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- EXCLUSIVE: 24% of people believe that skills on VR and AR are in the shortest supply in the UK tech sector
EXCLUSIVE: 24% of people believe that skills on VR and AR are in the shortest supply in the UK tech sector
The Immersive Wire - 10 April 2023 (Monday Briefing)
Tom Ffiske
April 10, 2023
Executive summary
Welcome to your weekly briefing on the metaverse. Here are your snippets to sound smarter in meetings this week:
Exclusive: TechNET Immersive found that, when it comes to the tech skills shortage in the UK, 24% of people believe that AR and VR are in the shortest supply (analysis below).
Stat of the week: Some of Meta developers earn $1m within its Reality Labs, according to the Washington Post.
Also, 4% of American teens use VR daily (if they have headsets).
Conversation-starter: The European Commission raised warnings on the openness and equality of open worlds if larger players become gatekeepers.
Other stories: Culture3 is co-creating the first-ever TED Tech Conference, HarvardXR is happening for the first time on 15 April, and Rail Delivery Group made a VR experience to help people identify harassment (more below).
Italy is lovely this year - Italian heat hits different compared to the UK. Also, I joined the MetaCast to chat nonsense for half an hour, and spoke to the Drum about metaverse metrics.
Analysis
EXCLUSIVE: TechNET Immersive found that 24% of people believe that skills on VR and AR are in the shortest supply in the UK tech sector.
Additionally, 44% of XR professionals feel that advanced automation and middleware tools will help them in their roles in 2023.
What can we learn from this? As the survey looked across immersive and gaming sectors, it’s perhaps reflective of the difficulty finding talented people who can work in the immersive scene. I’ve found from speaking to founders that a lot of time goes towards finding the right people (or even just anyone, in select cases). But I’ve also found a flurry of students who approach me, wanting to learn the necessary skills but having no idea where to start - it’s an opaque process.
What is the solution? I believe that bootcamp/apprentice/university courses need to do a better job of penetrating student circles, to showcase the value of learning immersive tech skills. I’m surprised by the lack of awareness. Plus, it’s been revealed that select Meta employees earn very, very good money building these types of applications, which is a great motivator for ambitious students.
Other notable stories
Got any stories? Let me know at tom (at) immersivewire (dot) com.
ConfigXR is an open-source tool to help immersive scenes load.
Culture3 is co-creating the first-ever TED Tech Conference, happening in September in London.
disguise announces its partnership with Move.ai, a markerless motion capture technology provider.
HarvardXR, an XR conference, is happening for the first time on 15 April.
Laval Virtual, an event specialised in immersive technologies, is happening this week.
Niyo, who designs bootcamps to educate black women into the tech industry and bring about change to their economic status, launched an XR version.
Rail Delivery Group and British Transport Police made a VR experience to help people identify harassment.
Space Runners teamed up with Balmain to release an experience during Metaverse Fashion Week.
Help corner
Need some assistance from other readers? Let me know at tom (at) immersivewire (dot) com.
Headonists, a UK-based XR community, is looking to compile XR-related events within a single calendar. The calendar itself can be found here, and the submission is here.