Virtual reality whiz kid to give talk

Young game and applications developer excited about where technology is going

Toronto computer whiz kid Sabarish Gnanamoorthy has become a big name in the world of augmented and virtual reality and was named one of the top 10 most influential people in the field in 2018.

And he’s just getting started. At 15, he is the youngest person to be sponsored by Microsoft to develop virtual reality and augmented reality games and applications.

This summer he worked a paid internship for the company and on Saturday, he’ll address thousands of people at the VR/AR Global Summit in Vancouver. There he will share his vision of how the technology can change the world.

“I will be speaking about how VR and AR can help to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, how it goes beyond gaming, and can really bring about change,” he said, in a telephone interview from Toronto.

“Everything I’m talking about is very futuristic stuff, like where my generation will be with VR. I’m not personally solving these problems, but talking more about where we are headed with the technology.”

Global problems, which Gnanamoorthy said will include the cost of living, transportation and distance, inequality and identity, are not what you’d imagine an average 15-year-old would think about.

But Gnanamoorthy started software development at age 10 and by 14 had started creating games and applications for VR and AR.

Now in Grade 10 at the University of Toronto Schools, Gnanamoorthy is busy with homework.

But he finds the time to work on a venture he founded called WaypointAR to create a program to help people navigate indoor centres such as shopping malls, stadiums, museums and university campuses.

Users of his program would ideally be able to find where they need to be by following a 3D avatar on their mobile device. The project is funded by the Thiel Foundation. Gnanamoorthy has also been supported by Apple, Microsoft, Snapchat and Udacity.

“I try to work on it in the evenings and on weekends. When I’m not at school,” he said, laughing.

Added to his workload is a multitude of speaking engagements. After this weekend’s conference in Vancouver, he will give a talk at Ted X in Toronto next month and another at the Web Summit, the world’s largest tech conference, in Portugal in November.

While his love of computers may have been encouraged early on by his parents (his father works in IT), his passion for virtual reality began in high school with the Knowledge Society, an organization that aims to help the next generation of entrepreneurs build on its ideas.

He was accepted into one of the Knowledge Society’s innovator programs for youth and it was during this program that he really got excited about the possibilities of VR and AR. He wanted to find another approach to the problem of indoor navigation, which he said companies like Google have struggled with because GPS is not good for precise indoor navigation.

He described his internship at Microsoft as “really cool” and said it was exciting to be the youngest intern working with so many experts in the field.

Gnanamoorthy explains that virtual reality is having the ability to create new artificial worlds, so you can customize the environment based on whatever you want. Augmented reality is having the ability to alter existing realities and add objects on top of it.

The VR/AR Global Summit in Vancouver runs Friday and Saturday at the Parq Hotel and Casino.

The meeting brings together the top minds in the industry to discuss a range of topics. This year’s conference is an updated version of the Canada’s Virtual Reality show that ran for two years in Vancouver. Last year’s event drew more than 5,000 people over three days.

Everything I’m talking about is very futuristic stuff, like where my generation will be with VR. I’m not personally solving these problems, but talking more about where we are headed with the technology. S A BA R I S H GNANAMOORTHY