The podcast features a deep conversation Unai Extremo and John Cunningham, of Virtualware to discuss the innovative platforms developed especially focusing on their flagship product, VIROO. This platform is designed to assist industries in adopting immersive technologies, particularly in training and operational efficiency. Unai explains how VIROO aims to enhance competitiveness and sustainability in companies by leveraging real-time 3D technology.

He emphasizes the platform's ability to support various training scenarios, enabling organizations to create immersive training experiences while protecting their proprietary information. John shares his journey with Virtualware, highlighting the company's commitment to providing a user-friendly experience and the importance of having trusted partners in the industry.

The episode dives into the specific applications of VIROO in sectors like hospitality, where it can revolutionize training processes and operational efficiencies.Overall, the episode conveys the exciting potential of XR technologies in transforming traditional business practices, urging listeners to consider how these advancements can be integrated into their operations.

Takeaways:

• The Tech Chef Podcast dives into the latest innovations transforming the hospitality industry, focusing on XR technology. 
• Virtualware is helping companies become more competitive by using real-time 3D technology in their operations. 
• The partnership between Magicgate and Virtualware aims to enhance XR adoption in the hospitality sector. 
• Training and collaboration using XR can improve efficiency and effectiveness in various hospitality functions. 
• John and Unai from Virtualware discuss the importance of security and scalability in implementing XR solutions. 
• The discussion highlights how XR technology can streamline training processes in hospitality and improve guest experiences.

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Hey.

Since I have you here, if you're headed to Mirtech in Vegas this year March 10th through 12th, you gotta swing by Magic Gate's Experience Zone.

We're talking next level restaurant tech.

VR training that actually works, AR remote support that makes troubleshooting a breeze, and some seriously cool data tools to keep your ops running smooth.

Plus you can mess around with futuristic stuff like augmented reality, virtual reality and haptic devices.

It's all hands on, no boring demos, just straight up cool tech that you need to see.

Come check it out.

Off premise strategy, Business continuity.

How about a taste test of restaurant technology?

Drive thru or curbside?

Mobile apps or AI?

It's all on the menu.

Cooking up for the date.

It's a recipe for success.

You're in good hands with the Tech Chef.

Make a plan to be your best.

Strategize with the Tech Chef Chef welcome.

To the Tech Chef Podcast.

Your backstage pass to the future of hospitality.

I'm Skip Kipple and on this show we're serving up the latest breakthroughs that are transforming restaurants, hotels, resorts and entertainment venues.

From cutting edge tech to game changing strategies, we're diving deep into the innovations that are reshaping the industry.

Each episode we sit down with trailblazers, visionaries and industry pros who are redefining guest experiences and pushing the boundaries of what's possible.

Whether you're an operator or a tech enthusiast, or just curious about where hospitality is headed, you are in the right place.

So plug in, tune in and get ready to explore the future.

Because the Tech Chef Podcast is cooking up something big.

Over the past two weeks we've announced groundbreaking partnerships with industry leaders including weart, known for its advanced haptic technology for immersive training, Digilens, a pioneer in enterprise grade augmented reality, smart glasses and last week's announcement of HTC Vive, our strategic partner in virtual reality and fully immersive experiences.

These collaborations reinforce our commitment to to pushing the boundaries of innovation in xr.

This final week before Mirtech, we talk to two special guests, John Cunningham and Unai Extremo, who are from Virtualware.

They dive into how Virtualware is using real time 3D technology to help companies be more competitive and sustainable.

John shares his experience in the immersive tech space and how he sees great potential in the veru platform for various industries, especially in hospitality.

This show discusses the significance of training and collaboration in real time, highlighting how VERU can streamline processes and improve efficiency.

The episode wraps up with insights into a new partnership aimed at boosting XR adoption in the hospitality sector, setting the stage for exceptional, exciting developments ahead.

XR is transforming hospitality as we know it.

And today's guests are here to show us how.

Today we have two very special guests.

The founder and CEO of virtualware UNAI Extremo, and the president of virtualware usa, John Cunningham.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us today on the Tech Chef.

Yeah, Skip, thank you very much.

Appreciate it, man.

Okay, let's kick things off.

Oona, I got a question for you.

