Immersive Technology: Erasing Spatial Barriers, Mirroring Digital Future of Nigeria
This Week In Tech
The 21st-century digital space absorbs inventions daily that seek to extend human imaginations beyond the physical plane. This accounts for why top technology companies continue to drive digital and human connections through landmark inventions that have improved the acceptance of immersive technologies.
Immersive technologies are simply extenders of realities beyond conceivable frames, and they also create immersed digital alignment for users through separate domains and applications. The most common branches of immersive or extended realities (XR) are virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). But despite these global drives, Nigeria and Africa need to catch up in diving deep into the expansive potentials extended realities have to offer to the country as a growing nation and a major driver on the continent.
Extended Realities
There are three types of extended realities: virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). Virtual reality is the most common of the extended realities. According to Wikipedia, it is “a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye display to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world.” Augmented reality, on the other hand, creatively combines interactive experiences between real-life scenarios with digitally curated contents that cut across major sensory organs. Mixed reality is the composite blend of the digital and physical worlds in real time – this is a more complex version of augmented reality.
Extended Reality Market
With a futuristic market projection of $333 billion by 2025, as recorded by Market Forecast, giant tech companies are investing heavily in this space. It becomes clear why Meta acquired Oculus VR in 2014, invested more in the production of Oculus Quest 2, and launched the Meta Quest Pro earlier this month during the Meta Connect virtual event. Samsung invested in Gear VR headsets as well. According to Judith Okonkwo, Founder of Imisi 3D, in an interview with Channels TV, the reason for the chunk of investments globally is that everyone is beginning to see XR as the future of the world’s communication. This, therefore, positions XR as a ‘hotcake’, and everyone is scampering for their share in this early stage of its development. The Nigerian eco-space is not left in this as she stands tall as a major tech driver in Africa.
Extended Reality in Nigeria
Recently, Meta organised an XR exhibition in Nigeria themed ‘Future Africa: Telling Stories, Building Worlds’ in partnership with Africa No Filter, Electric South, and Imisi3D. This programme aimed to help Africans own and shift African stories into immersive and compelling spaces. The mediums explored included 360 videos, AR, VR, and Mixed Reality.
One of the programme’s finalists, Malik Afegbua from Nigeria, showcased a three-dimensional virtual reality documentary of Kofar-Mata dye pits in Kano, Nigeria, through the immersive experience of a deaf dancer who made use of sign language instructional methods and dance. Aside from this narrative inclusion for African creative, the programme aimed to support the next generation of XR creators in Africa.
In addition to the latter, XR will shape the future of innovation and businesses in Nigeria. Like many local creators, the benefits of including an XR in product and service development and engagement will skyrocket profit sooner. A familiar example is Coventi, a Nigerian VR company focusing on changing consumer experience in media and entertainment. Kunle Bamigboye, Co-founder of Coventi, which promotes virtual and augmented experiences for professionals and businesses, said what inspired the company was the spontaneous increase in mobile technology penetration in Nigeria as well as the sporadic growth of global virtual events.
With an expected 48 per cent penetration in the mobile business in Nigeria and a 12.1 per cent compound annual growth in the media and entertainment industry, as reported by PwC, the XR market is ripe enough. Kunle further explained that the Nigerian Music label Chocolatecity partnered with Coventi to stream musician Blaqbonez’s concerts on a virtual platform.
Another local business that has plunged into the XR industry is Taeillo. This Nigerian-based furniture-making company uses XR to create virtual showrooms to showcase its products and services. Solomon Akinsanya, Head of Marketing at Taeillo, explained that using XR has enabled them to erase distance barriers which at first necessitated their adoption of XR during the pandemic.
This has helped grow global interest in Nigerian brands and opened the company to a spectrum of consumer engagements from which data can be collected for targeted sales. In the fashion world, Derrick Ikenga of Euphoria Labs helps his Nigerian consumers experience metaverse shopping. Ikenga believes that the “what-ordered-versus-what-I-got” experience will be addressed with this company. He also added that the potential of augmented reality would boost the interactive character of shopping for his clients and serve as an instructional guide for clients in making well-informed choices regarding products and services.
