Previously, we shared how we’re changing the Vancouver Startup Week events calendar this year. To help our attendees discover the events they want to participate in, we’re organizing our events calendar into five tracks: fundraising, founders, growth, technology, and networking.
In addition to organizing our event calendar under these themes, we wanted to share insights from some of Vancouver’s top experts to help our fantastic community learn more about how to fundraise and become an effective investor, how to start their own companies, how to grow and market their companies, what they should do when developing new technology and how networking can help them build their own communities.
In Part Three, we speak to Finger Food Studios’ Director of Marketing, Nick Malaperiman, on the future of technology in VR/AR, AI and chatbots, and how companies should prepare themselves in order to develop new programs in these areas.
What was the inspiration behind Finger Food Studios?
Finger Food was set up to challenge the status quo, and build custom technologies and applications across a range of industries.
Finger Food Studios has developed AR/VR, AI, IoT, and robotics programs and applications for clients in a wide variety of industries.
How did you decide to move into developing apps and programs in these areas?
We have always explored the boundaries of technology, so it was natural that we would continue to do so, after our early years making games. That was half of the equation. As we spoke to more and more companies and sought solutions to address their challenges, we started to utilize a broader range of technologies. Each company had a different need, and each need required a custom technology solution.
What’s been some of the trends you’ve been noticing in AI, AR/VR, IoT and robotics and how do you think it’s going to impact the industry at large?
These modern technologies will change the way we all work. It will change the way we shop, the way we learn, and the jobs we do. Many companies are looking to streamline and automate the process, which allows their workforce to be trained in more highly-skilled roles, that invariably pay more. Many progressive retailers, like Walmart and Lowe's are using VR to train their staff and educate customers, and local company, MEC, has used augmented reality to help sell its extensive range of tents.
Where do you see the industry moving towards and how do you think AI, AR/VR, and IoT will change moving forward? Do you see more consumer-based technology?
In a nutshell, every one of these will become a bigger part of our daily lives, as the technology becomes more readily available and affordable. AI and machine learning will continue to play a major part in solving many of the issues that the human brain cannot, and the Internet of things has only just begun. For example, automated cars and shops without staff and 5G are real and will be mainstream very soon. For now, most of the advanced technology is utilized by enterprise and big business, but every business should be looking at how it can digitally transform itself to remain relevant.
How is Finger Food Studios incorporating these technologies into new products and programs going into 2020?
Everything we do is based on the global adoption of Advanced Technologies. All of the technologies we discussed will play a massive part for all of our clients in 2020 and beyond, whatever the industry.
For people who are looking to start developing programs in AI or AR/VR, what advice would you give them?
Either way, anybody entering this field needs to stay focused on the end goal, the target market, and user experience. There's no point building a product that's cool and progressive if there's no market for it.