TechXR – Democratising Access to Augmented & Virtual Reality in India

Prashant Mishra, a former Indian Revenue Services Officer and founder of TechXR, observed that due to an immense lack of affordable hardware and learning resources, technology like Augmented and Virtual Reality are still beyond the reach of the common man. To overcome this hurdle, he along with his ingenious team at TechXR work on providing hardware and software solutions for AR-VR learning and content development. Presently, TechXR has bagged the top 12 innovation awards by the DoT Government of India, has witnessed 5000+ registered learners on its platform, and signed MoU's with 15+ universities across India.

1. tell us about your journey into entrepreneurship.

I have always been a tech enthusiast at heart, and also by my training at IIT Kanpur. While I was working with the Indian Revenue Service, sometime in 2017 I came across an AR experience, witnessed on my mobile phone. Since then, AR-VR became close to my heart. Further study revealed that it was being talked about in the west but hardly in India. The reason, it seems, was the lack of affordable devices. In that process I also came across Google Cardboard, an exceedingly simple and frugal VR Headset. However, despite this exceedingly cost effective VR Headset, the awareness of VR in India was dismal. I believed the reason for the same was lack of interaction, and that this problem can be solved. Since then I have been involved in studying AR-VR and its nuances. I even took a sabbatical from my job and developed a device which enables high quality interaction in AR/VR space on Smartphones. I filed the patent and my innovation made it to the Top 100 innovations selected by the Department of Telecommunication, Government of India in 2020. Further, I undertook an elective course on AR-VR for NIFT undergrads as guest faculty. At this point I realized my passion for making quality AR-VR affordable and accessible to the masses, and took the plunge.

2. What was the basis for the foundation of your company?

I was saddened by the fact that AR-VR is picking up in the west, but that we, in India, are happily oblivious to it. One of the biggest reasons for the same, I inferred, was the lack of affordable interactive devices in the market and lack of learning resources. The technology, it seems, was entrenched with costly devices. Because of my technology background, I was able to spot an opportunity for creating an extremely frugal interactive device for AR-VR. I took a break from my job, worked upon the idea, and was able to get a patent on the same. After successful testing in the market with a few 3D printed prototypes, I was convinced the device is going to provide experience to the masses and development opportunities to students. The mission of TechXR Innovations is to democratize AR/VR technology. We have also developed a curriculum with Industry experts and IIT faculty to provide training in AR/VR development where our frugal innovations play a key role in making interactive content. With our AR/VR development kit and courses we have reduced the cost of learning to less than 10% of other available alternatives.

3. What is the future of AR-VR with regard to the ever-growing dependence on technology?

Over the time technology has been shifting from bulky desktops to laptops to tablets and now on compact smartphones. The present smartphones provide similar computational ability as any other laptop, therefore the developer base, consumer application, has seen a shift from HTML developer base to Android & IOS development. I call it the shift of the Ecosystem. The next change is shift of developer and consumer base to XR devices i.e. devices capable of providing interactive and immersive 3D experiences with the same/better computational power. AR-VR should not be seen in isolation but a layer on the top of existing 2D applications, to make them experience better with more space to interact and 3D experience the way we experience our world. For instance Education has been growing from text based learning to illustration based learning to video based learning due to better visualization. Next is interactive 3D learning with AR-VR. While AI may serve as an innovation in the computer brain, AR-VR may serve as an innovation in computer interaction. The consequences may be far reaching. With more computation power, and realistic 3D models, the world of realistic animation is likely to explode. This may get manifested in multiple applications, such as realistic 3D meetings, training, education, entertainment, gaming, remote surgery, etc.

4. 5G is here, how can that be a game changer for the nation?

With a speed upto hundred times faster than the current 4G network, near-zero latency, high user capacity and cheaper data rates, 5G will provide a big boost to tech-led services in the country. These features will enable innovations in the field of AR-VR, agrotech, fintechs, regtechs, edtechs, health techs, e-commerce, robotics, manufacturing, data analytics etc.

One of the important aspects of the 5G rollout is the boost it will provide to the startup ecosystems, as they use technology as the most important aspect of their operations. Similarly, IT services and engineering services companies will see more demand for 5G-led IT solutions.

With the arrival of Metaverse solutions, 5G is being seen as a game changer for multiple sectors such as Education, Training, Tourism, Remote Collaboration, Gaming etc where high quality immersive 3D content can be streamed remotely or downloaded in no time. However, one needs expensive hardware to experience interactive AR-VR- Metaverse and this is going to be a bottleneck for a country like India. With over 70 Crores smartphone users, we are a nation which knows how to use the technology, provided it is affordable. Our innovation converts any smartphone into high quality immersive and interactive AR-VR-Metaverse experience device, and we call it a key to the Metaverse for a common man. We need more and more such frugal innovations to untap true potential of 5G in our nation.

5. How is your company poised to take advantage of this new tech?

Metaverse opportunities have been projected at $5 Trillion by McKinsey, $8 Trillion by Morgan Stanley, $13 Trillion by Citybank by 2030. India has potential to capture 20% of the global market, given it has a great talent pool of human resources such as creators, developers, startups, engineers etc.

However, a revolution is not a revolution if it does not reach the masses. There is going to be a growing need for XR content, XR Developers and XR Devices in coming times. TechXR is trying to play a very important role in all these areas. With our affordable course and 6 DoF interactive devices, we are creating an XR developer base which can generate cross platform XR content. With already 1000+ XR learners we have started supplying XR developers and content to Various Industries.

6. What plans do you have for your company? Pls, elaborate future plans?

For the growth of AR-VR in India, there seem to be two prominent non-tech hurdles -(1) lack of trained AR-VR workforce, and (2) Lack of content/experiences/applications. To counter the same, TechXR runs a certification program in AR-VR in association with iHub@IIT Roorkee, through which more than 1000+ undergraduates have been trained. The company also plans to develop a wide developer network in this field, which may create innovative experiences using our device and SDK. The idea is to have trained developers create good content and have it functional over multiple devices, including Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, Hololens along with the customer's smartphone. With the talented XR developer workforce, cross platform rich content library and frugal hardware, we are going to be a one stop solution for any XR requirement.