Virtual Reality has stricken the world by storm and we might’ve heard of it before. Maybe it’s from a movie? A book? A Magazine? Or maybe even it’s just some idea your childhood friend keeps on dreaming about. Well in 2014, that dream is now a reality. Ever since the invention of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, Virtual Reality is becoming a popular subject and the latest trend for the masses.
Just imagine having the ability to go to some other world, the ability to ride amusement park rides just by sitting in your living room, the ability for you to be the favorite character of your favorite game. Those are the wonders of Virtual Reality.
But let’s not stop there, no. Virtual Reality isn’t just limited to entertainment, it could also be used in health, welfare, services, among many others. Just imagine what could VR technology bring us. It is endless. While in fact I honestly doubt it that VR can take over gaming itself and eradicate console and PC gaming, I believe VR can be a platform of it’s own. And this is great.
So for a group of young people they all had this goal; to expand the community and development of Virtual Reality in the Philippines, and this goal isn’t too far out of the window. Thanks to them we now have a community that we all know as Virtual Reality Philippines.
Many people might’ve heard of VR PH, or even you might be apart of it (atleast part of the group), but here’s the thing. Not many people know about it’s creation. Yes, we have a community filled with VR enthusiasts and people just starting to know the wonders of VR, but how did it all start? Well, we at Back2Gaming got the time to interview the infamous creators of Virtual Reality Philippines.
About VR Philippines:
VR Philippines is a non-profit community dedicated in promoting the advancement of Virtual Reality technology in the Philippines. It was founded last year (2015), by Cristopher David, Gabriel Enriquez, Clark Angelo Urzo, Adrian Vincent Tayag, Gilbert Senires Jr., and Delfin Joseph Baylon.
They all had this one vision, to expand the knowledge of VR in the entire Philippines, hoping that the Philippines will be the center of VR development in the future.
Facebook Page
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Facebook Group
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THE FOUNDERS OF VR PH
Cristopher David
How was VR PH Founded?
“When I graduated from College (Mapua) I was really interested in virtual Reality Technology but since we’re in the Philippines there’s not alot of people that are updated with the latest technology, but I’m sure ofcourse there’s alot of other people intersted in this technology.
So the problem is it’s really hard to look for other people, so when i found other people that are intesrested and when i tried my first vr experience back in December 2014, I became even more engaged with this technology and I really saw all the potential even if it’s just a quick demo, so my passion for this technology grew even more.
Still I wanted to learn more and wanted to collaborate with other people but there’s still no hub or venue to find other people interested in this technology. So when I met Gab I told him my desire to start a community of Virtual Reality Enthusiasts and developers to hopefully collaborate and even share ideas/resources to grow interest of this technology even more.
Since then we started to plan meetup events to look for other people interested in this technology so that’s just the basics on how VR PH started.”
What’s the Vision/Mission of VR PH?
“Since it was founded, the main Mission/Vission of VR PH really became more defined. Right now VR PH is a community of Virtual Reality developers and enthusiasts and it really promotes the advancements and adoption of this technology in the Phillipines. And one of our mission is to put the Philippines in the frontline of this really exciting technological revolutiion, because in other industuries and other fields we are abit delayed and left behind, but with Virtual Reality since it’s in the early stage of development I believe there’s stil alot of chance for us to be on the same playing field of other countries.”
Why are you passionate about this technology?
“Well, first Virtual Reality is a new medium compared to traditional forms of entertainment or other mediums it’s a huge step because you can become more engaged and can actually feel that you’re inside the environment so this technology is really amazing. And besides from that, I believe it’s gonna be the next major computing platform. It’s going to make interaction with information and data more natural and besides from that i believe it’s the ultimate channel of communication, so its going to revolutionize the way we react to computers, with the environment, and ultimately on how we react to other people as well.”
Did you expect VR PH to grow massively in a short period of time?
“No honestly, we didn’t expect there was this much interest in VR. There’s alot of people that are really excited about VR but we didn’t really thought that there we’re alot of people as excited as us to development this technology andc ommunity in the Philippines.”
What’s the future of Virtual Reality?
“Virtual reality is still in the early stages and there’s sitll alot of advancement in the technology that can be made, and since the vr community in the philippines is growing I also hope that the Phillipines will take part in making this technology where it needs to go.
