Helsinki XR Center Opened – the place to be for the Nordic extended reality family

The center for extended reality (HXRC) in Helsinki held its Grand Opening on Thursday 5th September 2019.

We can’t even describe how amazing we feel after the great day we had at Helsinki XR Center. Our Grand Opening went super well and we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part in this big day. We appreciate your support so much!

HXRC opening was celebrated by hundreds of guests with a traditional red ribbon cutting by the honorary guests deputy mayor of city of Helsinki Pia Pakarinen and president, CEO Riitta Konkola of Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.

Pia Pakarinen emphasized in her speech the city of Helsinki’s will to be the most influential place to learn. This is the reason to invest in new learning environments that aim for the future and the working life needs. In her perspective, the incubator role of HXRC is reinforcing the Helsinki city’s already vibrant start-up scene. Riitta Konkola pointed out that the investment in HXRC is a is a new branch of technology that can be applied anywhere which will be beneficial to all of society and industries. 

This was confirmed by XR Curator Santeri Suominen, who presented all the HXRC HUB teams working at the Center, supported with shared workspace, equipment and now the community. These development teams show a spectrum of fields where AR/VR are implemented: arts, marketing, online media, games, music, storytelling, training and sports.

Our vision at HXRC become reality with the huge commitment and active contribution from our operators, partners and sponsors. Due to their support we are now able to grow and develop our mission in the world of XR and to achieve our ambitious goal to build up the largest XR Center in Europe.

(Photo by Meeri Lehto/HXRC)