Oh.

First of all, whereabouts are you in the world today?

Obviously you're not here in the United States.

Where is virtualware located?

We are headquartered in Spain, very close to Bilobao, a small city in the north of Spain.

I love Spain.

This will be a great opportunity for me to come visit your office, I think, because that's one of my favorite places to go.

Yeah, of course.

You know, if I could add in here just something, since this is a restaurant focused show.

Bilbao in the region I think has the distinction of having the second largest number of Michelin rated restaurants in the world after Tokyo.

Okay, sold.

I'm booking my ticket right now.

All right, Une, on that note, can you share a little bit about Virtuar's mission and how VARU found fits into that vision?

Yes.

So we are committed to helping companies become more competitive and sustainable using real time 3D technology.

Vivo is our flagship product, is our main platform and it's helping the industry to introduce these technologies into their processes and understand their potential.

What really inspired the development of Arun?

How has it evolved as an enterprise XR solution?

Looking back, I believe Vivo is the result of almost two decades of experience of our team developing customized solutions for industrial companies with immersive technologies.

What inspired us was seeing how our customers had major frictions when it came to scaling and introducing XR into their processes in a systemic and a systematic way.

So we started to think about what services we could incorporate in a platform to facilitate the industry.

Both the first steps with these technologies on the scaling to a global level.

From the beginning, Viru was designed by and for industry.

John, I'm going to flip it over.

To you for a second.

You're a repeat guest on the Tech.

Chef, which is very rare.

I don't normally have repeat guests, but you are one of the few we talked a few months ago as Magic Gate kicked things off.

We had not formulated our relationship between virtualware and Magic Gate yet.

We'll talk about that later in the show.

But I got a question for you.

What attracted you to join up with virtualware to begin with?

Well, you know, I have been working in the immersive space for many, many years.

And as a result of that, I got to know a lot of the companies that had different technologies and platforms in the market.

And when I was at Unity, virtualware was always trying to work with us in the United States and they were coming to me and you know, they had a really good value proposition and a really good product, but at the time they weren't established in the United States.

And so it was a little bit challenging.

When I left Unity and started working with some other companies, they re approached me and asked me to help them establish and grow in the US And I really believe the platform, the vrouw platform, is one of the best on the market.

It's the right place, the right time, the right technology.

And so I saw a really good opportunity to help them grow in the U.S.

and so, you know, but it's also not just about technology.

It's about culture.

It's about, it's about the mission.

And I'm very happy with, with the company, the culture and what their, what their mission is.

Well, on that note, who's the primary audience for varu and what industries have you seen the most success with it so far?

And I say so far with a big asterisk on it because we're going to be talking about a different industry in a little bit.

Yeah, so our audience is generally any organization that has a need to collaborate in real time using 3D or even 2D models, or to create immersive training experiences for their staff and suppliers.

And you know, training content is often very sensitive to organization as this is their proprietary process or the proprietary information.

So enterprise companies want secure platforms that protect their intellectual intellectual property.

Our biggest successes so far have been some of the early adopter enterprises that have really latched on to using XR technology to improve their business.

And those include government agencies, the dod, original equipment manufacturers in automotive and aerospace, health networks, and large educational institutions.

And you know, once this is not new, this technology has been around for a while.

Virtualware has been doing this for over 20 years.

It's just really now starting to be embraced and adopted because of the, the advancements in the technologies.

You brought up a very good point of Virtualware being in the industry for 20 years and doing this for 20 years.

I've talked to a lot of developers and companies that really are looking to get in the game and they think they can just turn a switch and flip on an enterprise platform overnight.

There are so many parts and pieces to what I call XR enterprise platform which we'll dig it more into the aspects of the enterprise platform VARU here in a few minutes, but I'm going to ask you a question unai how does VARU compare to other immersive training platforms in terms of scalability, accessibility and integration?

First, Scape View is not only a platform for immersive training, it's a platform for developing and deploying XR content, whether for training, design review, or even engineering compared to other platforms.

Virus with its potential lies in the freedom it offers when it comes to generating your own content.

Visual Studio allows any Unity developer to generate their own XR applications by offering tools appropriate to the developer's level of experience.

