EON Reality and Cross Reality Form VR Innovation Academy in Japan

EON Reality, company focused on augmented and virtual reality-based knowledge and skills transfer for industry and education, announces inauguration of a new VR (virtual reality) Innovation Academy in Kyoto, Japan, alongside its partner, SUS Co. The VR Innovation Academy will continue to be operated by Cross Reality Co., a subsidiary of SUS Co., Ltd., and will serve as the city’s new home for educating and training the next generation of extended reality (XR) developers, the companies say.

For those who are unfamiliar with EON Reality’s VR Innovation Academy program, the academic institutions are embedded within colleges, universities and other centers of learning around the world—each one focused on teaching students who are interested in learning how to create AR and VR applications. It provides the knowledge and experience necessary for someone looking to get a career in any field related to XR technology, as well as a top-to-bottom understanding of EON-XR, EON Reality explains.

For the Kyoto VR Innovation Academy’s inauguration, EON Reality Chairman and Founder Dan Lejerskar gave a speech from his home in California since COVID restrictions would not allow him to travel across the Pacific as he usually would for such an event.

“This is a very important partnership for EON Reality in the most dynamic region in Japan," says Dan Lejerskar, founder of EON Reality. "... We would like to transfer the latest knowledge from Silicon Valley to our partners in Japan.

"We would like to democratize the use of XR for all of the people in Japan," adds Lejerskar. "We would like to also create Japanese content with our partners. Finally, we would like to enable Japanese content to be monetized through export around the world. We know that this can help students and workers learn faster, retain information longer, and make better decisions, and we want to make that affordable and accessible for everyone in Japan.”

As part of the event, EON Reality President Mats Johansson took part in a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony, while government officials, media and other valuable participants attended the grand opening.

“XR technology has been improved daily and will be made an even bigger success by the adoption of 5G, however there are still not many XR engineers in Japan," says Kimio Saito, chairman and founder of SUS Co. and Cross Reality. "This is why we develop them in VRIA Kyoto, and we aim for a developmental regime of 100 engineers in our early phase. We are also expecting that our XR solutions will support chronic workers shortages and issues caused by COVID-19 in Japan.” 

Kyoto not only serves as a home for growing industries such as manufacturing, healthcare and animation, but it is also viewed as an education and R&D hub in Japan. The VR Innovation Academy in Kyoto has been targeted as a prospective partnership of the collaboration of industry, government and academia with cooperation from Kyoto Prefecture government.

Enrollment for the VR Innovation Academy in Kyoto is currently open for the upcoming April session.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.