Virtual Reality has alot of application in differnet fields, and I really hope alot of applications can be explored and hopefully alot of it can arise in the Philippines.”
What do you think VR PH would be in the next 5 years considering it has massively grown in less than 2 years?
“Our plan is not only to promote the adoption, but also the advancement. So in adoption right now it’s a big problem because VR devices are really expensive so you don’t really expect adoption to be that fast, so ofcourse what might be adopted more is the low cost vr headsets, but ofcourse in the next couple of years it’s gonna be much more cheaper and adoption would be more.
And in terms of advancement, is promoting the development and the content of VR, and developing the technology even more. Through different programs, I hope we take part in helping the developers in the Philippines in advancing this technology even more.”
What are your plans in the future?
“I think with VR PH we’ve done a big part in building this community and helping grow the VR Community in the Philippines, but in the future I plan on focusing on startups and I also have a start up company named Veer, so hopefully we can also help the development of this technology in the future because we are really interested in making the future of VR even more amazing.”
What’s the purpose of VR Jam:
“One of the biggest reasons on why we want to organize these events is firstly to encourage alot more developers to develop for this technology whether it’s game developers, app developers, and even if they’re not developers but are interested in developing for this technology. They’ll be given the resources that they need to develop VR, because one of the biggest problems in VR technology is expensive devices, so we’ve partnered with Samsung to bring the devices to developers. So we’re giving them their sources and whatever they need such as workshops, basically everything that’s needed to develop for VR.
Another good thing about this hackathon is because of the pressure. We don’t really want pressure, but pressure puts them in a good sitaution to learn about this technology. So 48 hours is not alot, but they’ve been learning things that they might not even otherwise look into. Since this is for VR, even if they’re not considering in going to VR before, so they are forced in learning VR development within 48 hours.
The last reason why we’re doing this is not because of a competition, but we want this to be a venue for learning and collaboration. So we want them to explore the different things in developing VR, and share it with other developers. So it’s all about learning exploration and sharing whatever data, and collaborating with other amazing individuals.”
What’s next after the VR Jam?
“Ofcourse their output for the VR Jam, is not polished considering it’s just 48 hours but we still encourage all of them in continuing developing their projects so if they need help, we can give them access to these devices even after the VR Jam. So if they want to publish it in the app store, we will also help them in publishing to the store.”
Gabriel Enriquez
HOW WAS VR PH FOUNDED:
“I became interested in VR way back in 2013. During those days, I had a daily ritual of visiting our library at UP Diliman and read a ton of magazines and news articles. One of my favorite magazines was “Time Magazine”. I remember that day, December 2013. I saw this interesting article in “Time Magazine”, which had the headline of something like “The Top 10 Inventions of the Year.” Being the curious cat, it got my attention. I scanned the article, then I saw those magical words: “Oculus Rift – Virtual Reality”.
The first thing that came to my mind when I saw “virtual reality” was the Matrix, that movie where you jack a machine into your head then you teleport into an alternate reality and such. So I thought “Is this technology for real?” because I was definitely sure that the technology from the movie was still lightyears away from becoming mainstream. I searched for videos and articles about this mysterious “Oculus Rift.” Then I saw videos of PewDiePie, Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, and other Youtubers wearing what seems to be a black lunchbox on their face screaming while playing horror games. I had a feeling that I was onto something big.
VR is something you should try first to understand. Back in those days, I wasn’t really convinced of the tech yet because I haven’t confirmed whether the reactions seen in those Youtube videos were real or fake. Months passed, I kept on reading daily news articles regarding Virtual Reality and all the events and meetups happening worldwide.
Fast forward a year later in November of 2014, I began wondering why VR wasn’t gaining that much traction in the Philippines. So I did a quick Google search with the terms “Oculus Rift, virtual reality, Philippines,” and saw just one link. It was a short thread in Reddit. Someone with the name “tophoftheworld” was asking in a post if there were someone in the Philippines who owned an Oculus Rift, and he wanted to try it. Another person, “neohaptic,” responded on the post saying he had a Rift and gladly offered to have a meetup for a quick demo. I became intrigued, opened a Reddit account, and jumped into the conversation.
