MTH Unboxing: XR Bootcamp

In March, the MTH Unboxing is all about the MTH Acce­le­ra­tor port­fo­lio start­up XR Boot­camp around Rahel Demant and Fer­han Ozkan. XR Boot­camp trains VR and AR deve­lo­pers and places gra­dua­tes with com­pa­nies that want to enter the gro­wing market.

MTH Acce­le­ra­tor What did you do befo­re XR Bootcamp?

Rahel: I foun­ded and event agen­cy, orga­ni­zing art events across Ger­ma­ny. Fasci­na­ted by the power and pos­si­bi­li­ties of emer­ging tech, I joi­n­ed VR First as COO in 2016. Tog­e­ther with Fer­han, we orga­ni­zed the dona­ti­ons of hundreds of head­sets to uni­ver­si­ty labs world­wi­de and crea­ted a com­mu­ni­ty of thou­sands of developers.

Fer­han: My jour­ney star­ted when I foun­ded a pre-incu­­ba­­ti­on cen­ter fun­ded by World Bank in Istan­bul, gui­ding 8 start­ups to suc­cessful indus­try exits. Soon after­wards, I estab­lished the digi­tal plat­form Play​s​to​re​.com, dis­tri­bu­ting games of the top publishers world­wi­de. As the elec­ted Vice-Chair of the IEEE VR/AR Stan­dards Group, I work on brin­ging the indus­try clo­ser tog­e­ther, while focu­sing on empowe­ring the major stake­hol­ders with my exper­ti­se and glo­bal network.

MTH Acce­le­ra­tor: What are you doing now (except XR Bootcamp)?

Rahel: Gro­wing a start­up is more than a full-time job – so ans­we­ring this ques­ti­on is not easy. Covid has impres­si­ve­ly shown how cli­ma­te chan­ge and the cur­rent ruthl­ess explo­ita­ti­on of natu­re are put­ting life on our pla­net in dan­ger. We need more acti­vism on how to mana­ge cli­ma­te chan­ge, loo­ming civil wars and shorta­ges of natu­ral resour­ces such as food and water. In my free time, I’m doing all I can to rai­se awa­re­ness on the­se pres­sing issues.

Fer­han: I enjoy men­to­ring and inspi­ring peo­p­le, so I am using the oppor­tu­ni­ty to orga­ni­ze or speak in various remo­te events in VR, Zoom, Dis­cord as well as Club­house. My pas­si­on is to find young talents and entre­pre­neurs and sup­port them as much as I can. That’s why I like the Com­mu­ni­ty Camp­fi­re event of MTH Accelarator!

MTH Acce­le­ra­tor: What is XR Bootcamp?

XR Boot­camp: XR Boot­camp tea­ches pro­fes­sio­nals to crea­te VR/AR appli­ca­ti­ons and sup­ports com­pa­nies to bridge their skills gap in XR deve­lo­p­ment. Through inten­si­ve on-site and online edu­ca­tio­nal pro­grams, cut­­ting-edge cur­ri­cu­la, indus­­try-wide known men­tors and lec­tu­r­ers and a focus on indus­try port­fo­lio pro­jects, gra­dua­tes get the hands-on expe­ri­ence they need to kick off their XR care­er or get pro­mo­ted. We are proud to have repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from Accen­ture, VW, Audi, Sie­mens, Air­France, BNP Pari­bas, Bosch, Veri­zon, Orar­cle and Deut­sche Tele­kom on our advi­so­ry board and offer ama­zing care­er oppor­tu­ni­ties to our graduates.

MTH Acce­le­ra­tor: Why MTH Accelerator?

XR Boot­camp: The MTH Acce­le­ra­tor is super valuable to us. Your always posi­ti­ve sup­port­i­ve men­tor­ship and con­sul­ting has hel­ped us to mas­ter dif­fi­cult chal­lenges and build an ama­zing net­work in Bran­den­burg and Ber­lin. The acce­le­ra­tor is very sucessful at buil­ding an eco­sys­tem of start­ups that sup­port each other and offer resour­ces that are tru­ly valuable to any start­ing and gro­wing startup.

MTH Acce­le­ra­tor: Why XR Bootcamp?

Rahel: To me, VR/AR tech­no­lo­gies have the chan­ce to be a game chan­ger for our social lifes. Ima­gi­ne, being able to tra­vel wit­hout nee­ding to take flights or have busi­ness mee­tings from the com­fort of your own home or trea­ting psy­cho­lo­gi­cal dis­or­ders not by taking che­mi­cal medi­ca­ti­on, but by regu­lar­ly exer­cis­ing VR tre­at­ments. By offe­ring the best edu­ca­ti­on to deve­lo­pers world­wi­de, we sup­port the deve­lo­p­ment of top VR/AR apps and games, making a mass adop­ti­on possible.

Fer­han: I belie­ve VR/AR is soon going to be the medi­um that will help us get­ting our jobs done, socia­li­ze, feel and show our pre­sence espe­ci­al­ly in the­se unu­su­al times. Phy­si­cal con­nec­tions are so limi­t­ed and we need a new medi­um that helps us to get tog­e­ther clo­ser. We crea­ted this aca­de­my to make the most inspi­ring tech lea­ders sha­ring their know­ledge with the world and make it acces­si­ble ins­tead of stay­ing behind clo­sed doors of R&D depart­ments of lar­ge cor­po­ra­tes. Ever­y­ti­me I see one of our alum­ni crea­ting ama­zing XR use cases based on what they lear­ned in the XR Boot­camp clas­ses, I am proud and feel the gre­at (poten­ti­al) impact of my work.

MTH Acce­le­ra­tor: What is your mission?

XR Boot­camp: We want to con­nect deve­lo­pers, build net­works and sup­port them on their path to beco­ming tru­ly out­stan­ding. Com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port is at the core of XR Boot­camp. Too often, excel­lent edu­ca­ti­on is not wide­ly acces­si­ble and limi­t­ed to high­ly sel­ec­ti­ve stu­dents of Ivy League type of schools and uni­ver­si­ties. With our online edu­ca­ti­on pro­grams, we want to beco­me a tru­ly glo­bal pro­gram that con­nects excel­lent deve­lo­pers regard­less of loca­ti­on and back­ground – offe­ring them gre­at care­er oppor­tu­ni­ties and moving the sta­te of VR/AR to beco­me a dai­ly tool we use in our lifes.

About MTH Unboxing

The MTH Acce­le­ra­tor port­fo­lio is gro­wing and gro­wing. But what exact­ly do the teams do and, abo­ve all, what did they do befo­re they beca­me entre­pre­neurs? In MTH Unboxing, our new inter­view series, we shed some light on the sub­ject and intro­du­ce the teams in more detail. MTH Acce­le­ra­tor Babels­berg is the pro­gram for start­ups and foun­ding teams from the metro­po­li­tan regi­on who are loo­king to explo­re tech­no­lo­gies and digi­tal busi­ness models and take their com­pa­nies to the next level.

Learn more about the pro­gram, our latest port­fo­lio start­ups and events in our news­let­ter. Sub­scri­be now!

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