GG Researchers win first place in the XR + 5G mmW Hackathon in Tampere

Background Information

The XR + 5G mmW Hackathon was organized by Ultrahack between 30 September – 2 October 2022 in collaboration with Elisa, Nokia, Qualcomm, CGI, and the city of Tampere.

The Challenge

The challenge was to develop an application concept for utilizing and visualizing cities’ transportation, environmental, health and other data sets utilizing mixed reality as the user interface, and 5G mmW as the target communications technology.

The concept should make use of the following components:

• Mixed Reality User Interface
• Utilization of city data sets
• Use of 5G mmW connectivity

presenting a unique combination that brings together some AR, 5G mmW, and real city data sets in one place to inspire new use cases and application concepts.

The Winning Proposal

GG researchers, Narmeen Marji, Janset Shawash, Elpida Bampouni, Prajwal D’Souza, and Ans Ahmad developed the “Tampere xRT” platform which won first place and received high praise from the jury members and hackathon partners, offering possibilities for future development and collaboration.

Utilizing Tampere City data, pointcloud scans of selected locations, Visual positioning systems (VPS), and XR technology, Tampere xRT is a platform that brings art to the urban spaces of Tampere in Extended Reality. It consists of web, MAR and XR applications allowing artists to showcase their digital work and invite city residents and visitors to experience the art on location. Tampere is transformed into an open gallery, through collaboration of artists and users.