Rene Schulte, Director of Global Innovation, Research & Incubation at Valorem, led a session on Massive Mixed Reality to demonstrate how Valorem helps clients render large complex models in real-time even with budget and computing power restrictions using Microsoft's mixed reality device, HoloLens.

If you weren't able to attend AWE Europe and are bummed you missed out on the newest AR/VR products coming to market, you're in luck! In addition to our firsthand highlights below, you can see a full wrap-up of the event, including expo hall coverage of new devices and experiences through Rene's eyes with lots of photos and videos here.

AWE Europe 2017 Highlights: 

The conference kicked off with some fun technology right from the start as keynote speaker and AWE co-founder, Ori Inbar, took to the stage with the letters AWE illuminated on his jacket. Ori served as both hype man- getting attendees excited for the days ahead; and champion for world change- calling on the crowded room to experience the new technologies they will see during AWE through the lenses of global impact.

Gold and Silver event sponsors, including Bosch, Samsung Next, and Epson took to the stage throughout the conference to announce exciting new products. Like the new OCOsense smartglasses from UK based emteq, that will be available in 2018 and combines cloud-based analytics with real-time facial expression tracking. This technology will transform the way researchers and scientists analyze emotional responses.

The two day event was jam packed with breakout sessions. Attendees were able to see demonstrations of the latest AR/VR technologies released and even some still in the stages of development. Industry leaders shared valuable insights on how these new technologies will further propel the use of augmented reality to drive economic growth. Popular topics included AR in retail, VR in gaming, and the digital transformation of the automotive industry, the last of which has a large presence in southern Germany where the event was held.

On the last day of AWE, a presentation by Annette Zimmerman, Research VP for the leading technology research and advisory company, Gartner, drew a big crowd. Annette shared a few of the "Mega Technology Trends" released in Gartner's annual top 10 strategic predications and some insight into how this will impact the areas of augmented reality, virtual reality, Internet of things and artificial intelligence. Those predictions include:

• More than 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality by 2020
• The average person will talk more with computer programs that talk like humans than their spouse by 2020
• 30% of Web Browsing Sessions Will Be Done Without a Screen by 2020
• 20% of All Activities in Which an Individual Engages Will Involve at Least One of the Top Seven Digital Giants: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent; by 2021
• The IoT Will Save Consumers and Businesses in the Range of $1 Trillion Dollars a Year by 2022
• By 2020, 40% of employees can cut their healthcare costs by wearing a fitness tracker

The expo hall was full of buzz both days of the conference with over 90 exhibits and products to see, such as:

• Smart glasses with and without tracking
• Immersive virtual reality games
• Prototype shoes for virtual reality walking
• Live painting from artists using AR/VR technology
• Welding simulators
• 3D stylus pens 

One of Valorem's HoloLens apps, TireExplorer, was on display at the Vuforia booth as an example for Model Targets.

In addition to Rene's blog wrap-up you can see tons of pictures from both days of the event at the AWE Facebook page and keep an eye on their YouTube page for videos to come to listen in on some of the sessions and presentations you missed! We can't wait for 2018 AWE!