Internet and Mobile Association forms panel to promote augmented, virtual reality

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said in a statement it has formed a committee tasked with promoting augmented and virtual reality (AR, VR) in India.

The committee is chaired by Namrita Mahindro, senior general manager, digital transformation, Mahindra Group, and co-chaired by Satyajeet Singh, head, strategic product partnership, India and South Asia, Facebook.  

Mahindro said, “Immersive technologies like AR and VR and mixed reality will become the new engines of value creation in the experience economy. They will enable far more effective storytelling for brands and businesses, drive greater efficiencies with product prototyping in manufacturing and beyond, and facilitate training at scale, anytime, anywhere, to name just a few use cases.” Singh said, “As part of this committee, we want to fuel home-grown emerging technologies’ ecosystem.”

Other members on the panel are Vaibhav Kumar Yadav, product head, JioCinema, and general manager, Reliance Jio; Ajit Kumar, partner, Deloitte Digital; and Mahesh Prabhu, vice-president, global head of innovation, ITC Infotech. Vivek M Jain, founder, FlippAR; Kshitij Marwah, founder, Tesseract Inc.; Ninad Chhaya, co-founder and operations chief, GoPhygital; and Utsav Mathur, co-founder, GMETRI, are among other members on the committee.

According to the statement, the committee would work on the application of AR and VR to sectors like healthcare, tourism, automobile, agriculture, education and skill development. 

The panel will identify opportunities and challenges to help India’s AR and VR ecosystem, in partnership with government, industry and startups, the statement added.

On the agenda of this committee will be nurturing India’s AR and VR technology and talent ecosystem, in particular by driving skill development; engaging with business, industry and government for acceptance of the technology; and helping drive training workshops, to familiarise potential users with the technology.