Aktïga

Company Overview

Mission

Aktïga is a triple-bottom-line, SaaS development company focused on responsive spatial computing and immersive experiences for the web. The underlying technology we are employing enables accessible spatial connectivity via web-based development practices and has significant implications for industries seeking interoperable immersive solutions.

Background

Aktïga was founded by Shane Parreco in March 2023 as a spin out of the education and training development services agency he founded in 2019: Online Training Concepts. Through working with clients at OTC, we saw firsthand the benefits of immersive and spatial training solutions while also recognizing how prohibitive development costs can be for small to medium-sized businesses. The core development team at Aktïga has the robust web and software development skills necessary to successfully envision this accessible, immersive educational future.

Value Proposition

At Aktïga, we’re redefining immersive content creation with our XRWD (extended responsive web design) methodology. This new approach is built on the principles of accessibility, efficiency, and device agnosticism. By leveraging common web development coding practices built on WebXR, utilizing standard coding languages like JavaScript, and incorporating prevalent development frameworks like React, we’re democratizing the immersive content development process. This means significantly reduced development time and costs, accelerating ROI and making immersive software and VR application development more accessible to businesses and organizations of all sizes.

Problem + Opportunity

Immersive Content Production | Training + Onboarding Development

The current development methodology for spatial, immersive, augmented, and virtual reality content relies  on video game engines (Unity/Unreal Engine) as the foundation for building any immersive application. These engines have inherent and severe limitations for organizations seeking immersive content production due to their technical complexity, associated license fees, amount of time, and the requirement to publish into hardware-specific app stores as the primary distribution channel.

Due to these complexities and the costs associated with immersive content development, most businesses do not have an avenue for utilizing this highly effective technology in one of the primary pain points of engagement: onboarding and training. While there are examples of Fortune 500 companies spending millions of dollars on VR training systems for their new hires to great success and massive ROI metrics, for most other businesses, these benefits are simply out of reach.

A Web-Based Alternative

Aktïga employs the use of XRWD and WebXR as an affordable, compelling, and highly effective alternative to game engines for building custom immersive content and applications. WebXR is now honored by all major web browsers and enables developers to use common web development and coding practices to build fully immersive, 3-dimensional content that is accessible directly through the browser on any VR or XR enabled headset. This significantly reduces the time, required specialized skills, and overall costs associated with building custom immersive content and applications.

Product Roadmap

Client Project Sales First

Our first step is to focus on client projects as the primary vehicle for capitalization and generating operating revenue that will sustain the company for the near future. The intention is to utilize the development of specific projects and solutions for clients to further validate the market need and demonstrate traction in the industry.
Primary Sales Targets

1. Corporate Training and Onboarding for organizations with strong learning cultures who are ready to improve a training process that is often poorly executed and lacking in effectiveness.
2. Accelerated advanced learning for private schools (K-12, Prep, Secondary, Private Technical Colleges, Private Colleges/Universities) that have larger budgets and would be potentially very interested in accelerating learning with an immersive education project.
3. Immersive Marketing for branding, marketing, or advertising agencies that have large client rosters and are looking for something compelling to pitch to their larger clients.

Platform + Product Development

Due to the amount of time needed for development and overall size and complexity of our  planned product,  the roadmap includes building spatial applications and immersive experiences for clients to enhance our working knowledge of WebXR + XRWD, and to generate revenue for ongoing capital expenses for Aktïga. The skills we develop within each client’s custom solution will add to our underlying infrastructure, enable more efficient production timelines, and allow us to build onto our toolkit that will be integrated into our SaaS product goal: a no-code, web-based, XRWD builder tool and platform for producing immersive content and spatial applications.

Product Goal: Online 3D Content Builder

The Online 3D Content Builder is our target SaaS product. This WYSIWYG tool will be a web-based application and platform that enables responsive, immersive content development for a variety of use cases that are accessible from any device online.. Think of this builder as the “Canva for immersive content authoring.” It will be a low-code/no-code solution for spatial content authoring that includes standard 2D (flat), 3D, and fully immersive content authoring tools.

Core Concept: XRWD

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is taught as a core competency at all levels of web development and design schools. The fundamental idea is to approach content management in a responsive manner so that regardless of the device, all content is displayed appropriately and can be interacted according to the device specifications. This typically means designers plan for a mobile, tablet, and laptop/desktop view of every aspect of a website or web-based software application.

Extended Responsive Web Design (XRWD) is our core concept and represents a new way of approaching content design and management that includes 2D devices (mobile phones, tablets, laptops, etc) as well as 3D devices like VR headsets, AR glasses, or any upcoming XR devices. The basic principle is that content can have multiple states and can be interacted with regardless of the device. XRWD enables us to consider immersive spatial development that is accessible and not only for VR or XR device users – we are able to enable standard 2D device users to see and interact with the same 3D content on their device of choice.

Milestones

Initial Demo Platform Launch

August 2023: We have successfully launched an initial WebXR platform concept: emVR. This tele-health platform is now available to our beta test users on the web at emVR.org and is intended to demonstrate several key features of the core functionality of accessible immersive connectivity via WebXR and is specifically designed to support the mental health professional community to help facilitate in-person and fully remote EMDR and BLS sessions with any VR headset device.

XRWD Website Launch

November 2023: We have successfully launched a new version of the Aktïga website that is built on the principles of XRWD. This website will serve as an example of what is possible for future client engagements and will enable core technology demonstrations for potential customers and investors.

Accelerator/Incubator Programs + Presentations

Shane Parreco has participated in several accelerator and incubator programs as well as several pitch events and product presentations over the past 6 months, each providing unique benefits during this early stage of the company’s history and development.

• March 2023: SBTDC Taking the Leap (early stage accelerator program)
• April-June 2023: GRO by CED: Spring Cohort graduate
• May 2023: Flywheel: Pitch Space – Winston Salem Pitch competition/presentation
• June 2023: Pitch Breakfast – Charlotte Investor Panel Pitch Event
• June 2023: Winston Starts – current Lean In accelerator cohort participant
• August 2023: NCXR Event – emVR Product Demo @ American Underground (Durham)
• October 2023: Converge South by Flywheel – Exhibitor/Demo Presentation of emVR
• October 2023: XRWD White Paper published: https://xrwd.org
• October 2023: AIGA National Design Conference (NYC) – XRWD Presentation + Panel
• November 2023: XRWD Presentation for 1 Million Cups in Asheville, NC