December 14th, 2015 – EON Reality Inc. has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Deakin University to set-up an Interactive Digital Center (IDC) Hub in Asia. The IDC Hub includes co-investments and contributions from EON Reality in excess of $10m USD. It will open during the first half of 2016 and the first courses will be offered from July 2016 onwards at Deakin University’ Burwood campus.
Deakin’s Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Trevor Day commented: “This new hub perfectly complements the focus of Deakin University and we already have some of the nation’s leading researchers working in Virtual Reality, including inside our newly-opened Centre for Design and Engineering Training (CADET), a world-leading facility that includes our own state-of-the-art Virtual Reality cave,” Professor Day added. “Deakin University’s commitment to innovation will take another leap forward thanks to this exciting new partnership with EON Reality Inc. and perfectly matches the Federal Government’s new Innovation Strategy.”
The IDC Hub will be located in Melbourne’s CBD and based on EON Reality’s globally accepted Interactive Digital Center model, offering students, staff and industrial partners access to the latest technologies and know-how in the field of scalable Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality solutions.
The IDC Hub at Deakin will also host an Entrepreneur School that will offer comprehensive education programs with three different courses on offer related to VR and AR namely a VR Major in the Bachelor of IT, a Graduate Diploma in VR and a VR Specialization in the Master of IT. In addition, there will be Work Integrated Learning (WIL) programs based on EON Reality’s successful models from US, UK and France. The IDC Hub will also include the EON Idome – a patented multi-user immersive and high-resolution interactive 3D dome that will be used for outreach programs.
Pontus Appelqvist, Vice President Asia of EON Reality commented that the Melbourne IDC Hub marks a milestone for EON Reality’s expansion in Asia as the company builds a foundation in the region together with Deakin University.
During the engagement, the subsidiary EON Reality Australia Pty Ltd has also been established by Melbourne investment banker and businessman Francis Galbally who is a director of EON Reality Inc. and Chairman and interim Managing Director of EON Reality Australia Pty Ltd.
“The partnership with Deakin University will help ensure that there will be sufficiently trained VR and AR developers to meet the rapidly expanding market need, and EON Reality Australia will be employing many of those newly skilled graduates,.”, says Galbally. “EON Reality has already developed training programs for leading Australian mining companies and we see a massive opportunity in both education and industrial applications due to the cost savings in training, the faster learning and the greater knowledge retention that VR/AR can provide.”
Image credit: EON Reality
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.