T-Hub Boosts UK-India VR-AR Ecosystem by Collaborating with Digital Catapult

New Delhi: T-Hub, which leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem, has announced a partnership with Digital Catapult supported by the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to boost UK-India collaborations. The partnership has enabled the creation of ‘The UK-India Immersive Technology Sustainability Expert Group.’ It aims to increase the innovation quotient between the two countries in immersive technology and towards achieving net-zero emissions target by 2050.

A range of innovative VR-AR startups, climate technology companies, corporates as well as sustainability organizations collaborated, and shared ideas of how immersive technologies can help towards net-zero carbon emissions. T-Hub scouted relevant startups, corporates and academia from India, and Digital Catapult, the UK’s national innovation centre for advanced digital technologies, shortlisted startups, and academia from the UK. Meanwhile, UK FCDO and DIT identified corporate and sustainability organizations that were looking to tackle their net-zero challenges using these immersive technologies. The project has been funded by the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The goal of these discussions also encouraged further R&D and commercial engagement between these corporates and the shortlisted research institutes (academia) and startups.

Ravi Narayan, CEO of T-Hub, and Chief Innovation Officer, Telangana, said “T-Hub’s partnership with Digital Catapult, UK FCDO, and DIT brings in a multi-pronged approach to benefit stakeholders of the global innovation ecosystem. The UK-India Immersive Technology Sustainability Expert Group will focus on finding enhanced innovations for climate change that will open a gateway for startups as well as academia to collaborate across geographies and the selected sustainability organizations/corporates who could truly utilise these innovations will further evaluate it to provide growth avenues as relevant.”

Jessica Rushworth, Chief Strategy & Policy Officer, Digital Catapult, said “The collaboration between T-Hub, Digital Catapult on this exciting initiative will boost the development of stronger links between the UK and India in the fast-moving area of climate technology innovation. This VR/AR expert group will accelerate collaborations, foster new ideas and help to tackle industrial climate challenges together.”

The partnership will focus on collating all the relevant research and development factors to overcome global sustainability issues. The R&D research will be submitted to the Department for International Trade, UK Government. On 30th March 2021, a half-day workshop was conducted for the expert group to agree on themes, discuss project ideas and challenges that immersive technologies can solve. The workshop had participants from corporates like HCL Technologies, Novartis, NTPC Limited (National Thermal Power Corporation Limited), and four Indian startups namely Travoxi, Ajnalens, iComputingLabs, and Learning Integration. The workshop also allowed all the stakeholders involved in the group to explore possible commercial collaborations.

Some of the opportunities for immersive technologies that were discussed during the workshop are:

Delivering instructions or advise to workers: overlaying of real-time data to support employees or engineers with critical real-time information to support decision making.
Providing training and learning content: modelling hard-to-access, dangerous, or mission-critical environments in safe, classroom environments before exposing workers to real scenarios.
Displaying of real-time analytics and results: scanning or identifying fault components and machinery in real-time.
Additionally, the partnership will enable a collaborative building of an immersive demo or prototype by the expert group that can be showcased at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) scheduled to be held in Glasgow in November 2021. The partnership will help the Indian startups and academia to explore the potential of immersive technologies in areas such as:

Create tangible solutions for heavy long-haul travel emission.
Explore innovation as an enabling force in the fight against climate change.
Mobilising key players in the UK and India related to innovation and the creative industries.
Unlock potential growth and collaboration opportunities for both the UK and India in this area.

Over the past decade, there has been an ever-increasing focus on climate change, which requires the deployment of innovation not only in new technologies but also in new ways of implementing existing technologies, new business models, and, importantly, new policy and regulation. T-Hub being a thriving force for the Indian startup ecosystem, it will bring in innovation with its robust networks and expertise through this partnership and help in creating a climate-positive planet.

T-Hub will actively continue to partner with international ecosystem enablers and governments to help the Indian startups scale globally during and after the pandemic. T-Hub welcomes any queries, thoughts from interested partners. to write to [email protected] or visit https://bit.ly/3mYONzO.