It turns out that “tophoftheworld” was Cristopher David while “neohaptic” was a German named Giddo. We decided to meet in Alabang and we went to Giddo’s place to try the Oculus Rift DK2. That was the day that changed my perspective of VR and what it can contribute to society as a whole.
If you’re one of the early adopters of VR, then you must have tried the earliest of the demos available: Tuscanny, Rift Coaster, Titans of Space, Dreadhalls, The Matrix Demo, etc. It was the first time that I felt the sense of immersion that was never present when I played games or watched movie. It was also the first time that I felt a real sense of danger when I saw bullet gliding towards my face in slow motion when I tried the Matrix Demo. This was the exact moment that the switch behind my head suddenly flipped. “My God. This is gonna be big.”
That night, Cristopher and I had a conversation on how we could kick start VR in the Philippines by forming a community. We pondered on the question whether there were more people interested in VR rather than just us. So we decided to start the first VR Community in the Philippines. And at first we we’re wondering if it should be VR Manila or VR Philippines, but we decided to go with VR Philippines.”
WAS IT HARD STARTING VR PH?
“We formed a Facebook group in February 2015 with the aim of connecting people who are interested in VR. A few weeks later, the group reached a 100 members, and I thought that was already too many. The number kept increasing. Eventually, we thought it was the right moment to conduct a meetup because a lot of people were becoming interested. We partnered with BlastAsia Inc, and GlobeLabs who gladly sponsored the first meetup. We also managed to get in touch with Angelo Urzo, who happened to own an Oculus Rift DK1 and convinced him to bring it during the meetup. Those were the good ol days.
After the event, we made it a point that we start building up the momentum with numerous events. Using Angelo’s Rift DK1 and Cristopher’s high-end PC in our arsenal, we went to several universities, offices, various location, and conducted seminars about virtual reality as well as demos. We didn’t gain any profit from doing this. We simply enjoyed the fact that Filipinos were starting to see what VR could potentially contribute to society.
A lot of events happened in the months that passed including the Asia-Pacific Virtual Reality Meetup, the Manila Vive VR Jam, Virtual Suntukan, the Philippine Mobile VR Jam, and the first Philippine Virtual Reality Conference. Huge thanks to all the people, volunteers, sponsors, and student ambassadors who made these events possible. Good times indeed.
WHAT’S THE VISSION/MISSION OF VR PH?
“We want to put the Philippines as the forefront of Virtual Reality Revolution in the entire world. So how do we do that?
It comes in 2 phases. The first phase is awareness, because everyone isn’t really aware of VR technology. Ask a random Filipino way back in 2015 on what he thought about virtual reality, and he would respond, “Virtua….. what?” That was the reason why we went to several universities and organize events for people to understand what is virtual reality.
Phase 2 is content development. Because we want Filipinos to create their own content and showcase them to the world. ”
FOR YOU WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF VIRTUAL REALITY?
“Let’s have a quick recap of the history of human communication. If you think about it, the way people communicate has been evolving since the dawn of the Stone Age. We initially communicate solely by voice. Eventually we learned how to draw cave paintings and express ideas in 2D. Then came text. People started writing on stone tablets and ancient papers. Centuries passed, the printing press was invented which revolutionized the proliferation of knowledge through books. Then radio came which allowed you to send and receive signals from a distance. Then the television, then computers, then the Internet, then smartphones.
So if you think about it, every generation has a big shift in terms of communication. We started communicating using speech, then text, then drawing, paintings, photos, and videos all of which were made possible by the invention of the previously mentioned technologies.
From what I see, there comes a time when some new medium of commination comes, and for me i think the next medium for communication is Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. VR and AR allows us to express our ideas not just through text, photos, or videos, but as an entire “experience.” You don’t just “read about something” or “watch about something”, you actually “experience something.” Compare the following: reading a book about Mount Everest, watching a video about people climbing Mount Everest, and actually being on top of Mount Everest. VR and AR enables an entirely new level of experience which cannot be replicated using other mediums of communication.
I think VR is the closest that we can get to real time human-to-human communication. When we use something like Skype, you always feel some sort of disconnection and boundary between two people who are conversing. In VR on the other hand, because of the interactive and immersive nature of the tech, you suddenly feel like you and the other person are sharing the same space. Might not be physical, only virtual, but the experience is good enough to feel like the other person is right there in front of you.
