The idea that Lake Nona is a living lab — a lived-in place that provides an environment to test new ideas and capabilities — is something Juan Santos takes to heart.
The senior vice president of brand experience and innovation for Lake Nona developer Tavistock Group, Santos told Orlando Inno the group believes there are technologies that will be significant and influential on the way people conduct business and live — and they want Lake Nona to be at the forefront of where those technologies are being explored.
In the past, that has meant investing in autonomous vehicles and fiber internet connectivity. Next up? Augmented reality.
"When [the city of] Orlando said it was the 'metacenter of the metaverse' and we had Mayor [Buddy] Dyer and a few people making that bold claim, we thought 'what does that mean for us? How can we be part of that?' " Santos said. "And of the collection of technologies that the metaverse includes, I think augmented reality, or AR, is probably the one that is most mature and the one that will be the easiest to see an impact in our lives."
Santos said it is an objective of his to make augmented-reality technology and related experiences "part of the fabric of the living lab infrastructure" in Lake Nona.
With that in mind, Lake Nona Town Center and its popular Boxi Park concept will host Verse Orlando, an immersive and mixed-reality experience, beginning May 26.
The pop-up activation, which will include four unique experiences, is scheduled for an initial run of three months. Verse Immersive, a subsidiary of Alameda, California-based Enklu — a software development firm specializing in platforms to create, play and share mixed reality — has had successful activations in Chicago and San Francisco.
Verse Orlando will feature The Unreal Garden, a fully immersive holographic experience; a holographic theater; Holographic Odyssey, an immersive journey through the solar system; and Sightcraft, a holographic experience that blends magic casting and gamification.
Enklu CEO Ray Kallmeyer told Orlando Inno that what his team is doing with Verse is a logical partner for Tavistock's mixed-use community. "The combination of what's already going on here, in Lake Nona and its LeAD Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Accelerator, along with what we're doing is a very natural fit."
Kallmeyer said the activations in Chicago and San Francisco have been successful, in part, because of their interactive, three-dimensional qualities that make the experience akin to that of the main character in a video game.
"We've been very fortunate to find the right technology, at the right time, to serve the wants of the entertainment and art populace in a way that hasn't been approached similarly by other options. We're both a tech company and an experience company — we essentially have a dual-mission."
Santos said Lake Nona's existing augmented-reality presence ranges from companies innovating with function technologies and applications of the tech to a company that uses it for surgical practices. He said the goal now is to broaden it to include entertainment and, eventually, extend the tools more directly to people in the Lake Nona community.
"It's this idea that we want to make it part of everyday life."
It's a goal Kallmeyer said could see implications across a number of industries.
"Our thesis is that this mixed-reality technology — being able to engage with digital technology in the real world — has a lot of benefits in comparison to using a screen or a laptop, both in terms of physical activity but also in terms of awareness. You're using your whole periphery, almost acting more like a hunter-gatherer than a more modern office worker."
Kallmeyer has been living in Lake Nona and is considering planting roots there, he told Orlando Inno, adding that if successful, Verse Orlando's three-month run could be elongated.
"If things are going well, there's no reason for us to stop — we're eyeing a couple of permanent locations in the very near vicinity. I'll also add that Boxi Park started off as a temporary pop-up, too, and that was many years ago."
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