Still taking Okonkwo’s analysis into context, education tops the chart of biggest winners in the VR boom as it constantly redefines what can be achieved and where can be reached in terms of multilayered education narratives. Okonkwo noted that XR is a game changer due to its ability to replicate innovative ideas in everyday forms, breaking down geographic barriers so access becomes general.
A good example of this points back to the 360-film produced by Imisi 3D – Daughters of Chibok- wherein the consumers are educated on the Chibok students’ story. StanLab also digs deeper into XR through a composite focus on creating virtual laboratory experiences that help students pre-practice scientific experiments at a low cost. This has helped many schools with not-so-well-furnished physical laboratories to explore scientific experiments beyond their physical limitations.
Global Interest in Nigeria’s Extended Reality Space
In retrospect, the interest of major tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Starlinks, Apple, and others in Nigeria and Africa in the past three to four years raises an eyebrow for the tech world. In 2019, Microsoft established its Africa Development Centre in Lagos and Nairobi. That same year, the Best VR Story was won by Kachi Benson, a Nigerian filmmaker, at the Venice International Film Festival.
Over $200,000 was awarded to Dr Eugene Ohu to conduct two-year virtual reality research by Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. Fasttrack.
Challenges with Extended Realities in Nigeria
The low volume of XR experts and strategies is a major challenge in the Nigerian and African tech space. The country and the continent need XR experts and printable XR strategy to drive the adoption of immersive technologies.
Another challenge posed at XR in Nigeria is the limited number of collaborations from private and governmental structures. Without this, the profit potential that XR brings to the table will be under-tapped, and Nigeria’s XR innovators will seek greener pastures outside its shores which is already happening. Partnership and collaboration are essential parts of the XR adoption campaign because they easily help innovators penetrate a large customer base.
Also, partnerships, particularly with big brands, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or startups, can easily push their products.
There is also the challenge of training; To attain optimal utility of XR, Nigerians must invest in training themselves for the ready XR market because the more trained professionals we have in the country, the better our chances at innovating needed XR solutions to meet our unique needs and that of the continent. This will reduce the level of unemployment in the country drastically.
The high cost of XR gadgets is one of the biggest challenges for the popular adoption of XR technologies here in Nigeria and Africa. Most gadgets are beyond minimum wage in Nigeria and most African countries. In response, most tech giants are grinding hard on the affordability clause by committing themselves to produce affordable consumer AR and VR products. Examples of these efforts are seen in the decline of Oculus Quest 2, which is lower than that of Oculus Quest 1. This price decline will drastically boost the interest of a larger population of users because the fence of unaffordability will be broken.
Other challenges impeding XR realities in Nigeria include fewer XR hubs, labs, and exhibition centres. The numbers of XR-focused hubs, labs, and exhibition centres need to be bigger to command the influence XR is seeking on a global scale. Only a few states in the federation can boast of XR initiatives. The unstable network challenge adds more to this, as most network providers need strong and efficient coverage across the country. The need for governmental policies to protect and encourage XR initiatives needs to be addressed as there is no handful of laws and regulations focused on the XR realities in Nigeria.
Future of Nigeria’s Extended Reality
The potential of XR in shaping the future of Nigeria and Africa is endless. This is because XR is gradually creating a global space for itself in workplace interactions, health, fashion, art, media, entertainment, education, policies, and all that engages human daily interactions. It is the new mirroring lens by which tech giants hope to achieve a borderless society wherein spatial barriers are eliminated.
For Nigeria and other African nations, immersing fully into XR and its potential will certainly be a gradual and intentional process as too many challenges are hitting hard against its adoption as a daily reality. It is also important to state that efforts are being made on the continent as regards XR, but more needs to be done. The future is bright for Nigerian and African innovators as the XR projects a potential dominance in the future of global communications.