In addition, the managed services Video provides and Video deploys allows the developer to focus only on the content development of his application and forget about having to develop networking services, identity services, content management services, and so on.

On the other hand, one of the great advantages of View is the ability to deploy the content on any HMD and any head mounted display from any manufacturer, as well as on PCs, cave systems or multi user large scale rooms.

And all of this in a totally transparent way for the developer.

And this is a great advantage for someone who is developing an XR application.

And finally video users will be able to launch XR applications developed for different purposes in a simple, friendly and secure environment.

A single environment for any development within the same organization is something that simplifies and facilitates that these technologies become part of the processes of industrial companies.

Security is very important and you know, the security around the platform and the data absolutely critical to enterprise.

So you brought up Virtual Studio or the Veru Studio.

I'm a little bit of a mad scientist in my off time, in my spare time.

And I'll tell you what, the VRU Studio is actually very intuitive.

It's pretty easy to work around in the Unity platform and I'm very impressed with that.

I think once developers get their hands on that, they'll realize, okay, hey, this is, this is not this massive hurdle to overcome.

It actually is pretty synonymous with what we're currently doing.

So good job on that.

John Vroux described as an enterprise ready simulation platform.

What does that mean in practical terms?

So enterprise ready really means that any organization can use our platform in a matter of hours either using our cloud hosted platform or or in a matter of days if they want to install a server on their own premises.

Our architecture is designed to be easily managed by internal IT organizations and also to be used by end users.

It provides built in security and scalability which is critical for enterprise customers.

Now the VARU XR platform was developed by Virtualware.

As I said earlier, based on over 20 years of experience doing projects for large enterprises.

We built the platform for for our own customers to use at first and then realize that we've solved a lot of the challenges that organizations have globally with Scaling xr.

So as UNAI mentioned earlier, you know this, this platform has been designed by enterprise for enterprise unai.

One of veru's key strengths is its scalability for multi user collaboration.

Can you explain how this benefits large organizations?

Oh yes.

So large organizations work in a in a distributed way with offshore teams and need collaboration tools that allow them to maintain teamwork dynamics.

So VEEO is designed from the beginning as a multi user platform and provides all the necessary services to both developers and users so that they can generate sessions in distributed environments.

The advantages are clear in my opinion.

We can train in the same virtual environment teams of people who are in different locations or perform design reviews with clients who are on the other side of the world.

So in addition, each user can be using a different device or system to participate in this multi located session.

So we can have users in a large scale video room in Orlando, other people of your team using their laptops from Data offices in Toronto for example.

Let's talk about the difficulty of developing for Veru.

John, how does VARU simplify XR adoption for enterprises that may not have those deep technical expertise?

Yeah, it's a good question.

So VARU was designed for end users to be able to set up and use IT using intuitively designed user interfaces.

While the platform itself contains very advanced technologies, it's been packaged so that really any IT organization who have basic IT skills can set it up and use it.

Also, Veru has pre built templates that organizations can use to get started immediately like out of the box.

Also, the way VARU is designed, end users can even contract out content development to studios or other companies that specialize in developing, training or collaboration.

So this is much faster, more cost effective than hiring someone to build a custom platform.

But I want to add that it's really important that as we get into very specific industries, it's about that specific domain knowledge that organizations are going to have to Create something very unique.

So VOO in itself is a platform.

It's the content that's built on top of VROUW that's going to make it.

Useful for the end user, hardware, software infrastructure, unai.

Can you walk us through those core components of aru?

Oh yes.

So the main component of IRU of the platform are the managed services that are deployed in the cloud or on dedicated servers for on premise deployments and that provide what we said earlier, networking services, identity services, content management and session analytics services.

So that's the core, the main component of the video platform.

Then we have Vero.

Players are the tools that allow the end user to launch XR applications on different devices.

So players are the components that allow different hardware, different devices to launch visual applications.

So there are players for PC, for the head mounted displays, for multi user large scale rooms, or players for cave systems for example, and finally video applications.

So these are the XR applications developers are going to develop using Unity and using our visual Studio.

So all those components, all that data, all that information, all that content plays into a big question I know on my audience's mind and that is security.

And we touched upon it a little bit earlier.

Security and data protection are crucial for enterprise adoption.

