If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Portland is collaborative as fuuuuuu… well, um, it’s collaborative. And while that’s super helpful for many of us, it’s always nice to see others recognize the value of that collaboration. That’s why it was awesome to see Microsoft select a group of Portland area organizations for one of its exclusive HoloLens grants.
Yeah. So it’s like Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth, UC Berkeley, Virginia Tech, and… yep. Clackamas Community College, Intel, and Oregon Story Board.
What do they get?
Congratulations to the five winning institutions, all of whom will receive $100,000 and two Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition devices with which to conduct their research. However, settling on just five award recipients was a nearly impossible task owing to the sheer quality of submissions. Therefore, we’ve decided to also provide five runners up with two Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition devices each so that they may continue their outstanding work.
But more importantly, they get the opportunity to collaborate on augmented reality which—when combined with the whole virtual reality thing—makes Portland feel very much like those early days of mobile development. When our grassroots hobbyist technology pursuits had us developing an early lead in a really compelling, world changing technology.
And while I’m not going to be picking the Subatomic Studios or Small Society of the AR/VR generation quite yet, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that Portland has yet another chance to establish itself as the hub of some really interesting tech.
For more on the Microsoft HoloLens grant:
- Portland Business Journal: Oregon Story Board, Clackamas Community College land Microsoft grant
- Digital Trends: Microsoft issues $100,000 and two HoloLens kits to five different schools nationwide
- Engadget: Microsoft will hand out $500K to these five HoloLens grant winners
- The Oregonian: Microsoft research grants go to Ivy League, Carnegie Mellon…and Clackamas Community College
- WinBeta: Microsoft hands out first HoloLens academic research grants
[Full disclosure: I’m a cofounder of Oregon Story Board, but honestly, I had absolutely nothing to do with this awesomeness.]