The social implications of VR is an exciting field of study. When a person tries to communicate with other people, many things happen. Other than the transmission of information, there’s the tone of your voice, then the actual context of your message, eye contact, facial expressions, body language, etc. Take note that majority of what we convey are non-verbal. If we can replicate all that in VR, then that’s closest we can get in replicating human-to-human communication. That’s like changing the definition of long distance communication. When you say long distance communication, it’s the physical distance between two people who are communicating. If you can communicate with another person instantly and feel as if it were an actual face-to-face conversation, then we have to redefine what long distance communication means.
I believe that what I mentioned above will reverberate in a lot of industries, not just in entertainment. The way we attend academic classes, the way we socialize with other people, even the way Facebook works might someday change. Instead of reading text, scanning photos, or watching videos, we will someday share entire experiences in virtual spaces.
Long story short. The big advantage of Virtual Reality is that, it gives you an experience, not just information. Text gives you information, photos give you information, videos give you information, but they are all limited. There aren’t any level of immersion and interaction. But in VR, it’s not just the transmission of information. It’s an entire experience, a living memory.”
DID YOU EXPECT VR PH TO GROW MASSIVELY IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME?
“No. Short answer, no.”
WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL REALITY?
“VR for me is the next medium of communication. It’s hard to predict what the future will be. Ask a medieval person what he thought would be the future of transportation, he’d answer “faster horses.” VR is the same, it will end up going towards a direction nobody predicted.
Maybe one day we will do most of our daily activities inside virtual reality much like the setting depicted by Ready Player One.
WHAT’S YOUR PERSONAL GOAL IN VR?
“It goes way back when I was a kid. Back then I’ve always loved playing video games. And I really loved the idea of being able to immerse yourself inside a virtual world, an alternate reality. I jumped into the VR train because I learned that VR was the technology that would fulfill this childhood dream of mine.
I want to become a pioneer of the creation of the Metaverse or Oasis equivalent. The word Metaverse comes from the book of Neil Stephenson titled Snow Crash while the Oasis comes from Earnest Cline’s book Ready Player One.
WHAT DO YOU THINK VR PH WOULD BE IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS, CONSIDERING IT HAS GROWN MASSIVELY IN LESS THAN 2 YEARS?
“I think five years from now content development would be the focus of VR Philippines. This involves organizing events that would cater to the Filipino VR developer. Five years from now, I’m sure VR will be mainstream. VR Philippines will become a community that empowers the Filipino people in creating world-class VR content.”
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS IN THE NEAR FUTURE?
“I’ll be focusing on content development for the meantime. We’re in the wild-wild west of VR right now. There are a lot of things to learn and a lot of tools to master. In the long term, I’ll become one of the pioneers in creating the Metaverse or the Oasis.”
DO YOU THINK YOU CAN CREATE A COMPANY REGARDING VR?
“Possible. Yes. But it’s not really my goal to create a company. It’s beyond that. My eyes are locked in the prize. The end goal here is creating the Metaverse.
Clark Angelo Urzo
How was VR PH Founded?
“Many of people has this misconception that I’m one of the founders of VR PH. It’s probably because I started early because back then only Toph and Gab are organizing the event. Though when the 2nd event of VR PH came which is the Asia Pacific Meetup, it’s just the three of us that organized the entire event. So alot people thought I was part of the core group. But as far as I know they both met at Reddit, and they we’re looking for a demo on which they found Giddo.
Then they decided to start the commmunity and created the group and they looked for people that has an Oculus. And during that time, only a few people had an Oculus Rift. Then they found and invited me and asked if I could lend them my DK1. So I agreed and joined them as part of the organizing team”
Was it hard starting VR PH?
“I can’t really answer that directly, but as far as I know back during the Asia Pacific Meetup, it was really hard because we lack manpower and time, so it was a real challenge for us during that time because there was no volunteers.”
What’s the Mission/Vission of VR PH?
“Eventually we want to VR PH to be not only just a community. I want to see a group that’s “legendary” in the sense where they made something related to VR where they’re featured in let’s say Wikipedia.”
What’s your Aim/Goal in VR PH?
