ARTX: The First Augmented Reality Event in Asia

ARTX 2012 is the “first augmented reality event” in Asia – so claims the organizer Augmented Reality & Co (AR & Co). The event was held on June 15 and 16, and featured exhibitions, seminars, and an augmented reality competition. The promos for it sounded fun, so I dropped in. It saw 1,500 in attendance, and was held at Bina Nusantara university in partnership with Kibar Kreasi and Kompas.

The exhibition itself showcased some of the best usage of augmented reality technology by brands in Indonesia. We had Indosat, Djarum, Telkom, Disney, Qualcomm, LG, Kino Toys, Dancow, Lee Cooper, Kompas, and Nissan. In total there were 16 exhibitors. Managing director of AR & Co, Peter Shearer, explained more:

As a digital industry player, we want to help educate the people about the development of augmented reality technology in Indonesia and its usage in more than just one sector. AR&Co, as a pioneer of augmented reality development in Indonesia, is proud to be able to showcase and hold this event. This shows that Indonesia’s products can compete with anyone’s out there and we hope that more are coming – especially from students.

As for the seminar, they had Michael Budi (CEO of AR & Co.), the afore-mentioned Peter Shearer, Ignatius Hardanto Subagyo (business director at Kompas), and Yasha Chatab (business development director at WIR). All were talking about augmented reality implementation and its future prospects in Indonesia. ARTX also held a competition to develop augmented reality apps both on mobile and PC for high school students and university students.

There haven’t been many startups developing augmented reality technology in Indonesia. One notable one might be Cherrypicks, which has a subsidiary company in Indonesia. It has really nice products and a number of clients already. I would definitely love to see more augmented reality implementation, especially coming from our own local startups.