This year's VR Bash was a great success! Over 1,200 people of all ages attended the event and experienced over 20 different AR/VR experiences from our education, enterprise and entertainment participants. The purpose of the event is to educate Idaho consumers about augmented and virtual reality and shine a light on the talented developers that we have in Idaho. Our goal is to build awareness of the remarkable potential Idaho possesses in becoming an emerging market leader in these technologies. It's been amazing looking back on the 2016 VR Bash and seeing how much our community has grown in such a short amount of time.
The VR Bash featured an impressive array of Idaho based AR/VR technology developers. The event featured over 20 different virtual reality experiences and provided the exhibitors with the chance to show off their products and services to a mostly Idaho crowd. We were happy to welcome the HTC Vive team back for a second year to show off their systems and the great applications available for it. Triple-A developer Survios, showcasing Raw Data and Sprint Vector, also made an appearance at the VR1 Arcade booth. The Wire Stone team, fresh off their acquisition by Accenture, demonstrated their advanced work with Microsoft's Hololens. There were many other great who each displayed unique and quality offerings that showcase what our community has to offer.
Some of the highlights of the evening included VR Bash speakers Robert Scoble, Amy Giles of Silverdraft and Shannon Norrell from HP providing great insight and perspective about our growing industry. Codeworks Boise teamed up with Birds of Prey Motorsports to deliver a seriously cool custom VR racing game synced with actual Spyder motorcycles. This was a great effort on their part to bring a complex MR installation to Boise and we look forward to seeing them continue to train future technology experts and creating unique projects for us to experience. We'd also like to congratulate Gordon Roberts for winning the grand prize for this Fall's IVRC Immerse-A-Thon!
The IVRC is very appreciative of our VR Bash sponsors and would also like to thank JUMP Boise and Boise Start Up Week. This year's VR Bash wouldn't have been such an awesome success without the generosity and hard work of the crew over at JUMP. Likewise, our partnership with Boise Startup Week provides a great combination cross-promotion and technology evangelism. A very special shout-out is due to our main event sponsor, Vacasa, who closed a $103 million dollar round of funding shortly after the Bash! We'd also like to thank HTC Vive for providing retail units as prizes and the following sponsors for all their contributions: Unity Technologies, HP Omen, Birds of Prey Motorsports, Idaho Stem Action Center, Idaho Ptech, Stoel Rives LLP, Silverdraft, Codeworks Boise and Jobu Jobs.
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