The Faculty of Engineering has partnered with Virtualware to adopt and scale the award-winning VR enterprise platform VIROO®. This initiative will be inaugurated in early 2023 with the unveiling of a 100m2 custom-built immersive room at one of Canada’s most innovative universities in the world, providing access to students, faculty, and businesses to push boundaries and explore the use of VR tools and technologies in the region.
Leveraging each other’s strengths, the initial four-year partnership will foster initiatives to broadly facilitate access and promote the adoption of VR in education and research by blending physical and virtual workspaces.
Virtualware and McMaster Engineering are committed to making a global impact not only in education, but also in the enterprise. This partnership will see them join forces to explore new options and forge ways to collaborate with nearby companies interested in leveraging this emerging technology.
This is an exciting partnership that will not only lead to new technologies to solve the world’s biggest challenges but will also attract new strategic partners in Canada and internationally.
The immersive room will be located at McMaster Innovation Park (MIP), Canada’s premier research and innovation park. This strategic location acts as a bridge between academia and industry, becoming part of Hamilton’s innovation ecosystem.
Powered by Virtualware’s VIROO® platform, the all-in-one tool will help professors and researchers guide their students towards more innovative and complete learning experiences, preparing them for the next generation of future-workforce skills.
The partnership will be led by Ali Emadi’s research group focused on smart mobility applications.
“The collaboration will help companies start their VR journey, giving them the opportunity to incorporate the VR platform in their daily operations, so they can be more competitive and improve their processes,” says Ali Emadi, engineering professor and Canada Research Chair in Transportation Electrification and Smart Mobility, McMaster Engineering.
Thanks to the VIROO® platform, the Faculty of Engineering at McMaster University will now have the ability to create content, without the need to write a single line of code and deploy multi-user virtual reality autonomously. McMaster’s new 100m2 free-roam immersive lab will allow up to six users to connect and interact in the same physical room, communicating and collaborating in real time with unlimited remote users in the same VR environment.
“Our partnership with McMaster, will accelerate VR adoption across the region, creating valuable opportunities to build the most powerful enterprise VR ecosystem for industry,” says Unai Extremo, CEO & Founder Virtualware.
About McMaster Engineering
McMaster Engineering is committed to the pursuit of excellence and plays a significant role in helping McMaster University earn its reputation as one of Canada’s most innovative universities. Created in 1958, The Faculty of Engineering at McMaster is committed to research with impact and transforming the education of engineering through The Pivot – the first program of its kind to intensely focus on our engineering students and their learning.
About Virtualware
Virtualware is a pioneer in the Virtual Reality Industry. Founded in 2004, it has over time become the European leader in applying immersive technologies for industrial applications. The company was acknowledged as the world’s most Innovative VR Company at the 2021 edition of the VR Awards.
Virtualware offers cutting-edge solutions to global powerhouses and significant firms across industries, including GE Hitachi, Petronas, Iberdrola, Alstom, Guardian Glass, ArcelorMittal, Danone, Johnson & Johnson, Biogen, Bayer, ADIF, or the Spanish Ministry of Defense to name a few.
Virtualware’s flagship VIROO is a VRAAS platform that makes VR accessible to companies of all sizes and industries.
Headquartered in Bilbao, Spain, with a North American office in Hamilton, Ontario and partner companies worldwide, the firm is formed by a multidisciplinary team of 45 headcount including technologists and engineers who have launched over 500 projects in over 33 countries.