If you don't have that security in place, they're not even going to look at it.

How does VROU ensure a secure XR environment?

Security is a must.

So at Veru, we are an ISO 27K1 certified company and we see security as one of our core pillars, just like our customers do.

So if we break it down without going too deep, there are three key aspects to focus on in terms of security.

First, processes, so rooted in our ISO 27K1 framework and DevSecOps strategy.

Second, architecture.

So Vero is designed to adapt.

Our architecture is built for flexibility, making it easy to meet the unique security and deployment needs of industrial customers.

And the third one, security in action.

So at Viru, security isn't just a layer, it's built into everything we do.

Everything is encrypted, everything is controlled.

So of course that's only scratching the surface.

There's a lot more happening behind the these things.

But let's just say we take security seriously so our customers don't have to worry about that.

Yeah, that is a key piece and thank you for answering that because I think that is the first hurdle that we need to get past by getting adopted in.

And here we go.

Hospitality.

So John, we talked earlier about industries you've seen success in.

I'm bringing you A whole new vertical for virtualware and the VARU product.

How do you think hotels, resorts, cruise lines, restaurants can leverage Vroux for training and operational efficiency?

You know, it's really interesting that virtual reality technologies have been around for many, many years, but they really are just now starting to find their way into hospitality, which is interesting to me because hospitality is about people, it's about customer service, it's about having really efficient processes.

And so when we look at, at the hospitality industry, there's really three main use cases that I see emerging right now that cover really every function that you can imagine.

Training individuals and teams, enabling digital collaboration for design reviews of new products, services, and even facilities like restaurants and hotels.

And then there's advanced simulation and testing, for example, when you're, you know, for assembly lines, for kitchens, for equipment and facilities.

So for an example, with the same platform, the VROUW platform, a hotel can train their kitchen staff, review new room or building plans in 3D and then run simulations on passenger flow through a resort and see what that would look like.

So today all of these require different infrastructure investments.

Vroux kind of changes that and the businesses can divert their energy and capital into developing the content instead of having to have three or four or five different platforms.

You just covered several great examples of real life guest service challenge and operational challenges.

Unai, how does XR training with VARU compare to traditional elearning or in person training in terms of effectiveness and roi?

That is one of the biggest questions I get.

To me, it's obvious because I've seen it from other industries around the ROI side of it, but I'd like to hear from you your take on this.

Yes, on the one hand, we have the possibility that XR technology gives us to reproduce scenarios and situations that we will not be able to reproduce in the physical world.

So the person who is training using XR technology, those so in a realistic environment and very close to reality, these aspects provide greater effectiveness of our training.

And regarding the roi, it depends on each case.

But we have cases in which we have seen reduction of travel expenses thanks to the possibility of remote training.

Reduction of the time needed to acquire skills thanks to the possibility of intensified training periods, although it's difficult to measure.

By increasing the effectiveness we can improve the results of the people we train and therefore we can be more competitive too.

My audience is primarily from hospitality and I'm here to inspire them from some of the training aspects of virtual reality training, the VROUW platform.

Let's talk about some real world case studies where Veru has been successful applied in other industries.

We have many samples across many different industries such as energy, automotive, healthcare, education and others over the past 20 years.

Mainly focuses on training, design review, even simulation or emulation in manufacturing companies.

So hospitality is emerging as a fast moving industry given the importance of training staff to ensure high quality of customer service.

So we are very confident that our technology with Magic Gates industry knowledge will enable us to really help companies in the hospital industry.

That is a great place to take a little break.

When we come back, we're going to talk about and dig in a little more about the relationship between Magic 8 and Virtual where a big announcement was made earlier today and we'll also talk.

About the future of XR and hospitality.

So everybody hang on.

A lot of great content coming up.

Are you ready to level up your tech game and understand the world of xr?

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Reality and mixed reality in just weeks.

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Okay, we are back and and we're here to talk about this press release that just came out this morning.

John, can you tell us about the recent strategic partnership our two companies formed and why you decided Magic 8 would be a good representation for your brand?

Yeah.

Thanks, Skip.

So we formed this partnership with Magic8 to really accelerate introducing our technology into the hospitality industry.

Now, technology is only one part of an end user solution.

