During 2022 Helsinki XR Center participated in many projects, took in new hub teams, broke our record in showroom visitors, held Match XR live again with an unexpected amount of attendees, launched HXRC Network … and so much more!
People at the Helsinki XR Center’s Industry Roundtable event in April 2022. (Photo: Kira Vesikko)
Year 2022 was the year when everything got slowly back to normal after the pandemic. What it meant for us, was that our operations started finally shift to the wanted direction (more live encounters with visitors e.g. at our HXRC Showroom), and our spaces were finally used in the way they were meant to be used (more live events bringing people together, and more active hub teams using the spaces).
This article is a short summary of what Helsinki XR Center was up to during 2022. If you like, you can also look back to our 2020 summary and 2019 wrap-up articles.
Projects
In 2022 Helsinki XR Center participated in 10 projects.
- 3 new projects started: AgileXR, XR-Space, SKILLBILL
- 4 projects ongoing through the year: PedaXR, AXE4 – Assisting XR Enterpreneurs Forward, Future Touchless Shop, HIPPA-Remote, Verkostoista Vauhtia Virtuaalikuntoutukseen
- 3 projects ended: Kings Road, Virtual Tradeshow, Vevent
- 1 new form of collaboration was also in active making (and started in the beginning of 2023): Metaverse Cluster collaboration with YLE – The Finnish Broadcasting Company
- 7 interns from XR Design, 3D Animation, Game Development and Media Technology degrees working in these projects
Read more about Helsinki XR Center’s projects on the Projects-page.
Visitors & Events
Helsinki XR Center had over 2000 visitors during 2022, including e.g. workshops and visits to the HXRC Showroom.
- 111 Events & visits hosted by Helsinki XR Center
- 25 Events & visits hosted by other actors
- Visitors disassembled: 18 % businesses , 9 % public sector, 30 % students , 11 % academic and 32% undefined.
Match XR 2022
Finally, for the first time after 2019, Match XR was held fully live at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences’ Creative Campus in Helsinki, Finland. The event was a huge success, maintaining it’s title as the biggest XR & emerging tech event in the Nordics.
- Annual SLUSH pre-event
- 1300 attendees from 62 nationalities
- 60 startups/companies with booths in the Expo Area representing Finnish XR & emerging tech talent
- Matchmaking
- Bar & Lounge
HXRC Developer Hub
In 2022 Helsinki XR Center welcomed 10 new developer hub teams in two batches, pushing the total number of teams up to 21.
The new teams were: Atelier, Arvoitus, Vreal, Mandatory Trainings, Deep Address, MitlaVR, Intercontinental Sustainable Racing, Divaco, Protocosm ja Stunt Track Builder.
Get to know all of Helsinki XR Center’s hub teams on the Hub-page.
HXRC Network
During the fall of 2022, on the side of Match XR 2022 event production, we launched our newly established networking platform: HXRC Network. The platform helps customers with their search for the right company to help them with their XR related wants and needs, and for talents of the XR field to find their next projects to conquer. Read more about HXRC Network from our article series!
Finnish XR Industry Report
During 2022 Helsinki XR Center conducted an interview study of the Finnish XR industry: its current state, challenges and possibilities.
This survey was sent to 250 companies, including 50 in depth interviews.
All in all, our year 2022 was filled with a lot of growth, and the year 2023 already seems very promising. Many projects have started and are running with full speed, several bigger and smaller events have taken place in our premises, and we have had hundreds of visitors already.
To stay tuned about what is going on here at Helsinki XR Center, follow us on social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!
Find more of our news in the News section.
Follow us on social media for more posts: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram