“XR creators have a role to play in the development of the immersive industry in Africa” – Arome Ibrahim (Experis Immersive)

As XR continues to gain more ground in Africa, creators are delving into how extended reality can be beneficial to the advancement of development sectors in the continent. Notable for promoting the wave of sustainable development through XR is Ibrahim Arome, a Nigerian-based XR developer and founder of Experis Immersive. He is focused on how XR can redefine the African education, arts and cultural sectors.

XR for Africa

Arome Ibrahim – The African XR industry is still growing and venturing into it can be a long tough journey. It takes real love for making a change through emerging technology to keep going. There is so much to explore with XR in Africa – our stories, arts and culture. Sadly, there is limited access to development resources, limited investment and limited support to motivate creators. There is also the issue of shipping our locally made works abroad, which affects the growth of the industry.

Arome Ibrahim – To curb this issue, there is a need for more support for creators and more investment in the industry. For example, not all XR artists can afford the equipment to create. We should have more tech hubs focusing on making XR equipment easily accessible to XR artists, then we can have more projects and more immersive experiences. Companies like Meta have made a remarkable contribution to the XR industry in Nigeria with about nine VR labs in major hubs across Nigeria where people can have free access to tools they can use to develop. This is laudable and with more contributions like this, there will be room for more development. Also, external investments from multinationals in Africa will help in rapid growth since XR start-ups need finance to thrive, this will help in creating a more sustainable system.

Arome Ibrahim – We as XR creators also have a role to play in the development of the sector. I am collaborating with other experienced XR artists to organise technical development training. I believe if we can continue to share our knowledge with budding XR artists, there will be more hands to execute projects.

Experis Immersive, the XR expert from Abuja

Arome Ibrahim – We officially started operations in 2019, though we began content development in 2018. It was at a time when XR wasn’t quite talked about in Nigeria and it was way harder to scale up because there was limited access to tools and hardware for operation. I had to join organisations like the VR/AR/MR association headquartered in India and the AR/VR Africa association, where I was able to learn more about the XR industry and also get access to mentors who helped in the journey. Platforms like Electric South and PWC UK were also helpful in achieving growth.

Arome Ibrahim – The main goal for Experis Immersive is to create solutions for businesses through extended reality. At the moment, we work from the ‘work and connect’ workspace in Jabi, Abuja. They are our partners and have been quite supportive in terms of funding, access to the workspace and networking support. We are currently a team of five with a support staff of 7 made up of XR developers and our main building tool is unity.

Arome Ibrahim – Our main targets are businesses that are looking for new ways to sell their products and services to the public, we let them know how XR can be effective for their businesses. For example, a real estate agent looking for new ways to sell properties to buyers in a different country can offer a virtual tour to these buyers rather than have them travel down. We are also expanding to onboard schools, and introducing innovative ways that XR can be deployed in teaching methods to improve class performance.

Arome Ibrahim – As a contribution to the XR industry and to foster inclusiveness, we started XR innovation boot camps for young Nigerians and it has impacted over 1,000 youths. During this boot camp, new artists are provided with software and hardware to create their projects, they also get to work with mentors from top companies like Microsoft and meta. The program is held quarterly when the resources are available, otherwise, we run it bi-annually. We currently have an upcoming event in partnership with the Institute de Français by November this year, it’s called the ‘Science Fiction Festival’, aimed at showcasing talents around science fiction and emerging tech.

XR as a solution to preserve African art and cultural heritage

Arome Ibrahim – XR is the future of arts and culture, and it has greatly changed how we perceive, consume and interact with it: from Mixed Reality to Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. These immersive innovations have brought new dimensions to the arts and cultural space.

Arome Ibrahim – One of my most notable projects in this field is the 360 degrees Virtual Reality experience we created for the entire art collection at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum. This was during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. People were unable to leave their houses due to the lockdown, so we had to create a new way for lovers of Arts to visit the museum. In creating this, the first thing we considered was accessibility to a larger populace since not everyone can afford the VR headset, we focused on creating a 360 experience that visitors can use on their mobile phones or personal computers. The user can take a tour around the museum and read about the artworks without having to leave their homes. This was a timely intervention to get more people engaged in the art space during the lockdown. It went live on the company’s website and we got virtual engagements from over 10,000 people.

Arome Ibrahim – We are also working on creating digitization of the entire sculptures in the museum into 3D so people can have a more immersive multi-sensory experience that would allow them to touch, feel and experience the museum in a virtual world from the comfort of their homes. These are ways that XR can help in promoting arts and culture.

Sustainable Development Through XR

Arome Ibrahim – I have personally taken a keen interest in the education sector because I believe education contributes immensely to the growth of any country. I decided to venture into XR for educational purposes because while studying as a geography student in the university, we were mostly exposed to the theoretical aspects of studies, and students didn’t get to see what they were being taught. In most cases, you see people graduate from school and they’re unable to apply what they’ve learnt in school when they face real-life experiences in their fields. I once had to take my father to the hospital and the nurse attending to him was finding it difficult to locate his vein. She had to puncture him several times before finding the vein. I decided that bringing imagination to life through XR would help because visualisation is very important and can help students understand lectures better and also improve the overall class experience by simulating real and practical experiences beyond theory.

Arome Ibrahim – While experimenting with the use of XR in education, I projected a 3D skeleton to my younger brother who had been given the assignment to draw a human skeleton. Since he had never seen a skeleton in real life, I noticed that the pace at which he learnt the skeletal parts through the 3D projection was faster than reading it from his book. He could see the skeleton like it was life in the room and this aided his learning process. Many students have also had to miss out on important field trips because of proximity, but through extended reality innovations, students can travel and be a part of field trips on a different continent. There is no limitation to the knowledge that can be gained in class.

Arome Ibrahim – In furtherance of my work in XR for education, my team and I are currently working on a project called XR 5G, designed to help medical students in Nigeria learn better basic medical procedures. Introducing this will help medical students visualise what they’re being taught and reduce surgery mortality rate due to avoidable errors.

Arome Ibrahim – Education is a very important sector and developing this sector with new emerging technology such as XR will improve other sectors.

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