Auggie Breakthrough Award Finalists Announced
AWE, IEEE and VR First Partner to Honor Industry-Academia Collaboration in Augmented and Virtual Reality at AWE EU 2018
VR First announced that 20 finalists have been selected for the Breakthrough Auggie Awards. Organized and presented by AWE, IEEE and VR First at AWE EU 2018, the Breakthrough Auggie Awards honor academic-industry collaborations using AR, VR and MR (XR) that showcase innovation with the greatest potential to spark mass adoption and industrial use of these immersive technologies.
NEW: Breakthrough Auggie Awards
VR First, IEEE and AWE added the new Breakthrough Auggie Awards to AWE’s long-established “Best of Show” Auggie Awards program
- Most Innovative Breakthrough: Honouring a collaborative project which has introduced a new, novel and unique approach not seen before
- Most Impactful Breakthrough: Honouring a collaborative project which demonstrates a use case which has the potential to dramatically impact the industry
- Women XR Laureate: Honouring a female researcher or project manager leading an industry-academia collaborative project
These three fresh award categories spotlight the most promising XR projects at the intersection of academia and industry. In its first year, the new Breakthrough Auggies program has seen more than 100 top-ranking brands, by the world’s universities, research institutes and individuals spanning 32 countries submit projects for consideration.
The list of finalists and their projects considered for a Breakthrough Auggie Award can be viewed below (in no particular order):
1.Virtual Reality Vision Therapy VERVE (Virtual Eye Rotation Vision Exercises) by OculoMotor Technologies, New Jersey Institute of Technologies, IEEE EPICS, Salus University, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, New Jersey Health Foundation, John Vito d'Antonio-Bertagnolli, National Science Fdn
2. Noland by Vancouver Film School, Iris Creative Lab
3. ABC: As-Built Capture by Transition Technologies PSC, NCBiR, Poyry Polska, Inwego, Projekt “M”, Microsoft
4. VitiVR: Viticulture VR Training Simulation by Vinistanbul, VR First BAU, BUG Game LAB, Bahçeşehir University
5. eHERITAGE by University of Transilvania of Brasov (UTBv), Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI), Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA) — Expanding the Research and Innovation Capacity in Cultural Heritage Virtual Reality Applications
6. Virtual Forest by Tieto, Metsä Group, University of Helsinki, CTRL Reality, Simosol
7. Virtual Reality Training by HOWEST, DAEresearch, Dana, Picanol, Barco, Cronos at the Leie — Dana & Picanol case, cnh industrialcapital
8. Empowering Young Job Seekers by Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV), SalMar ASA, Måsøval Fiskeoppdrett AS, Aqualine AS, NTNU
9. Be Curious Avatar Project by CreamVR, The Sheridan College Screen Industries Research and Training Centre (SIRT), National Research Council of Canada (NRC-CRNC)
10. Hololens External Fixation by Digital Surgery, University College Hospital, Microsoft — Interactive Surgical Guide, Touch Surgery
11. ADHD Augmented (AHA) by University College Dublin School of Computer Science, HADD Ireland, WordsWorthLearning, CNR ITD, WordsWorth Learning
12. Data Visualization and Analytics in VR by Caltech, NASA JPL, Virtualitics
13. Virtual Reality Flight Simulator for Surgery by Kings College London, University College Hospital London, UCLA, Figment Productions, FundamentalVR, Mayo Clinic, Imperial College London, 3D Systems Corporation
14. Make Time — Harrisons Fund & HoloPortal Ravensbourne by Harrisons Fund, DoubleMe, Ravensbourne University, Orbital Media, Squire Studio
15. In Teach AR by CreatiXR, BAUSTEM, BAU VR First Lab
16. The Stanford Virtual Heart by Stanford University Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Lighthaus Inc, Stanford Health Care, Stanford Magazine
17. Virtual Brain Segmenter by RareFaction Interactive, USC
18. Shared Sphere by University of South Australia, SA Power Networks, Nova Systems, PTC, CSIRO
19. Virtual und Augmented Reality in the Hamburg Port by Hamburg Port Authority, Absolute Software, Human-Computer Interaction at University of Hamburg
20. BRAVEMIND 2.0 by USC Institute for Creative Technologies, Dell, Intel - A VR PTSD Exposure Therapy System, USC
The winners of the Breakthrough Auggie Awards will be selected with the help of the Award Jury Board made up of industry and academic leaders including:
Find out more information about the Breakthrough Auggie Awards here: https://www.auggieaward.com/en/challenge/breakthrough-auggie-awards
Best in Show Auggie Awards
The Breakthrough Auggie Awards join AWE EU’s traditional Best in Show Auggie Awards, which will be selected by popular vote during the AWE EU 2018 conference and expo. No submission is necessary to be considered for a Best in Show Auggie Award, as all exhibiting and sponsoring companies are automatically entered, and voted on during AWE EU by attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and speakers. Past AWE EU Auggie Award winners include Ubimax, EYEJACK by Sutu, HoloCap, Innovation Rocks, PuttView, realities.io, Seabery, Table Tennis Trainer, TWNKLS, and more. The annual AWE EU Auggie Award categories are:
- Best in Show — Augmented Reality
- Best in Show — Virtual Reality presented by Bosch
- Best in Show — Overall presented by PTC
“Breakthrough” and “Best Of” Auggies Award winners will be announced at AWE EU 2018 on October 19, 2018 in the Closing Remarks and Auggie Award Ceremony hosted on the Main Stage at 4:00 pm CEST.
“AWE’s longstanding tradition of Auggie Award recognition demonstrates our commitment to keeping our finger on the pulse of new technologies and ideas, and to elevating awareness of innovations from all corners of the industry,” said Ori Inbar, founder and executive producer of AWE. “This year, as AWE is co-located with ISMAR’s academic conference, we felt it imperative to pay special tribute to excellence in immersive projects that are being built in collaboration between the academic community and industry — to highlight early stage academic projects that are bound to have economic impact on the industry and help drive adoption of XR among enterprises. We invite everyone to view and applaud the submissions of all Breakthrough Auggie Award nominees.”
“As the network of XR labs, VR First is always committed to the mission of fostering XR innovation around the world,” said Ferhan Ozkan, CEO of VR First. “The Breakthrough Auggie Awards give the AWE audience the chance to recognize the innovation and collaboration of many passionate teams in our extended network. They also herald our commitment to ultimately launch the XR First Innovation Platform — a future series of hackathons, competitions and open, crowd-based innovation projects to further challenge and incentivize the entire XR community for years to come.”
More about VR First
VR First is a global program designed to enable creators, companies, and governments interested in exploring the power and potential of immersive technologies. VR First Labs and facilities are key locations for nurturing new talent in VR/AR development and converting ideas into business opportunities. Under the XR First brand, VR First offers competition services and innovation platform to prepare companies for the challenges of tomorrow. For more information, visit: https://www.vrfirst.com.