Using the technology to solve specific pain points or business opportunity areas requires people with extensive experience and knowledge in the industry.

So Magic Gate brings not only the industry domain knowledge, but also the understanding of how to apply technology to address problems and capitalize on opportunities.

And I really can't think of a better partner than Magic Gate to help us bring this technology into the hospitality industry.

Well, we're honored and we're excited to be working with virtualware on this.

This is pretty exciting for us and the industry as a whole.

Unai, let me jump over to you for a second.

What does this partnership mean for the future of XR adoption in the hospitality industry?

Well, we believe that by having solutions that are designed for the hospitality industry by hospitality experts like like Magic Gate will help accelerate adoption by end users.

So we have to make these solutions useful for the end users to use in their business.

So if we do that well, then they will want to buy our solutions.

How do you think Magic Gate's expertise in the enterprise hospitality technology space helps to bring vrou to more clients?

John sure.

End users in the hospitality industry are going to rely on the people from the industry that they know and trust.

And Magic Gate's clearly a trusted advisor and solutions provider to the industry.

So I think this is going to help us find and focus on those brands that really want to use XR digital twin technologies to give them a competitive advantage while reducing costs.

Every business in the world is looking for competitive advantage.

If you can reduce your cost of training your staff, running your facilities while improving your quality of customer service, that is going to give a brand a competitive advantage.

It's interesting, and we've talked about this before, there are companies in the hospitality space that are doing VR training.

They keep it very, very quiet because it is a competitive advantage.

I'm still waiting for that ideal client to come forward and say, we want to tell the entire world about how effective this is for our organization.

But everybody's keeping that very tight.

People are surprised in the hospitality industry when I tell them this technology exists and is being utilized.

They're actually shocked.

And there's a little bit of FOMO that happens when they find this out.

So what's also interesting is they're not using a platform similar to vroux.

So they've created, you know, individualized training content for one device.

It's a, it's a one person experience, whereas this has become more of a collaborative, team building opportunity for the organization.

This is a game changer when it comes down to training and I am so excited that, that we form this partnership so that we can bring this to the industry as a whole, which kind of leads into the future of XR and hospitality.

Unai, what challenges do you see in bringing XR to large scale hospitality enterprises and how can they be overcome?

All enterprises face some of the same challenges, which is meeting internal IT and security requirements, being able to measure their investments in terms of ROI and making sure that the technology works for them in their environment.

So the one or the only difference with hospitality, in my view, is that the industry often relies on a franchise ownership model where individual owners have a voice in the solution to use it or not.

So we need to be able to address their needs and concerns as well as the brand's owners.

How do you envision the role of.

Immersive technology evolving in enterprise over the next five to 10 years?

John oh, wow.

We're really only at the beginning of the adoption cycle Think of before the iPhone came out and we were all using blackberries and other phones.

Then almost overnight the entire industry changed.

So the easiest way to think of this is that when a new is think of this as a new evolution of the Internet which is going to be immersive technology.

Today we go to the Internet on our phone or computer and it's primarily 2D.

In the next five to 10 years we will be part of the Internet through wearable devices, 3D screens, holograms, et cetera.

And we will be interacting in the digital world as an extension of our daily life.

So this is already happening and it's just going to become more and more important and that that organizations in the hospitality industry understand that and they're able to to get ahead of this and understand the technology because not only their workers but also their guests are going to expect these types of of experiences.

One thing that we have not mentioned yet is that two letter word that either you love or you hate and that is AI.

As AI and XR continue to merge, how do you see the role of AI powered interactions evolving with V?

Well, AI is, is merging with everything and is continuing to merge with xr.

AI provides with many ways to create more realistic experiences using real time data and AI powered avatars, for example.

So imagine training a kitchen staff to work together on new diseases without requiring the chef to have to participate in the training, but relying on their expertise that has been captured.

So the role of AI is a real game changer in many areas.

We are ensuring that VOO can leverage the best in class AI tools to interface to Viru so our customers, our developers, can pick what works best for them.

Una, I know we've inspired a lot of listeners out there to actually learn more, but they're probably struggling around investing in xr.

What does that look like?

It's a whole, whole new world for them.