“To have a special groupthat specializes in VR. That’s what I wanted to see here. Because a hundred million people live in the Philippines and, we have to computers, to the internet, but as far as I know there’s no such group here. So let’s facilitate the Virtual Reality here to have groups like that.”
What are the advantages of Virtual Reality?
“Well alot of people have their own opinion on VR. Such as a new medium of communication and such. And for me, well, so what. I mean you can play games and you can watch movies, interact with them, etc. Every technology, every invention becomes timeless only if they have a fundamental problem that they solve.
Example, why is it that until now we use math. Why is it timeless? Why is math used a thousand years ago up to this day. Well that’s because us human beings enjoy patterns, we enjoy doing things that we understand. So for me, I think the most probable problem that VR can solve is, what if the everyday things that you do in your life, can be inputted by controllers.
The great thing about VR is you can do things that you weren’t able, and didn’t even know that you can do until you’ve tried”
Did you expect VR PH to grow massively in a short period of time?
“Back in June, 2015. I had alot of doubts. I saw that this has the potential, but I wasn’t expecting VR PH to expand like this. Because back in the 1990’s, Virtual Reality failed unfortunately due to computers back then. It wasn’t capable of running them.”
Adrian Vincent Tayag
How did you get involved with VR PH?
“So I was just browsing Philippines on a boring night, while scrolling through a daily thread, someone mentioned about a Filipino virtual reality enthusiast group on Facebook. I quickly joined and was welcomed warmly by Gab Enriquez’s message asking stuff and inviting me to casual meetings since we were both studying in UP (though different campuses).
I was actively trying to be involved with the events and frequently messaged Gab for my feedbacks and suggestions regarding the events. Later on, Gab, Cristopher, and I met casually at a burger joint along katipunan; where we talked (about 4 hours?) about VR and the upcoming events. It was after an event in UPLB, Syensaya 2015, that they have decided to let me become a member of the VRPH Core group.”
For you, what’s the vision/mission of VR PH?
“For me, it is all about letting the Filipinos, especially students, to experience virtual reality and become the spark that will inspire people to adopt and develop the virtual reality applications of the future. It will then place the Philippines on the forefront of this emerging technology.”
What’s your aim/goal in VR PH?
“I would like to inspire more students to become more involved in this technology. It was the main reason why we started the Student Ambassador Program. It was started in order to create representatives of VRPH to inspire students to brainstorm ideas for VR and eventually develop VR apps.”
What are the advantages of Virtual Reality?
“Despite the innovations of TV manufacturers like large, curved, and high resolution screens, it will still be nowhere near the immersion that VR offers nowadays. Imagine the coming years when HTC and Oculus will be creating devices that will be better than the current generation: it will be mind-blowing.”
Did you expect VR PH to grow massively in a short period of time?
“A small bit. I think we can attribute it to the sheer novelty factor of virtual reality. The reactions and viral videos circulating the web definitely helped the technology of virtual reality spread throughout the world.”
What’s the future of Virtual Reality?
“We can expect that VR will merge with AR in the future. Once we can pack so much power in a small form factor (like smartwatches), there will be no more reason for VR and AR to fail expectations of the world.”
What’s your personal goal in VR?
“I want people to have a taste of “true” VR. It is quite saddening that sometimes we encounter some VR headsets that was made to give you a mix of disappointment and nausea afterwards haha. I just like to blame this to the greedy businessmen that do not care less except making quick money.”
How do you see yourself in 5 years?
I hope I have graduated by then, with an established student VR organization to come home to at UPLB. VR Philippines will still be relevant by then.?
What do you think VR PH would be in the next 5 years considering that it has massively grown in less than 2 years?
“This kind of growth can only be sustained by people reaching out to VRPH to let us share our passion for VR at their schools, companies, and organizations. Five years would be enough for us to live up to the name VR PHILIPPINES with the help of people that share the same passion for virtual reality.”
What are your plans in the future?
“Establish a VR-focused organization named VISIV in UPLB. I’m expecting it to be recognized by August 2016 hopefully.”
Gilbert Senires Jr.
How was VR PH founded?
“For me, it started with curiosity. we were just a bunch of people curious about vr and then it bloomed from there. we wanted to share to others our enthusiasm for the technology and let them experience what we’ve experienced.”
Was it hard starting VR PH?
