I always love going to San Francisco. Minutes after wheels touch down, I can feel the energy of a city and culture fuelled by dreams of the future.
If it is true that it’s socially acceptable to “talk politics all night long” to a stranger in a hotel lobby in Washington, D.C., then in San Francisco that same currency of socially acceptable exchange is “ideas.” Ideas about technology, about the future, and about a “better way” of doing things.
And today, in talking about tomorrow, you can’t go ten feet without at least mentioning “wearables,” “virtual reality” and “gamification.” These buzz words bounce around San Fran’s hills the same way “DPS”, “leveraging” and “value proposition” hover around Ottawa.
For this edition of Tech Watch, I have spotlighted a few key companies to watch, as I predict that we have only just started to hear about the extent to which we can leverage these technologies in the defence sector.
Wearables
This space has completely blown up in the past five years. One of the more recognizable wearables today is “FitBit” and it is just the beginning. Canadian tech start up Airo Health (getairo.com) is shaking up wearable technologies by tracking and monitoring every morsel you put into your mouth. I guess I need to stop mindlessly hitting the OMX peanut jars at 5 pm, unless I don’t mind it showing up on my data dashboard shortly thereafter.
I even bought myself my first diamond ring this month from an up-and-comer called “Ringly” (ringly.com), a vibrating and flashing ring connected to your devices through Bluetooth designed to notify you of upcoming appointments, important phone calls, a closely approaching taxi, etc. Now I can finally say that I will be marrying my iPhone. Sad, but hey, this is the future, right?
One particular wearable technology with obvious applications in the defence sector is Nymi, a band “biometric identity device that lets you use your heart’s unique signature (electrocardiogram or ECG) to authenticate and confirm your identity. In a world of passwords and pin numbers, the Nymi Band will allow you to seamlessly prove that you are you to the world around you.”
“The Nymi Band could be used for a wide range of defence and security applications, from biometric locking of firearms, to biometric restriction of access to secure locations, or even military vehicles,” explained Shawn Chance, vice-president of marketing and business development.
Another star in Canadian wearable technology is the Myo by Thalmic Labs. They have created an armband that reads the muscle impulses within the forearm that can be linked to digital commands used to interact with software, mobile apps, robotic platforms or anything else that allows for digital input interactions.
Virtual reality
Virtual and augmented reality is also a hot topic these days. Perhaps the biggest story in this space was the purchase of Oculus Rift by Facebook for around $2 billion. Microsoft surprised everyone when they
announced their own Hololense in January, which looks to take augmented reality from science fiction to reality.
There is no shortage of competing and complementary technologies being developed by many different companies in this space, all of which can be leveraged for defence.
We should be proud of some strong up-and-coming Canadian technologies on this front. Home-grown Sulon Technologies of Toronto is showing great promise with their head-mounted movement and vision tracking technology while OVA of Quebec is focused more on using virtual and augmented reality as an e-learning tool.
“The expertise of OVA’s team incorporates engaging interactions featuring 3D animations as well as virtual reality and augmented reality simulations,” said Harold Dumur, partner at OVA. “The result is a dynamic, intuitive and immersive learning environment that encourages critical thinking and promotes retention. Our approach comes from the idea that training, learning and sharing ought to be shaped to better work for us, the users.”
Harold also believes that by “using OVA’s technology, defence contractors will give the learner the opportunity to interact in open environments, offering a vast range of interactive devices including motion tracking, 3D view and full-body sensors.
“Our solution can integrate already existing objects in traditional simulation environments as well as those currently used by the military, meaning that there is high delivery flexibility,” he said. “We are engineering the future of immersive environments with improved pedagogical methods and state-of-the-art technologies at their core.”
Gamification
One particularly innovative company in Vancouver is bringing their Hollywood background and understanding of digital technologies to the defence industry for applications in training and simulation. Their application of gamification to better engage their target audience/user is increasingly popular in this field.
“RaceRocks is an education technology SME that develops high quality learning and training tools,” said CEO Scott Dewis. “We integrate the latest technologies including augmented reality, simulation, games and video storytelling, to transfer information in a format that is engaging, immersive and entertaining.”
Every company in North America is facing the retirement of the Baby Boomers in the next 5-10 years; aerospace companies could lose 50 percent of their workforce to retirement during this time, and with them 30 or more years of institutional knowledge and corporate intuition. Advanced training techniques that are simple, visual and engaging will be required to transfer intellectual capital from the Boomers to the Millennials who are poised to replace them. Government and the military see an even faster churn as staff stay in positions for shorter periods, coupled with the procurement of new and untrained equipment. New education technologies will help smooth these major transitions.
While it’s fun to have ideas, the real value of these ideas is in their application – in creating the linkages between the technology that exists today and its application to our local industrial base, providing better solutions to our armed forces, and to making Canadian industry more competitive globally.
The one thing successful companies and countries have in common is creating technology solutions through “collaboration.” I believe in partnerships early in the process: partnerships with academia, with other companies (SMEs and large multinationals), with government (and their research organizations), and with other countries. This is OMX’s modus operandi.