What advice would you give to hospitality leaders who are considering investing in XR technology?

At Virtual World we have a motto that is think big, start small, scale fast.

What that means is that leaders have to believe that XR technology is the future and will help them to provide new and improved ways of doing business.

So they should explore and think of ways they could leverage the technology.

Then they should identify projects or areas in their business where they can use the technology to improve a process, train staff or create a new product.

They should be able to validate that it works in their environment and measure roi.

Then they can scale as fast as they can to leverage the benefits before the Competitors can, and that's one of.

The roles of Magic 8 is helping these companies figure out their XR strategy and what is the best way forward.

And certainly having the backbone of this XR platform is an amazing advantage to have.

Finally, John, what advice do you give to an organization out there that is considering the VARU platform?

And, and really why should they choose that over other tools out there?

Yeah, well, as we mentioned earlier, we're at the early stages of XR technology adoption and there are many, many companies out there that have their own XR platform.

My advice to any company is first, use a platform approach instead of building custom platforms.

For example, no one builds their own customer relationship management system.

They use Salesforce, they use HubSpot or other platforms.

Then they create their own workflow on top of that platform.

Second, you need to have someone that you trust to help you evaluate the technology in your environment and make sure it's the right fit.

My advice to Hospitality is if you don't have an in house expert, hire a consultant that understands your industry as well as the technology.

And then third, make sure whatever platform that you choose has an open architecture that allows you to connect your own tools such as your learning management platform or your enterprise resource management platform.

And lastly, that you own the content and the IP to the content.

That is really, really important because as I mentioned earlier, a lot of these processes are unique and proprietary to that business and how they execute their business.

So if someone comes in and offers you content and then they own the intellectual property of that content, that's not good for the end user.

And so we're starting to see the emergence of this model where leverage a platform, have your own custom content built on the platform.

If you choose not to use that platform later, you still own the content, your investment is protected and then you can find other solutions.

And then lastly, make sure that the platform you choose is backed by a company with proven deployments and large enterprise customers.

Customers.

You should not be the customer that a startup company is learning from, no matter how good their technology seems.

You know, this is a new, this is a new area of application.

There's going to be some, some, some new things that people haven't found yet.

So find companies that have, have already have proven experience and that are financially able to support you as you grow.

Well, with 20 years of experience, certainly Virtualware has that expertise in house.

Gentlemen, this has been a fascinating conversation and for my audience, big news.

You're going to be able to see some of this virtual wear and vrouw training at the Mirtech conference next week.

If you haven't signed up for a demo, reach out to Magic 8.

We can align you with a demo.

We have limited number of spots, so make sure that you kind of you put your demo spot in early and reserve it now.

Thank you very much, Unai John, great talking to you as always and I can't wait to share the future with you.

Thank you, Skip.

Yeah, Skip, thank you very much.

I think, you know, we're, we're at a very exciting time and I'm just so excited about this partnership and, and working with you to really help bring XR and scale it across the hospitality industry.

So we'll see you all in Vegas.

Think you've mastered XR security, intellectual property ownership and scalability?

Well, now you truly have.

The VARU platform is a cornerstone of XR development and deployment, providing the robust foundation needed for a seamless and scalable strategy.

It's hard to imagine navigating the space without Veru as the backbone of your XR initiatives.

If you have any questions for myself or virtualware, or just have questions around technology innovation, we'd love to hear from you.

You can find me at booth number 305 next week at Murtech, or you can reach out to me on social media, Kipkimpel and Magicgate tech.

We're on X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

For past episodes and show notes, head over to skipkimple.com and to catch all of the latest episodes, visit magic8.com you.

Can always reach out to me directly.

Via email skip@magic8.com the countdown to Murtek continues only six days out.

By this time, you have probably heard of the Magic Gate XR Experience Zone, and if you want to get a demo spot scheduled, do it now.

We have limited spots available and are filling up quickly.

The anticipation is building, preparations are well underway, and we look forward to seeing you at the show.

And just when you thought Magic 8 had revealed it all, we have one final major partnership announcement coming your way to ensure that you get an exclusive preview of the technology that you'll be experiencing at the event.

We're releasing this episode a day early on Monday, so until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay hungry.

My friends.