIANG, CGO, Visionstar Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
Kaushik Das, CTO, Whodat
Xiaojun ZHANG, CEO, Visionstar Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
Anushrut Khare, Senior Digital Marketing, Workplace
Torkild Alstad, Student, NTNU
Justin Melillo, Production Management, Magic Leap
Mark Day, Director of Application Development, GPI
Anamita Guha, Product Manager, IBM Watson
Ferhan Ozkan, CEO, VR First
Rahel Demant, COO, VR First
Eduardo Siman, IT Director, Intradeco Apparel
Thomas Nigro, CTO & cofounder, Opuscope
Luke Ritchie, Head of IA, Nexus Studios
Hugh Seaton, CEO, Aquinas Learning
Jeremy Roland, Application Development Specialist, Accenture
Thomas Leysen, Co-founder and CEO, GTL Studio
Kumaragurubaran Venkatasamy, Director / Solution Archtect, Yaksha Visual Technologies
Josue Pacheco, Founder & CEO, pushixels.com
Marco Tillmann, Product Manager AR/VR/3D Cities, HERE Technologies
Nickvan Manen, Founder, The Reality Lab
Jarkko Sireeni, CEO, xD Visuals Oy
Mikko Karvonen, EVP Engineering, Immersal Ltd.
Antonella Lorenz, CEO, Workplace
Brian Wassom, Warner Norcross + Judd LLP, Partner
Andre Voisin, Founder, Bubbled
Shekhar Lolage, Senior XR Developer, Mobiliya Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Brien Buckman, Product Management, Self
Rika Nakazawa, VP Business Development, Exashape
Björn Schwerdtfeger, CEO, AR-Experts.de
Loic Beauvillain, AR Busines Unit Managing Director, Segula Technologies
Andy Gstoll, CEO, Mixed Reality I/O
Alkiviadis Poulis, CEO, Cotheta
Alexander Turin, Co-founder / Chief Product Officer, Kura Technologies
Terry Schussler, Director, Immersive Technology, Deutsche Telekom
Daeil Seo, manager, Hyundai motor company
Peter Stanik, Sr product manager, Samsung
Kang Sung-hyun, Front-end, VIRNECT
John Schavemaker, Team lead computer vision,
TWNKLS Augmented Reality
Lex van der Sluijs, CTO, co-founder, TWNKLS | augmented reality
Rob Manson, CEO & co-founder, https://awe.media
David Hall, CEO, USBCT
Michael Louka, Department Head VR & AR, IFE.no
Epredator Ian Hughes, Metaverse Evangelist and Senior Analyst IoT/AR/VR, Feeding Edge and 451 Research
Daniel Girdea, Co-founder, Arcona Ecosystem
Jon Nielsen, owner, Key-East
Federico Stefani, CTO, Vision Lab Apps Srl
Alina Kadlubsky, Product Designer, Immomio
Tish Shute, Dir. AR/VR, Corporate Strategy and Technology Planning, Huawei
Bart Denny, co-founder, SpatialFirst, Inc
Vinny DaSilva, Solutions Engineer, Mountain and Sea Studios
Mauro Rubin, CEO, Joinpad
Don Engel, Brand Design Manager, Blue Prism
Jeremy Welt, President, Invisible Robot Corp
Timothy Wuolle, Holographic AR/VR/MR Producer / Technical Director / Engineer, Mr.
Chad Koch, Creative Director, New York
Alex Grona, CEO, Atom Universe Limited
Grig Bilham, Founder, Lumeneo
Sabarish Gnanamoorthy, Founder, WaypointAR
Paul Zimmermann, Chief Software Architect, Scanblue AG
Brock Stearn, President, Vertoid
Andrew Shulkind, Director of immersive innovation, Other
Nouman Hanif, CTO, Site Lens
Maryam Sabour, Business Development Manager, Niantic
Rocco Paladino, CTO, Netminds
Conor Russomanno, CEO, OpenBCI, Inc.
Daniel Halprin, Customer Production, Ryff
Thomas Mathai, Filmmaker, Jaimon Pictures
Matthew Hoerl, CEO, Biome
Jessica Glass, Co-Founder, YVRFF
Matthew Wren, CTO, BundlAR
Ehab Ghatasheh, VR developer, GMR
Vinay Kumar, CEO, Amanzi Interactive Pvt Ltd.
Magnus Greni, Landscape architect, Asplan Viak AS
Mitchell Manganaro, Studio Manager, Opaque Space
Amanda Jarvinen, UX Designer, REA Group
Jolanda Tromp, Director, Company for Visualization and Simulation - Duy Tan University
Luis Martins, Head of Marketing, IT People Group
Mariia Shalneva, AR & VR developer, Self-employed
Tomas Fritsvold, Technical manager, PointGeo AS
Harri Hakulinen, Chief Architect, Huaewei technologies Finland
Vincent Song, Lead Mixed Reality Developer, University of Toronto Schools
Boris Mamlyuk, CEO, CleanApp Foundation
John Grey, Producer, Information Agency TASS
Kenneth Øyen-Eriksen, Technical advisor and projectleader, Norkart AS
Berkley Egenes, Vice President of Marketing, MERIDIUN
Toshi Hoo, Director — Emerging Media Lab, Institute for the Future
Ross Cohen, CEO, Webguyz
Jonathan Reeves, CEO, Arvizio
Christopher NUNES, Managing Director, Heavy
Michael Agustin, CEO, Curie
Ian Donahue, BD, Left Field Labs
Tim Reha, CEO, Venture All Stars & timreha.com
Aniruddha Devadiga, Network planning engineer, Rjil
Avi Horowitz, Managing Director &Owner, @MadewithARKit
Annie Hanlon, Immersive Consultant, Independent
Rebecca Evans, AR/VR Product Strategy, Essential Interaction
Daveed Room, CEO, Bridgit
Michelle Brown, Artist and Producer, Artist & State Librabry of Qld
Mary Valdez, PhD Education Technology, University of Nevada Las Vegas
Retha Hill, Director @ New Media Innovation & Entrepreneurship Lab, Arizona State Univ./ Cronkite School of JournalismD
Louisa Spring, Founder, SAM — i
Richard Barnett, Consultant, MeCa Sciences
Christopher Pitcher, CEO, Empact Labs
Pierce Long, Start-up C.E.O PRL Group(VR/F.E.C), Mississippi State University
Tyler Lindell, I help people start AR/VR departments, TylerLindell.com
Lance Bauerfeind, MD, Pepper Creative
Julian Stadon, Director / Programme Leader Digital Media / PhD Student / Subject LEader Innovative Media / Senior Lecturer, marart.org / University of Hertfordshire / University of Brighton / University of the Arts London / FH Salzburg
Ryan Gill, EIR; Head of Blockchain Technology, Peter Diamandis
Namrata Nagendra, Marketing & Sales Executive, Scapic
Alexander Nossum, CTO, Norkart
Pascal Tonecker, Director of CRYENGINE Enterprise Solutions, Crytek GMBH
Pierre Addoum, CEO, BEAR
Tommi Merelin, CMO, Arilyn