“Every beginning is hard, there’s always struggle and hardships, but we’ve somehow managed. as an example is the first meetup i attended, the Asia pacific VR meetup, we only had a hand full of partners back then but now in the gear vr jam there is so much more partners helping us out in our endeavor.
Also, in our earlier days, we only had some Google cardboards and Oculus Rift DK1 and DK2 to present and now we have a variety of VR headsets to present. this just shows how fast we are growing and how we managed to get through those hard times.”
What’s your aim/goal in VR PH?
“My goal in VR PH is for it to be a full pledge icon of Virtual Reality in the country. i aim for it to be the first thing to come into mind of a person once they’ve heard the term “Virtual Reality””
For you, what are the advantages of Virtual Reality?
“For me, it give the user a different perspective about everything. Like going to places they can’t go to easily or seeing through the eyes of another person or experiencing events that rarely happened or just simply having a different feel about gaming.”
Did you expect VR PH to grow massively in a short period of time?
“To be honest no, I expected it to be more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just aiming high and setting the bars high for us to be able to push ourselves even deeper. I love how we’ve managed to get this far but we can’t settle down just yet, there’s more road to follow and more trials to overcome.”
What’s the future of Virtual Reality?
“I see VR as the next television. Everyone would have easy access to it and everyone will be very familiar to it. I see it as not just a gaming medium but also a medium for much more services like telecommunication, academics, medicines, and engineering.”
What’s your personal goal in VR?
“My personal goal in VR is to remove the idea of VR being equal to gaming. I mean, if an average person hears about VR most of the time they will only see it as a medium for gaming. VR has much more potential than just gaming. That’s what I want to attain in VR, the image of it being a tool for our daily lives, not just gaming.”
How do you see yourself in 5 years?
“I see myself as a full time engineer by that time. Earning sufficient money and having a stable life. In 5 years I want to have my own house, or an apartment or a condo at the very least.”
Delfin Joseph Baylon
What’s your aim/goal in VR PH?
“Being the only full-time 3D artist in the core group, I want to help connect local talented artists with the local developers who are into VR as well. The Philippines produces great talents in these industries and I believe that these two, when properly linked together, can usher in the creation of really amazing VR content.”
What’s your personal goal in VR?
“Right now, I plan to explore the technology on what it can do, how far we can push it and come up with a lot of uses, specially in the non-
gaming aspects of it.”
What are your plans in the future?
“My plan is to have my VR startup, Chibot 3D, produce relevant and game-changing, non-gaming VR applications.”
What’s the purpose of VR JAM?
“The Mobile VR jam aims to help interested content developers to get their hands into developing, in a given amount of time, a VR content for the Samsung Gear VR.”
EVENTS AND MEDIA
Ever since it’s founding back in 2015, VR Philippines has been active throughout the country, having several major and minor events in schools, universities, and conventions such as the IoT Summit. Last July 4, Cristopher David held a talk during the Google I/O Extended 2016 at the Ateneo de Manila University Leong Hall.
Cristopher David’s presence during the Google I/O Extended continued the expansion of the VR Community afterwards due to his talks about the latest VR technology, and Google’s latest VR Content, the Google Daydream.
Within these next few months VR PH will be conducting several seminars in several universities throughout the Philippines. Whether it’s beheaded by the Student Ambassador of the said school, or VR PH’s Cristopher David himself, VR PH is no doubt becoming a dominant presence in expanding Virtual Reality to the entire Philippines.
The Manila Vive VR Jam is VR PH’s first ever major event held last December, 2015. It’s goal is to create VR Content for the HTC Vive in a span of 3 days. The massive success of the Manila Vive VR Jam led to VR PH’s consistent presence as the main source and domain of VR-related events throughout 2016.
Succeeding the Manila Vive VR Jam is The Philippine Mobile VR Jam is VR PH’s latest major event in cooperation with Samsung, Smart, PLDT InnoLab, and other companies. It was a huge success gathering over 12 teams whose goal is to create an app/game within a span of 42-hours.
The event was well handled and the winners we’re announced during the Philippine Virtual Reality Conference 2016. The Philippines biggest Virtual Reality Conference to-date.
