Summary report from Onward, the Immersive Technology event series, in association with Meta.

Nov 4th, 2023

The ‘Onward’ event series was designed by Eirmersive to feature the leading thinkers, companies and product demonstrations from the world of Augmented and Virtual Reality, while aiming to bring industry together to network, share cross-sector knowledge and to learn more about the value and impact of immersive technologies in the enterprise and creative sectors.

Fiona Kilkelly, Chair at Eirmersive, said: “Onward created a much needed opportunity for the immersive tech sector to meet new collaborators, gain new insight and information and experience immersive tech products, applications and solutions. Connecting and sharing is vital at this stage in the immersive tech sector’s growth and we are delighted with the support from Meta which has enabled Eirmersive to do just that.”

Onward amplified the message that XR technologies have enormous economic and social potential. This poses an important question for policymakers - how do we capitalise on that? We suggest a need to:

Create an immersive tech task force that brings together academia, industry and other sectors to really understand what the potential looks like in concrete terms, what skills are required, and how to help government figure out where it should be going.

Longer term, the time is now ripe for an immersive technology strategy. Government needs to be armed with the experience from civil society, from academia, from industry, to really think about what that means for public policy.

Chris Yiu, Director of Public Policy, Northern Europe at Meta, said : “"Where do we want to set our level of ambition and what's required to get us there. [How do we] make sure that these technologies and their potential for transformative change are factored into policymaking and contribute to meeting the Government's own aim to be a leader at the heart of European and global digital developments"

 To download the full report click here.