10 Virtual Reality Leaders

You Should Follow in 2016

Mark Zuckerberg already obtained Oculus Rift two

years ago.

HTC developed the most advanced VR headset called Vive.

Sony Playstation VR just opened up for pre-orders… and sold-out...

and Google with their 5 million+ cardboards already in the market.

and then there’s Samsung Gear VR...

It’s undeniable that VR has made a huge statement. It is here to stay. It’s already being used in more than 20 different application.

Here’s a list of 10 Pioneers you should keep close attention to. They’re the ones that are pushing the envelope and making things happen.

Palmer Luckey | Founder of Oculus VRThe guy with strong enough vision that kept the VR in the news for the last 4 years. Luckey is gamer and tinkerer who asked $300 for a prototype headset on Kickstarter. The campaign raised $250,000 in less than two hours and $2.4 million within a month. Oculus Rift was under way, and in 2014 obtained by Facebook for a whopping $2bns. At the moment, the first Oculus Rift just shipped.

John Carmack | ex-ID Software, CTO at Oculus VRThere’s no doubt that John Carmack is a technological wizard. When he was in the game industry, Carmack made some evolutionary breakthroughs in computer graphics. There’s too many to count all of them here. One of his hobbies also includes rocketry.

There’s no doubt that John Carmack is a technological wizard. When he was in the game industry, Carmack made some evolutionary breakthroughs in computer graphics. There’s too many to count all of them here. One of his hobbies also includes rocketry. He founded VRSE — a virtual reality company which focuses on innovative human stories in VR. If you have a smartphone and a VR head-set (simple Google Cardboard would do), VRSE is the first app you should download.

Chris Milk | Filmmaker and founder of Vrse.inc

Ken Birdwell | Valve VR EngineerKen hated VR. He thought it was a was a waste of time — a passing fluke. Valve famous working philosophy doesn’t have requirements on what exactly you should be work-ing on. So when a VR headset came around to his desk, he put it on. He wasn’t impressed about what he saw, so he forgot about it. Eventually, he was pulled in and today it is his fault that HTC Vive is a leading VR headset.

Jens Christensen | Founder and CEO of JauntJauntineer, as he calls himself on LinkedIN, Jens and his co-founders Tom and Arthur weren’t impressed by mediocre photos from Zion National Park. That small, bleak and flat images on the phone just didn’t capture the overwhelming beauty of the place. So they asked himself how to project the beauty of the place in a better way while being truly immersed in it.

Alex Kipman | Microsoft HoloLensGuilty for having a bad haircut, Alex is also guilty of Microsoft weird AR headset HoloLens — a headset that displays 3-D “holograms” in real life. HoloLens will bring the futuristic Minority Report panels closer and according to the first reviews, the critics seem to have a positive opinion about it. If you waited for conjuring up digital images in front of your eyes, now it’s time to try.

Tony Parisi | Software Programmer and Author VR is still a relatively new concept and the development is happening on real world experiences. Tony Parisi name usually pops up among O’Reilly educational books. Parisi is old school and one of the early pioneers in Virtual Reality. He’s the promoter of WebGL — a standardized way of rendering 2D in 3D graphics within a browser — something our startup is using as well.

Kent Bye | Host of Voices of VR podcastWhen VR industry and technology is moving on in a rapid speed like today, it’s easy to lose pace and miss out on the latest news. Kent is here to fix that problem. Voices of VR is a daily podcast that covers latest breakthroughs, advances and musings in VR.

Clay Bavor | VP of Virtual Reality team at GoogleGoogle has a invested in AR and put nearly $800 million into Magic Leap, an augmented reality company based in Florida. Well, $800 is not that much for Google however, the company has and always will have the spotlight for any kind of tech stuff. In February 2016, rumors started to spread out about a new smartphone VR headset.

Alex Schwartz | Owlchemy LabsGame developer and Virtual Reality Specialist at Owlchemy Labs has a VR obsession. His studio’s mobile game Caaaaardboard! is one of top-selling mobile VR titles on Google Play. By being one of the first game developers in VR he has a substantial lead in the VR game industry. Having a distinct style is just another ace up their sleeve. If you own one of the “big three” VR headsets definitely try Job Simulator.

Honorable Mentions

Saschka Unseld (@saschkaunseld) — Creative Director of Oculus Story Studio Saschka Unseld is dedicated Storyteller and a master of cinematography. He’s well aware of benefits of Virtual Reality. The one thing he is focusing on is the emotional connection of the audience to the viewer. VR is allowing him just that because the 4th wall (between the screen characters and you as viewer) doesn’t exist.

Karl Krantz (@karlkrantz) — an organizer of SVVR and VR LaunchPad, Karl has almost single-handedly built a VR community in Silicon Valley. He made a strategic move to California, just to spread his passion about VR. His first VR conference (SVVRCon) in 2013 had 400 people attending. SVVRCon 2016 is projecting more than 3000.

Alan Smithson (@ShokKreative) — Ever since Alan successfully launched Emulator Elite — a DJ digital dashboard, he’s been on the run of creating technological breakthroughs. In 2016, he went all in with Virtual Reality with his new found company ShokKreative. He aims to deliver stories and experiences like no other.

Aaron Hilton (@otri)— Aaron is a spearhead of Vancouver VR community and a Co-Founder of Conquer Mobile. Conquer Mobile might be a Startup but the team consists of the smartest individuals that came from different blue-chip companies such as EA, SAP, RBC and Nokia. Aaron is currently focusing on some seriously cool medical technology that brings together VR, 3D scanning and gamification.

Cosmo Scharf (@cosmoscharf) —  Cosmo is a founder of VR Los Angeles (@vrlosangeles) — world’s largest VR & AR expo Stretched between NY and LA, he’s always well informed of the next big thing. He’s obsessed with technology which leads him to a startup Visionary, which received $6 Million funding capital in the first round.

Jernej Mirt (@viarbox)— A shameless plug incoming. Jernej is the CEO of a small central European Startup with big goals to alleviate VR storytellers. The platform in the works has a big potential to become the next Wordpress for VR content.

Dan Pacheco (@pachecod) —  Chair & Professor of Journalism Innovation at S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University is dedicating his 20+ something years of digital publishing and media experience to VR journalism. Who better to learn from about VR storytelling than him. Take a class.

Taylor Freeman (@taylorpfreeman)— CEO of UploadVR, a news portal that each and every one of you already have it bookmarked. UploadVR firmly believes that Virtual Reality is the future. They share exciting new ideas and supporting the game-changers in the VR industry.