Microsoft announced the winners of its HoloLens Academic Research Grant Program on Thursday, issuing $100,000 and two HoloLens development kits as the reward.
The company launched the grant program back in July, which asked colleges and universities to submit proposals explaining why they should be selected for the grant, along with their ideas for how they would use the augmented reality headset.
Microsoft revealed the winners, who will each receive the $100,000 and two dev kits to do their research, which includes Carnegie Mellon University, Darmouth College and Virginia Tech.
"We were blown away to observe such creative, compelling and promising academic applications for HoloLens across art, medicine, visualization, education and more," Microsoft said in a Windows blog. "From leveraging HoloLens to correct for visual impairment to mobilizing mixed reality in the classroom for trade-based education, the submissions truly capture the spirit of the program and point to the scope of what's possible with Microsoft HoloLens."
The award recipients are as follows:
- Golan Levin, The Frank-Ratchye Studio, Carnegie Mellon University: Open-Source Investigations in Mixed Reality
- Emily Cooper, Wojciech Jarosz and Xing-Dong Yang, Dartmouth College: Augmenting Reality for the Visually Impaired with Microsoft HoloLens
- Joseph Gabbard and Doug Bowman, Virginia Tech: Collaborative Analysis of Large-scale Mixed Reality Data
- Andy Mingo, Tawny Schlieski, Nikki Dunsire, Shelley Midthun, J Bills, Clackamas Community College & Intel, HoloLens Curriculum for Trade-based Education
- Allen Yang, Professor Claire Tomlin, and Shankar Sastry, University of California, Berkeley: Immersive Semi-Autonomous Aerial Command System (ISAACS)
The runners up include:
- Lori C. Walters, Eileen Smith, Fran Blumberg, Robert Michlowitz, Alexia Mandeville, University of Central Florida: Memory Lens: A Dynamic Tool for Capturing Societal Memory
- Wen Liu, The University of Kansas: Stroke Rehabilitation
- Preeti Gupta, American Museum of Natural History: DinoLens: Seeing an Unseen Past
- Pamela Jennings, Center for Design Innovation: Construkts: Augmenting design processes with interactive holograms using the Microsoft HoloLens
- Carol LaFayette and Frederic I. Parke, Texas A&M University: Extending the range of human senses: Ultraviolet and ultrasonic perception with Microsoft HoloLens
Microsoft announced the HoloLens during its spring Build Conference, but the company said its development will take about five years, so it still be some time before it's available for purchase.
Up until now, Microsoft's HoloLens has primarily been showcased for its gaming potential. The grant will help the technology be applied to more real-world scenarios in the spheres of health, art and education.
Source: Microsoft