Student Ambassador Program
In order to help expand the development of the community of VR throughout the Philippines, Virtual Reality Philippines created a Student Ambassador Program whose goal is to encourage student leaders in expanding the ways and development of VR in the Philippines.
There are no requirements nor any necessary dedicated contribution to VR PH of the Student Ambassadors, but they are expected to lead the community of VR in their respective schools. The Student Ambassador program is open to the entire country, not just Metro Manila.
If you are a student currently reading this article and is interested knowing if there’s a Student Ambassador in your school, here we have listed the names of the Student Ambassadors arranged by their University.
- Earl Patanao – Information Technology, Asia Pacific College
- Alexander Collado – Management Information Systems, Ateneo de Manila University
- Brian Tan – Information Technology Entrepreneurship, Ateneo de Manila University
- Kevin Facun – Electronics Engineering, Bulacan State University
- Darth Jedi Dabon – Information and Communications Technology, Cebu Technological University
- Kristoffer Lirazan – Game Development and Software Engineering, CIIT College of Arts and Technology
- Russ Malangen – Manufacturing Engineering and Managment, De La Salle University
- Josen Galang – Multimedia Arts – De La Salle College of Saint Benilde
- Jay Paul Babarano – Electronics Engineering, Fellowship Baptist College
- Christian Kyle Silvestre – Animation and Game Development, FEU Institute of Technology
- Fritz Villahermosa – Information Technology, Fr. Saturnino Urios University
- Cheryl Rey – Animation and Game Development, Jose Rizal University
- Neil Realubit – Animation and Game Development, Jose Rizal University
- Kon Pedrosa – Information Technology, Manila Central University
- Jasmin Reyes – Computer Engineering, Mapua Institute of Technology
- Kristian Arugay – Electronics Engineering, Mapua Institute of Technology
- Red Racca – Information Technology, Mapua Institute of Technology
- Genesis Alegata – Information Technology, Iligan Institute of Technology
- Guian Almonte – Computer Science, New Era University
- Danmark Arqueza – Computer Science, New Era University
- PJ Brion – Computer Science, Polytechnic University of the Philippines
- John Hay Supetran – Computer Science, Technological University of the Philippines
- Richmon Ranches – Electronics Engineering, PHINMA – University of Pangasinan
- Pete Deyto – Computer Science, University of Santo Tomas
- Merla Nugas – Information Technology, University of the East Manila
- Kenjie Lloyd Dularte – Computer Science, University of the Philippines Diliman
- Leimar Ros – Computer Engineering, University of the Philippines Diliman
- Matt David – Fine Arts/Industrial Design, University of the Philippines Diliman
- Alwin De Leon – Computer Science, University of the Philippines Diliman
- Jusie Mongado – Computer Science, University of the Philippines Los Banos
- Bruce Oliver Apos – Electrical Engineering, University of the Philippines Los Banos
- Rey Benedict Salve – Civil Engineering, University of the Philippines Los Banos
- Adrian Vincent Tayag – Electrical Engineering, University of the Philippines Los Banos
These students were chosen out of a selection of over a hundred candidates, whom VR PH thought they are capable in developing the VR Community in their respective school and fellow schoolmates. With each and everyone of them having their own set of unique skills, all of them do have one thing in common; their passion for VR, their dedication for VR.
It is in no doubt that Virtual Reality is expanding here in the Philippines. The Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, and the Google Cardboard are only small steps in what kind of VR experience we can experience in the future. With the continued development of VR technology here and outside of the Philippines, we can assure that Virtual Reality still hasn’t unlocked it’s full potential.
With VR PH headed by Cristopher David, Gabriel Enriquez, Angelo Clark Urzo, Gilbert Senires Jr., Adrian Vincent Tayag, and Delfin Joseph Baylon, leading the VR Community here in the Philippines, we hope to see massive improvement from what we have experienced now. Thanks to them, and the community itself, the Philippines is becoming a foundation for VR development and research.
Within these next few years, we’re expecting VR PH to be recognized globally as the premier leading VR Community in the Philippines, and hopefully collaborate with other VR Communities from other countries to continue the expansion of Virtual Reality here in the Philippines.
Stay tuned at Back2Gaming to receive the latest news from Virtual Reality Philippines.
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Hello guys, I will be doing a movie. Can we use virtual reality in it as visual effects?